Detrimentum - Inhuman Disgrace
Deepsend Records
Death Metal
8 songs (44:13)
Release year: 2011
Detrimentum, Deepsend Records
Reviewed by Goat

Fashioning a superb tribute to darkness and misery with their 2008 debut, British death metallers Detrimentum impressed me greatly at the time, and Inhuman Disgrace proves the band to be no one-hit wonder. As technical, atmospheric and hammeringly heavy as ever, the band have increased their songwriting skills and grasp of dynamics to form an album that builds on Embracing This Deformity’s strengths greatly without merely repeating the same formula again. Death metal of the more brutal kinds rarely manages to impress with its variety, the likes of Benighted aside, and it’s clear that Detrimentum have mixed up their brutal palette from a listen to opening track The Crimson Legacy alone. It’s a microcosm of the album as a whole; intense, fast, both brutal and melodic, headbangable and proggy in its switching of riffs. The track keeps you on your toes with shifts in tempo and ends with almost laid-back ambience – setting a high bar that the rest of the album has little difficulty in keeping up with.

Indeed, in some ways the album is constantly in competition with itself, each track seemingly better than those around it. The following Pestilence Shared With The Worms is a seven-minute death metal tour-de-force, showing exactly how to wield melody and brutality without compromising, contradicting or losing the listener’s attention. Ascension’s attention is split between melodic climbs and brutal downwards crunch, with stunning clean-vocalled peak – the band’s progressive tendencies breaking free of cover several times on the album – whilst the intricate riff constructions of Effigies Of The Silent Kings and its killer soloing show off the genuine technical skills at play. The relatively straightforward crunch of The Journeyman’s Lament will get moshpits salivating, and finale Mine Is The Glory (Wretched Release) ends with a note of surprisingly optimistic grandeur amidst the blasting wretchedness.

I hesitated before deciding not to give Inhuman Disgrace the ‘brutal’ tag that Embracing This Deformity so clearly deserved – listening to the likes of In The Shadow Of The Cross We Burn it’s clear that melody makes as strong a base for Detrimentum’s death metal as the more brutal aspects. Those looking for near-ceaseless aural violence should give the band’s debut a try, as it’s still one of the more impressive examples of brutal death there is. That Detrimentum have toned their attack down somewhat is no bad thing, however, when the results are as good as Inhuman Disgrace.

Killing Songs :
The Crimson Legacy, Pestilence Shared With The Worms, Ascension, Effigies Of The Silent Kings, Mine Is The Glory (Wretched Release)
Goat quoted 86 / 100
Other albums by Detrimentum that we have reviewed:
Detrimentum - Embracing This Deformity reviewed by Goat and quoted 90 / 100
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