Confession time. I missed Wretched’s latest release, the charmingly entitled Cannibal (Victory) when it came out back in the summer. I’m not entirely sure how that happened but I should probably put it down to carelessness or middle aged lack of attention to detail on my part. Anyway, I have now rectified this and can report that all is well in the technical death metal world of Wretched. Very well indeed.
Cannibal is the fourth album from the North Carolina outfit and it is as breathless and brutal as you hope. In fact, it might just be the best album to date from a band that don’t seem to have gotten the credit that they are surely due.
Attempting to explain Wretched to the uninitiated isn’t the easiest of tasks. Sure, they cover the technical end of the death metal sub-genre with consummate ease but additionally they have always seemed to be eager to include additional ideas, tones and influences within their extreme musical language. On Cannibal, you can also hear plenty of metalcore, a soupcon of Behemoth and a bucketload of satanic sounding bile and venom. All well and good, then.
At one level, listening through a poor MP3 and terrible laptop speakers can, if you are not a convert to this sort of thing, sound like kicking a bag of kittens down a long, steep metal staircase (not that I have any experience of this but hopefully you can conjure the imagery.) You’d be wrong though.
For all its pulverizing bluster and pile-driving enthusiasm, Cannibal is not as frenzied or out of control as my description might suggest. There is self-evidently a remorselessness in what they do but you do get a sense that the band understand that allowing themselves to take a breath from time to time doesn’t detract from the intensity of the listening experience; more, there is a better sense of controlled aggression that is a sign of a band progressing and advancing their craft.
Given the sonic intensity of the whole record, picking out highlights seems somewhat pointless as it’s all pretty solid stuff from start to finish but in the interests of music journalism, there’s plenty of meat on ‘Cranial Infestation’ and there is nothing like any sort of let up in the power of the thrash inspired collective mugging of ‘Morsel’ but seriously, if you like this sort of thing, you’re going to really like this sort of thing. Wretched are tearing everyone a new one, as you’re supposed to say at this point.
7.0/10
MAT DAVIES