Finally! After several disappointing releases that were plagued with shit production and less than stellar songwriting Switzerland old school death grinders Embalming Theatre return to the sound that made me a fan with this split offering with Australia’s Hacksaw Surgery on Grindhead Records.

Embalming Theatre unleash 10 tracks of catchy old school death grind in the vein of Hideous Mangleus, Blood and Repulsion. The material is full of catchy riffs, raspy snarls and drum kit smashing that’ll leave your fists pumping, your head banging and your throat ache from growling along. While recent efforts like 2005’s The World Is A Stage…For Murder were decent, the production left a lot to be desired, the material just lacked the meaty bass that gives the material a lot of it’s power. That problem doesn’t exist on D-Composition. The production is far from clear, but the bass is back and it’s amazing just how much a bit of “Oompf!” to the bass can make the material sound so much better. If you were a fan of Hormones From The Dead and Sweet Chainsaw Melodies you’re going to love Embalming Theatre’s effort on this one! They’ve even brought the humor back with their final track, "Combine With A Turbine", that contains an accordion. It’s so ridiculous it actually works!

The final 6 tracks by Hacksaw Surgery are drum machine-backed death grind with sharp shredding riffs, snarled shouted vocals and a horrendously shit production. The material has the type of production you’d expect on a basement black metal release, with high pitched “bumble bee in a box” guitars and way too much distortion on the vocals. It’s too bad the production sucks so bad because the music itself is decent, although the band doesn’t really seem to know what style of music they’re playing. Sometimes they throw in some black metal riffs, sometimes they throw in melodic Scandinavian death metal riffs and sometimes they shred in typical grind fashion.

To be honest, the only reason to buy this disc is for the Embalming Theatre tracks. The Hacksaw Surgery stuff is okay but it really has no place on a split with an old school death grind band. Grindhead would have better off putting Embalming Theatre’s material on a split with a death doom band like Coffins or a more traditional death grind band like Putrescence.

I’ll definitely keep the Embalming Theatre tracks spinning because they are catchy and fun to listen to, but the Hacksaw Surgery stuff just doesn’t excite me at all. If you can find it for $5 or $6 it’s a worthwhile purchase, more than that and you’re better off spending that money elsewhere.

Written By: Teufel