Review by Carl on August 2, 2023.

It may be slamming death metal completely by the book, but I'd be a dirty liar if I went around saying that I don't like this.

From the logo, layout and the artwork, there are no prizes for guessing in which domain Cercenatory operates. Brutal death metal, with gutturals that sound as if coming from the bottom of a slimy well, as well as slamming sections alternating with savage blast beat driven upheaval, you've heard this before. Bands such as Devourment, Defleshed and Gutted and Devour The Unborn helped write the book on the style, and these guys almost follow it letter by letter. Is that a bad thing, you might ask? Well no, because this style is one of those I prefer as pure as possible. I do not need uber-technical Marty Friedman style leads, psychedelic interludes or marimba solo's in my brutal slamming death, just a right old pummeling. And a pummeling is what they provide. The slams are crushing, the gutturals undecipherable and the fast parts down-tuned and chaotic in an awesome way. By the insertion of some death metal guitar leads, the band actually manages to insert some identity of their own here. And these are the good kind of leads, Marty Friedman isn't seen or heard anywhere near. Which is nice.

What isn't nice, is that we are confronted with a cliché of brutal death I'm not that frisky for, and that is the inclusion of pointless spoken word samples. Here it's just another instance where they fill up space and add little to nothing to the whole, and as in most cases, it does cause some annoyance here. Another thing that caused annoyance is the paint can sound of the snare drum, veering dangerously close to the dreaded "St Anger" snare. It's not as annoying as that, but it still needed some getting used to on my part.

As a closer I'd like to point out that the production is more on the raw side than that of most of their brethren, which I actually like a lot. It's not as oppressive and over-produced as other bands in the genre, which makes it sound all the more brutal and violent, in my opinion. The fact that the overall sound mix is somewhat off-balance actually adds to the chaotic atmosphere Cercenatory exudes in the faster parts, which sounds great, to be honest. One thing that could've been more in the background is that paint can snare, though. Other than that, great stuff!

There you have it, brutal slamming death mostly played by the book, yet with some touches one doesn't expect, and a raw and violent production that gives it a somewhat demented edge that suits them fine. This should not fail to please the brutal death metal hound out there, for sure.

Rating: 8 out of 10