As an admitted non-fan of the majority of brutal death metal acts and releases I was extremely surprised by the debut of Malta’s Abysmal Torment, Incised Wound Suicide. The material was heavy, fast, technical, catchy with guttural vocals; a grand slam of brutality.

Like a baseball bat to the back of the skull comes the group’s first full length offering Epoch Of Methodic Carnage; 10 tracks of ultra brutal death metal in the same crushing style as their debut. For those of you unfamiliar with Incised Wound Suicide, Abysmal Torment’s sound can be best described as a pretty even mix of simplistic and technical American brutal death.

Epoch Of Methodic Carnage is not going to redefine the brutal death metal genre as, like the debut, they don’t offer anything new or groundbreaking, but what they do provide is a consistently high-quality effort. For the most part the material tends to sound like equal parts Brodequin, Devourment and Californian Disgorge mixed with moments of slight mid-90s Cannibal Corpse riffing style.

For the most part the music is fast paced with plenty of blasts and razor sharp riffs with a dual guttural vocal assault, which, honestly, gets a little tedious after a while, but where the group shines is during the slower moments and breakdowns. Nearly every track contains at least a solid minute of material, if not the entire track, that’ll make you want to start breaking shit in time with the music, but there is a lot of lifeless filler material that I tend to get bored with, much as I do with the past few Disgorge full length offerings.

Fans of Abysmal Torment’s debut will be thrashing themselves senseless to Epoch Of Methodic Carnage and though it’s not as catchy overall as Incised Wound Suicide, it’s still a solid slab of brutality and should appeal to all fans of the genre. I would have liked to see the band grow more song-writing wise and develop their own unique style, but while it may not be anything new at least it’s done right with a solid production and great musicianship.

Written By: Teufel