It feels like since the demise of the mighty Bolt Thrower that death metal has picked up the mantle and attempted to replace them with many similar sounding bands. UK death metallers Subservience are cut from that cloth, but throw bloodied chunks of Entombed and Deicide in there too to dispel any copycat ideas. Their new record, ‘Forest of the Impaled’ is out now on Black Bow Records.
The waspish, Floridian influence is immediately apparent on opener ‘In Depravity They Dwell’, while huge chunky riffs underpin the rumbling ‘Entity of Indifference’. Subservience have honed their assault into a carpet bombing machine of massive riffs and brutality, where an emphasis on heaviness but also memorable songs is key. The crushing ‘Beneath the Earth’ is an early highlight, but the raging ‘The Consummation’ and deathly majesty of ‘Descend into Despair’ maintain the quality of this release through until the end.
‘Forest of the Impaled’ is mesmerising in its execution of brutality. Subservience are a potential successor to the mantle of UK death metal, and this is a debut full length they can be proud of. Varied, crushing and cavernously heavy at times, I’d struggle to recommend it more.
http://www.subservience.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/subservience
https://bbowsubservience.bandcamp.com/album/forest-of-the-impaled
The Killchain 