Although the band name sounds like it might translate to "Dead Oddie", Odious Mortem play the kind of death metal that restores my interest in the long-since punchline reduced genre.

Cryptic Implosion opens with the amazing "Fractured Oblivion", which sounds like a death metal history lesson condensed into one furious explosion of a song, mixing the warped progressive psychosis of Gorguts and Cryptopsy with the evil-genius songcraft of Morbid Angel and early Deicide, never becoming a pale imitation of any of the aforementioned groups/styles. Other choice cuts like "Conjoint Species" and "Gestation of Worms" follow suit, sounding off like scrapyard tornadoes running through crowded streets.

As I mentioned in my review of Lecherous Nocturne‘s Adoration of the Blade, it’s really fucking nice to hear bands that have successfully balanced technical prowess with good song writing. Odious Mortem are part of this new school of technical / progressive death metal that feel like they actually know why they’re playing this kind of music. Too many bands in the last decade of the genre feel like they don’t even know what they’re getting so heavy about. They’ve boiled the good albums down to Cliffnote versions of themselves, going on surface noise and “shocking” cover art and ignoring what it takes to actually be a band people will want to listen to/people will remember years from now. Albums like Obscura and Onward to Golgatha still hold up. Albums like Driven to Conquer or We Gang Banged Your Mom…Again! do not. But I digress.

Odious Mortem are not phony-tough slam metal goons or childishly misogynistic goreporn weenies playing 8th generation Suffocation / Cannibal Corpse xeroxes. Play this alongside Lecherous Nocturne and Ulcerate and be fucking content about death metal for the first time in a long time.

Review byNick Benoitschwitz