Review: Monument of Misanthropy – Unterweger

Review by Sandre the Giant

If someone could go ahead and find a Transcending Obscurity release in the last five years minimum that isn’t adorned with glorious cover art, I’ll wait. Monument of Misanthropy’s new record ‘Unterweger’ is out in November and is brutal death metal of the purest order, bringing to mind the greats like Aborted, Defeated Sanity and Suffocation.

‘The Mysterious Hollywood Hat-Trick’ starts the tale of serial killer Jack Unterweger before monstrous riffs smash through the mystery into roaring death metal carnage. This is a precision assault, brutalising the ears with an unstoppable juggernaut of death. Thankfully leaving the more slam/pig squeal elements of brutal death behind, this is a surprisingly adept concept album which is not something you see much of in this genre. Within the steamrolling savagery of ‘Tales from the Vienna Woods’, the tale of murder and death is woven coherently and yet never takes the front seat away from the music. Piloting the stylistic flourishes of Hour of Penance through the filter of grinding low end murk, ‘Midnight’ is a stunner, and special mention should be given of vocalist George Wilfinger, whose vocal range is far superior to a lot in the genre and therefore gives Monument of Misanthropy an edge. He is joined by Benighted vocalist Julien Truchan on the opener, and Sven from Aborted on the vicious ‘Miami Vice – Miami Gold’, but his personal contributions are outstanding.

Brutal death with a concept? You’d immediately assume that wouldn’t work but Monument of Misanthropy create a story record using both music and samples to create something really compelling. It helps of course that the death metal on show is exemplary, and ‘Unterweger’ has a number of crushing moments that will blow you away. I mean, it finishes with a classic Morbid Angel cover too so what the fuck is there to complain about!? Get this ordered now.

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https://monumentofmisanthropydm.bandcamp.com/album/unterweger-brutal-death-metal