I love death metal. It’s the pizza and chips of the extreme metal world, the aural food that might not be that good for you, but tastes so good that you eat it anyways. And what better way to see in the New Year than with some good old-fashioned Death Metal from Texas, playing the sort of Dismember-meets-Autopsy-by-way-of-Asphyx gruntblastery that should have gone out of fashion years ago, but hangs around like an unwashed corpse because, well, it’s fucking awesome? Sure to appeal to fans of the equally awesome Hooded Menace, Decrepitaph hang closer to the death metal grave than to their Finnish cousins, but there’s a similar air of murky terror that makes this the ideal soundtrack for exploring old cemeteries at midnight. More rotten than Elvis’ corpse stealing candy from a baby, Decrepitaph are capable of not just splitting your neck like an infested tree stump, but can also teach the metalcore world a thing or two about breakdowns, as It Shrieks From Below proves. The sheer wide appeal of death metal at its best is impressive – obsessive Dismember fanboys will appreciate this as much as deathcore bruisers looking for something a little less homoerotic.

Although the tracks are pretty uniformly excellent, there are always highlights. Festering Messiah gets especially Swedish on your ass with some lovely old-school Entombed vibes, Castle Of The Doomed has some nice and brutal Bolt Thrower action, whilst Desecrated Divinity mixes both melody and ominous dread. Each track seems to channel perfect death metal moments into a condensed mash of brilliance. Right the way through, from the first track to the last one, Decrepitaph know what their audience want and give it to them in spades. The sheer variety is excellent, too, even including the crawl-paced Barbaric Autopsy and the title track, a ten-minute closer that starts with gentle piano before launching into a speedy blastbeat-fuelled assault that takes in everything from creepy soloing to verging-on-the-proggy riff patterns. It might not be the most advanced, technically brilliant, forward-looking death metal you’ve ever heard, but Decrepitaph clearly love the genre and play it damn, damn well. What further recommendation do you need?