Avulsed - Nullo (The Pleasure of Self-Mutilation)
Ibex Moon Records
Death Metal
11 songs (42:07)
Release year: 2009
Avulsed, www.ibexmoonrecords.com
Reviewed by Thomas

When I glanced sceptically on the cover of this one, gore was the first thing that struck me, hence lowered my expectations a lot. As we all agree that gore equals bore, taking a quick look at the track-titles adds a ton to the already quickly descending expectations, which made it all the more a nice surprise to put it on actually. Since everything about this screams gore, it was nice to hear a plain brutal death metal act flirting with thrash again without making it awkward. I’m not death metal’s biggest fan and certainly do not fancy the more brutal ones much. However, Spanish Avulsed turned out to be much more fun than I expected it to be. They’ve been around since 1991 and have six mass-slaughtering albums on their consciousness including some releases that have, according to reviews around the web (not particularly familiar with them), been unexpectedly awesome. Looks like they pulled the same pulverized rabbit out of the hat with Nullo (The Pleasure of Self-Mutilation) to everyone’s eh.. self-mutilating pleasure.

The obvious reason for why this is delightfully tasteful for me is their ability to make the music slightly catchier than most other death metal bands. I do however not hope that you get arousing thoughts about this being melodic death metal though, seeing as how it’s far from it. Relentless, deeply wounding and thick growls wraps the songs into a bloodied red and claustrophobic atmosphere, while thrash-fiddling death-wrapped and crunchy guitar-riffs poisons the air and the boiling wounds. The riffs are the strongest contributor to making this slightly more accesible than it was expected to be. Nice stop-and-starts, rolling and thundering, some nifty solos and melody lines makes for a bunch of much-appreciated variation that you don’t see too much of in this genre. With pure face-stomping violence Avulsed march on with torch-carrying death metal anthems such as the brutal opener Breaking Hymens, the slower, slightly Death-like Maggotfilled, the stunning title-track and the frantic highlight Penectomia.

With time this has risen to become one of my few death metal highlights of the year. Not as technically blistering as Gorod and Lost Soul nor as brutal as Cattle Decapitation, but it damn well isn’t as melodic and soft as the new Scar Symmetry either. Lots of thrashy and lethal, violent fun spiced with splatter-lyrics that doesn’t really do any good or bad. The only beef I’ve had with this one is the somewhat hollow production and sound, but that went away as the album grew on me. Sworn death metal fans should give this a go as soon as possible, as it should definitely stick out by the end of the year as one of the best. Brilliant effort, highly recommended.

Killing Songs :
All, but my favourites are Breaking Hymens, Maggotfilled, Nullo, Penectomia and She's hot tonight (In My Oven)
Thomas quoted 86 / 100
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