Inhuman Condition - Official Website - Interview
Panic Prayer |
United States
|
---|
Review by Michael on July 25, 2023.
Inhuman Condition is one of the most creative and fastest bands when it comes to new releases in the death metal scene. Just a year after releasing their second full-length Fearsick, Jeramie Kling (Venom Inc., The Absence…), Taylor Nordberg (Deicide, Goregäng…) and Terry Butler who doesn't need any further introduction are back with a pretty nice EP on which you can find three new self-composed tracks, a Blue Öyster Cult cover song and four live recordings from their previous records. The cover was again designed by Dan Goldsworthy who focused this time more on a very small scene instead of creating a landscape or building. The whole thing looks very nasty and evil and reminds me of some old horror movies (or my wife when I always come back home alive again).
Starting off with 'Civilized Holocuast' you can find the usual trademarks which the band makes out. It's a groovy mid-tempo song in the typical style of old Massacre combined with some catchy Obituary and mid-era Death parts. So nobody leaves their comfort zone here and this is pretty fine. With 'Panic Prayer' Jeramie Kling has written a very personal song that has some really pissed-off vocals and comes over pretty aggressive. You can clearly hear that the lyrics are meant to be very true and if you could draw any parallels to another band, some old Deicide would come to mind here. Apart from the very catchy melodies, there are very sick guitar solos in the track which gives the whole thing a nice 90s Floridian death metal flavor. 'Final Credits' starts very typical, too but turns into a nice gloomy (in some parts) track because of the very atmospheric keyboards that are used here and there. So this song has a very threatening atmosphere and shows that the trio doesn't always work with the same death metal standard formula. 'Godzilla' is the aforementioned Blue Öyster Cult cover song and here the guys have done a great job. You can clearly recognize the original song in this version but if you don't know it, you might think that it was originally written by Inhuman Condition. It's a very nice and entertaining idea they had here.
Apart from that you can find four live songs ('The Mold Testament', 'Recycled Hate', 'Euphoriphobia' and 'The Neck Step') which were recorded during a show in Los Angeles. The live mood comes over pretty well with the cheering fans and also the sound of the songs is quite okay – it's not polished but really rough and pretty fine if you like “real” live recordings. All in all this is a nice one to bridge the time to the next album.
Rating: 8 out of 10
627