I first found out about Scattered Remnants while perusing the metal section of a Toronto-area music store and came across the group’s sophomore recording effort Inherent Perversion. The album was raw, gritty and "fucking brutal", which appealed to every fibre of my ape-like being. I was so impressed that I tracked down the group’s debut recording, Procreating Mass Carnage and Destined To Fail full length debut.

The group split up shortly after Destined To Fail was released, but Deepsend Records came around and scooped up the rights to all of the group’s recordings and released their entire discography on a single 75 minute CD entitled Indulgence In Masochism.

The album starts out with the group’s 5 song Procreating Mass Carnage demo, which has long been considered by many brutal death metal fans as an essential demo to include in your collection. The album starts out with an audio sample from the crucifixion scene from the film The Last Temptation Of Christ before leading into the opening track; "Profanation Of Christ". The music on this demo is slow-mid paced brutal death metal fused with grind with a slightly doomy vibe. The production of the demo is rather poor, even though it has been remastered, but the material does have a thick heavy sound which suits the crushingly powerful music perfectly. The slower darker moments of the album are reminiscent of the doomy death metal segments of Incantation whereas the faster grindier bits are more in the vein of groups like Mortal Decay, only much better.

The next 5 tracks are from the group’s Inherent Perversion mCD, which is honestly one of my favourite brutal death metal demo mCDs, second only to Deeds Of Flesh’s Gradually Melted. The sound on these five tracks is much clearer and the music is quicker paced than Procreating Mass Carnage with plenty of crushing pit-friendly riffs, but more in a Suffocation-vein rather than a group like Dying Fetus. Tracks like "Amidst The Afterbirth" and "Aborted Salvation" are simply crushing, whereas "As The First Tear Of Blood Falls" is a gentle acoustic track, leading into my favourite song by Scattered Remnants; "Vaginal Vomit". The track is four minutes of relentless brutal mosh metal that’ll leave you shrieking, wind milling and banging your head like a mental patient in no time.

The final 7 tracks are from the group’s Destined To Fail full length, containing all songs but the lacklustre re-recording of "Vaginal Vomit". My earlier review of Destined To Fail pretty much sums up my opinion of the album, but if you’re too lazy to go back and read it, here are the basics; the vocals have been layered with a low guttural snarl and a high pitched shriek to give the illusion of two vocalists, and the vocal performance of Jay Hendershaw is as solid as it’s ever been, however, the music itself lacks the punch of the previous demo recordings which is likely due to the revolving door of musicians. There are still a few highlights on the album, including "Lamentation Of Tortured Souls" and Virtuous "Abandonment".

On the whole, if you’re a fan of Incantation-styled death metal mixed with the brutality of Suffocation, then any Scattered Remnants is definitely worth picking up, by why bother trying to track down the demo CDs when you can get it all on one album? That said there are no bonus tracks for diehard Scattered Remnants fans looking for something new that they’ve never heard before, so if you own the originals, there’s no point in buying the new version, as the remastering of the demo material hasn’t improved the sound quality significantly enough to make it worthwhile. The album does, however, provide enough quality material to make even the most fickle brutal death metal fan go apeshit. If you like your death metal thick, heavy and crushing, then Indulgence In Masochism is definitely worth a listen.

Written By: Teufel