Autopsy belong to the first generation of death metal, the one that, in the late 1980s, invented the genre in all its grime and morbidity. The Californian band, led by drummer-singer Chris Reifert, have never sought respectability or technicality: they cultivate a dirty, unhealthy death metal steeped in doom and gore. Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts, hailed by the critics (an 81 average across seven reviews), faithfully extends this creed.
The record is a feast of morbidity. The riffs, at once primitive and cunning, alternate furious accelerations and doom slowdowns that make up Autopsy’s whole signature. Reifert’s gurgling, hysterical voice rattles off a litany of horrors with a contagious glee. Nothing has changed, and that is precisely the point.
The critics hail this intransigent fidelity, this way of preserving an aesthetic intact for over thirty years. The deliberately filthy production conveys the damp-cellar atmosphere dear to the band. This is old-fashioned death metal, uncompromising, tailored for lovers of the genre in its rawest form.
The downside, predictable, is a certain lack of renewal: Autopsy do what they have always done, and add nothing new. The tracks, numerous, end up resembling one another, and the whole would have gained from being tightened. The formula, savoury as it is, turns a little in circles.
Verdict: 8/10. A putrid, faithful record that will delight lovers of old-school death metal. No surprise, but a constancy that commands respect.
