Review by Jeger on October 27, 2024.

Death metal in the early 1990s was at its apex of artistry. Bands like Carcass, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, and Asphyx were releasing albums that not only exuded shock value but much else could be said about the genre’s integrity: quality artwork, rich & textured engineering, and pure fucking attitude. Lock up your children! Every mother’s worst nightmare. Music to turn their beloved little bastards into psychopaths and serial murderers. There was this palpable sense of dread associated with the music that not even the nastiest of thrash or heavy metal bands were capable of providing. Death metal today? Commercial fodder for the most part with embarrassments such as Cattle Decapitation and Aborted to represent what used to be something genuine, something pure. 

The Netherlands’ Asphyx began their journey in 1987 and from 1988 to 1989, they released three demos with vocalists, Christian Colli, and then Theo Loomans (R.I.P. 1998) before ex-Pestilence vocalist, Martin van Drunen, joined the ranks in 1991. Following the release of a split and then another demo, Asphyx unleashed their widely-praised debut LP, The Rack, via what was then a somewhat obscure extreme metal label in Century Media Records. 

Asphyx was a unique entity compared to the traditional death metal acts of that era. Their propensity for recording at a slower, more riff-laden pace set them apart from the more technical/faster tempo bands mentioned above. Death doom! A brutal synergy of death and doom metals that when combined with Martin’s primitive vocal stylings, provided the listener with a most joyous headbanging experience, and not much has changed with Asphyx because fans just can’t get enough of those torqued grooves and cranium-crushing riffs. “The Rack” is chock full of these. An album way ahead of its time. It could be released today and osmose its way right in with the current DM climate. I only wish contemporary DM bands had the balls to record in analog again. All this digital shit is like a poison to my ears, not to mention the abominable AI artwork and classless, gaudy technicality. Albums like “The Rack” just hit this old head’s proverbial sweet spot. 

Nothing technical and nothing flashy to be found here, only the birth of a little something known as brutality. Inspiration to bands like Suffocation and Dying Fetus who took this very sound and sped it up, refined it a bit, and added a little tasteful technicality to the mix; resulting in classics like “Effigy of the Forgotten” and “Killing on Adrenaline”. Even the faster-paced tracks on the album like “Vermin” and “Wasteland of Terror” hit like a Louisville Slugger to the ribcage, but the shred is always short-lived as dragging-a-wet-corpse through the mud passages eventually unfold to the wailing agony of Martin’s misery-drenched vocal contribution. Like an even heavier version of Obituary’s “Cause of Death” LP is “The Rack” - an impossibly savage feat - a show of overwhelming force. Definitely not your typical Floridian death metal. “The Sickening Dwell” - a doom-hearty bruiser that transitions from a dreadfully slow intro into a mid-tempo riff clinic: bass roars, guitar screams, and tasty, galloping progressions. Nine tracks, 37 minutes worth of untamed savagery done the Dutch way, death the brutal way, and a foreshadowing of a most glorious future of stunning LP releases for Asphyx that would begin and eventually rekindle with Martin van Drunen - one of the elite DM vocalists of our time. 

The early 1990s - a classic era in death metal recording forlorn to the modern age. It will never get that good again. There are underground bands who emulate this old-school approach, but it’s just not the same. Valiant efforts! But naturally, they fell short of former glory when bands like Asphyx dominated the scene. The glory days of the second wave of black metal will never again be realized and never too shall the golden age of death metal be repeated. And when it comes to simple brutality, no one does it better than Asphyx. Underrated even as they stand among the titans of the international scene. Not… one… bad… record…

Rating: 8.5 out of 10