Review by Sandre the Giant
The outstanding artwork for the new Rude EP, ‘Outer Reaches’, brings to mind both classic anime and 70s sci fi so it is immediately a draw for me. These Californian death metallers have been a little quiet since 2017’s sophomore record ‘Remnants…’, but they are back with a new EP of classically influenced death metal. It is out now through Dawnbreed Records on cassette.
Opener ‘Chaos (Discarded)’ comes in with a rumbling, bass heavy assault with dense chugging riffs and a helpless, John Tardy-esque roar. There are times where there are hints of Obituary or Autopsy lurking in the doomy stomp of the opener, and that propulsive low end rumble also informs the title track, which is one of two instrumental tracks. The title track has a number of dissonant moments that add a little unease to proceedings, while that Morbid Angel-esque guitar dissonance rears its ugly head in the superb ‘Calamity from the Sky’. The melancholic groan of the second instrumental ‘Adrift’ leads us into the crawling, Pestilence-like ‘Omega’, a great closer full of classic European death metal riffs.
‘Outer Reaches’ has little of the cosmic weirdness I was hoping for with that album art, but the dissonant grinding rumble of most of these tracks is a pleasant surprise. Rude are crushingly heavy and this EP is another reminder that death metal is alive and screaming in 2021.
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The Killchain 