2003’s Sweet Chainsaw Melodies and 2004’s Hormones From The Dead by Swiss old school death metallers Embalming Theatre were among the catchiest and most entertaining releases I’ve heard in years. When their latest full length offering The World Is A Stage… For Murder was released last year I had very high hopes that it would be their best effort to date.

The first thing I noticed when listening to The World Is A Stage… For Murder is the production is really lacking in beefiness with very little audible bass sound. This wouldn’t be a problem for some bands, but for a band like Embalming Theatre it makes a song that would normally sound very heavy and aggressive sound very thin. Everything from the drums to the bass to the guitars to the vocals just seems to lack the punch they did on Sweet Chainsaw Melodies.

That said the music itself is still solid old school death metal in the vein of Hideous Mangleus/Blood with deep raspy vocals, chuggy catchy chainsaw riffing, simple catchy brainless fun. The song writing does tend to be a little uninventive, which is to be expected when a group seems to write a new full length every weekend, but overall it’s pretty solid stuff.

Compared to Sweet Chainsaw Melodies or Hormones From The Dead, however, The World Is A Stage… For Murder fails to impress or stand out, and while I’m generally not a big stickler for things like production, the lack of a meaty bass really hurts the group’s overall sound. Had the material been properly mixed and mastered I’d consider it a success, but I honestly am not digging this material as much as past releases. This is a nice addition for Embalming Theatre discography completists, but will likely not spend a lot of time on your stereo. Good, but not great material and poor audio quality doom this album to wind up in a lot of bargain bins in the near future.

Written By: Teufel