Autopsy is a band that understands itself. Like spiritual death metal brethren Cannibal Corpse, the band has core musical, thematic and visual staples you can almost always depend on (the poo-chomping album cover of Shitfun being an outlier). Think Autopsy, think the evil, Black Sabbath-inspired tri-tones, pulverising percussion, slow, menacing crawls blended with charging gallops, malevolent guitar lines, bowel-loosening bass, squealing bursts of lead guitar and rasping vocals, all tied up in a bloody bow of bodies being monstrously torn to pieces. 

By and large on Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts, the bands ninth album (Peaceville Records), all those reliable, gory staples are on display, like a severed head on a spike.  

The band comes out all guns blazing with opener “Rabid Funeral”, seemingly intent on making a clear statement that they have the tools to flatten the listener into the ground at pace with bludgeoning, rapid-fire drums and ripping guitars. That done, they slow the track down in stages, finishing with a creepy, doomy passage that gives current bassist Greg Wilkinson a chance to rise out from the mix and show off some great, twisted playing. 

Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts keeps things interesting with many a tempo shift, from the full-on, charging fury of “Throatsaw” , to the monstrous, dislocated guitar lines of “No Mortal Left Alive”, to the almost stoner-rock groove of the title track that seamlessly slows to a crawl before suddenly leaping at the throat with a full-blooded death metal charge. Amongst all these shifts the sudden, screaming bursts of guitar solos are a dependable, recurrence and always in place are the grisly barking vocals, often bringing to mind Cronos (Venom) and sometimes Peter Steele (Type O Negative) when he was channelling his hardcore NYC roots. 

As with other death metal veterans like Obituary and Suffocation, Autopsy has managed to rise from the ashes in the late nineties to return with a recognition that they don’t need to chase new trends and the confidence in what made them great in the first place. In an age of overly smoothed out, quantized metal, there’s a satisfyingly organic feel to Autopsy’s push and pull of rhythms and tempos. At one moment you’re having your head caved in with pure, pulverising aggression, when the band veers off into a great guitar line for twenty seconds (see two and half minutes into “Marrow Fiend”), before they’re going off in another direction. 

If there’s one small gripe about the album, it feels like the levels have been cranked up to make the overall sound more impactful, which tends to leave the bass a little smothered in the album’s more raging sequences. This is only in comparison with some of Autopsy’s past classic material though, the bass is still clearly there and when the guitars make space there are plenty of killer bass lines on display. 

At forty-two minutes this is really a perfect amount of death metal brutality, cutting out before any fatigue sets in. The performances from Chris Reifert (drums, lead vocals), Eric Cutler (guitars, backing and lead vocals), Danny Coralles (guitars) and bassist Wilkinson powerhouse and with the band having kept the quality high the whole way through, they finish with arguably the best cut on the whole album — closer “Coagulation”, featuring some of the album’s most gut-twisting bass and guitar lines. 

With the consistency of core members Reifert, Cutler and Coralles neatly augmented by bassist Wilkinson there’s a familiarity within Autopsy that seems to empower them. They do what they do, they do it well and for all their familiar elements, they can still construct something fresh that doesn’t uproot what made them great in the first place. I’ve been the victim of a merciless Autopsy, and I feel fine. 

Buy the album here:

https://peaceville.com/bands/autopsy/ 

9 / 10 

TOM OSMAN