Reviews for this release have slowly started popping up online and one thing I’ve noticed is that the overwhelming majority of people are repeating the same thing "While Marasmus is good, The Process Of Elimination was a lot better." After listening to both albums back-to-back on several occasions I can’t help but scratch my head and wonder why.

The only logical answer I can come up with is the people listening to the music, and reviewing the material, are people who hate change. What’s funny is none of the people who wrote the reviews I read of Marasmus had heard any Leng Tch’e material prior to The Process Of Elimination. Progression is only bad if it’s sharp and sudden, or done poorly, but Leng Tch’e have been constantly changing since they started out as a simplistic goregrind act whose music was filled with pitchshifted vocals and silly audio clip samples from movies to the polished and professional sounding grinding death metal act they are today.

The criticism I see for Leng Tch’e’s Marasmus is identical to the criticism I saw for Napalm Death’s Diatribes and Nasum’s Human 2.0. The material was different than the previous releases and had tracks that weren’t as aggressive, and there was more melody infused with the music. That’s not to say Marasmus isn’t aggressive, it contains songs that are the most aggressive Leng Tch’e songs to date, but mixed in among the chaos is something grind purists hate; melody and stylistic changes.

Marasmus isn’t an unrelenting grinding beast, it’s an even mix of catchy death metal riffs, grindcore shredding, sludgy segments and weird melodies. The songwriting is a lot more complex and varied than in the past, with each track having it’s own unique sound and feel, so you don’t feel like you’re listening to the same song 16 times in a row, but it always feels like you’re listening to the same band throughout.

Since their 2002 debut CD Death By A Thousand Cuts the band just seem to get better with each passing release and Marasmus is no exception. It far surpasses my previously favorite Leng Tch’e album The Process Of Elimination in the most important area of all; it’s an album that’s really easy to listen to repeatedly because the material never gets repetitive due to the constant stylistic changes from track to track.

Bottom line is Marasmus has been in steady replay on my stereo for the past few weeks, and will continue to get repeated replays for a long time to come. I’ve been waiting for an album this good since Human 2.0 came out in 2000 and Marasmus does just that and was well worth the wait. Kudos!

Written By: Teufel