Something that begins as a bit of fun can often turn into something bigger and this is certainly the case for UK death metal act DeathCollector. Getting together in 2021 as a way to pass the time while things got rolling again post-Covid, it didn’t take long for fun cover versions to turn into writing original material, the four-piece independently releasing the excellent Time’s Up EP last year.

With these three tracks generating no small amount of interest in the UK underground, the band have gone full speed ahead by recording its full-length studio debut Death’s Toll (Prosthetic Records). Fronted by Kieran Scott, vocalist with Birmingham act Ashen Crown, the band also features Irish guitarist Mick Carey (Zealot Cult), Lee Cummings of Severe Lacerations on bass, and former Bolt Thrower and Memoriam drum legend Andrew Whale behind the kit.

With musicians like this covering subjects such as addiction and self-destruction, it’s not too presumptive to suggest this forty-minute slab of death metal brutality might not turn out to be the happiest of summer picnics. Dispensing with any notion of opening with one of those deceptively melodic intros, the title track plunges you into the thick of it right from the start. Death grunts and distorted ferocity from the moment you press play, this avalanche of groove-charged death metal riffs soon makes way for ‘Mental Hedonist’, a blood-spewing cavalcade of cruelty only broken up by some fearsome lead guitar work from Carey.

The first of three modified tracks featured on the Time’s Up EP, ‘DeathCollector’ opens with grinding malevolence before launching into a seething blast of riffs and blastbeats. ‘Coarse Visions’ quietly rumbles into life next, four minutes of overt savagery punctuated by stabbing riffs, pinch harmonics, and punishing drums before ‘Terrorizer’, the second track to benefit from a reworking, tightens up its intro to become an even more formidable blood and guts murder fantasy.

Unsurprisingly, considering drummer Andrew Whale’s history, ‘A Taste of Ichor’ sounds almost like a companion piece to ‘Cenotaph’ by Bolt Thrower as a slow, crawling riff descends into a thunderously fast-paced slab of old-school death metal. ‘Internal Expansion’ is a suitably nasty little ditty about infection, pustules, and rotting while ‘Revel in the Gore’ continues the sickness by doing exactly what it says on the blood-spattered tin. Climaxing with the devastating groove-grind of ‘Rearview Guilt’,  you immediately find yourself defying the pleas from your tortured, bleeding ears by pressing “repeat” with a shaking finger and a drooling grin, knowing this way lies the path to gibbering insanity.

Despite occasionally sounding like the illegitimate mutant offspring of Morbid Angel and Bolt Thrower (which is no bad thing, obviously), Death’s Toll stands as a monstrous slab of brutal death metal that looks to the past with modern extremity. Scott’s voice continues to improve, the Brummie vocalist reaching deeply into his bowels (you’d hope metaphorically but you never know) to produce some frankly hideous gutturals that can only bode well for the next Ashen Crown record while the no less talented Cummings and Carey maintain their own high standards of decomposing foulness. 

Brilliantly disgusting.

Buy the album here:

https://deathcollector1.bandcamp.com/album/deaths-toll

9 / 10

GARY ALCOCK