Exalt the Imperial Beast

Eleven songs in twenty five minutes- but bands like Mexico’s Embalmed don’t really need any more than that. In fact I’m sure they could have achieved largely the same result in ten. Though the superbly atmospheric introduction Overture Luciferi Rex might hint at a rumbling, twisted Ordo Ad Chao-influenced sound, this is actually completely Neanderthal death-thrash which rips manically through two-minute vomits of putrid hell with gleeful abandon. All the songs sound the same, but it still kind of works.

The approach here is pure extreme metal played at the most insane tempos I have heard in a long time. The vocals are a tortured death-croak, and the drummer assaults his kit with relentless vitriol. DATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDAT and so forth, combined with some nice splish-sploshing on the cymbals. The guitar sound is somewhat odd: it has a kind of chaotic, strangled quality which I find difficult to locate a comparison for, and the riffs themselves are a near-indistinguishable blur of scratching madness. Perhaps the best reference point is Morbid Visions-era Sepultura, but imagine that record forced mercilessly into a frantic sprint in which all the elements blur into one eleven-song tirade.

And, what else is there to say? It will probably take longer to read this review than to listener to a whole clump of the songs, so perhaps it’s best to leave it. Suffice to say, that Exalt the Imperial Beast is a hell of a lot of fun. At times it can be wonderfully ferocious and pustulently energising, and at the very worst it has such a sense of extremity that you can’t help but warm to it. Well done.