Review by Carl on November 7, 2021.

Korpse has got to be the best death metal band from the Netherlands at this moment. Their Unethical album utterly blew away the competition in the slamming brutal death metal genre a few years ago, and their recent offering Insufferable Violence followed suit in similar manner. These releases are way ahead of their contemporaries in the genre and I'm sure time will prove these to be classics of the style. It all started in a humbler manner with this self-titled debut though.

In style this debut doesn't differ all that much from its successors. The remorseless slams and brutish gutturals in combination with the somewhat more traditional death metal song structures and variation within the songs themselves are all present here already. The difference is that on their subsequent releases the individual tracks would be more thought out, here the songs are simpler in their execution with somewhat less variation throughout. The intent here is to batter and bruise the listener with an utterly crushing dose of slamming death metal brutality, leaving little space for any nuance whatsoever. The blasting insanity alternates with punishing slams, held together by the less than subtle guttural vocal delivery. One of the strengths of this band is that the drummer provides a varied percussive delivery, looking beyond the usual slam/blast/slam structures, keeping the dense brutality interesting and open. Another good move by the band is to keep the runtime of their debut short, avoiding boredom to creep in.

Contrary to its successors, the production on this album leaves some to be desired, with the guitars being pushed to the back of the mix by the percussion and vocals, especially when the band goes full throttle. Though it has to be said that even with this irregularity, the music still sounds brick-heavy, just as a release of this sort should.

The promise that Korpse made on this release would be more than fulfilled on the follow-up Unethical. The songs were more memorable, the overall sound was better and playing had stepped up a grade as well. Still, their debut sure deserves to be heard by all into slamming brutal death metal. There are far worse examples of the style out there for sure.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10