If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Luckily, Pathology have taken this to heart, and their punishing new heavyweight contender, The Everlasting Plague (Nuclear Blast) is simply another example of that.

It features guitars that feel both heavy and effervescent, as if the instruments actually take on sentient personas. Dan Richardson embraces his axe and delivers more mellow, softer introductions (‘As Entrails Wither,’ ‘Death Ritual Deciphered’) accompanied alongside catchy breakdowns (‘Perpetual Torment,’ ‘Decomposition Of Millions’) and headbangers (‘Corrosive Cranial Affliction’).

Obie Flett savagely steers the ship, croaking and growling along to Dave Astor’s intricately powerful lines. Astor knows he can play exceptionally fast (and in dribs and drabs displays that), but Pathology has reigned supreme since they formed in 2006, and it has always paid off in dividends. 

‘Submerged In Eviscerated Carnage’ grabs you by the throat and squeezes until your windpipe snaps like a wishbone. ‘Viciously Defiled’ tests your body’s ability to stay still. The entire release is dripping with in-your-face nasty delivered in a frantic but calculated display.

Nine albums into their career, Pathology also have batted 1.000 in the album artwork department. The same sci-fi-meets-nightmarish-reality style covers Plagues. A brutishly muscular psycho figure takes center stage, shrieking and clutching someone (something?) with his left hand and holds high a severed skull in his right. 

Even Flett was winded after this behemoth. Album closer ‘Decomposition Of Millions’ starts with a breakdown that seeps into an instrumental, earning him a well-deserved break. The outro is appropriately unsettling, representing a scene of silent decay and a sense of finality. Metaphoric waves of corpses flood the horizon.

Pathology didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel with their latest work. However, that is both telling and fortunate. The band has been firmly established; they have the blessing of a major label and the formula has always worked. Even though half the band signed on in the last three years, the classic sound you would expect is evident loud and clear.

Sometimes familiarity is all you need. Well, that and forty-one-plus minutes of spine-tingling, eye-erupting brutal death metal.

Buy the album here: https://pathologymetal.bandcamp.com/album/the-everlasting-plague

8 / 10

MATT COOK