This fourth full-length from Kansas City, Kansas-based death metal quartet Garoted doesn’t present a puzzle, an obfuscated maze, or any too mysterious vision built from unheard-of horrors but instead frames an easily read brain mashing hammer of brutal death metal in the bloody tradition of distinctly United States death metal. ‘Bewitchment of the Dark Ages‘ is a work of a mayhemic, rhythm obsessed cluster of minds — an athletically achieved blasphemic nuke studied in the ways of legitimate death metal beyond the late 90’s which takes stock of the high-set standards from the post-millennium era of callous groove n’ battery and lends their own percussive finery to that spiritus. It is a timeless sound conscious of the classics and rooted in an era of excess which they’ve continued to make their own throughout their fifteen year run thus far.

Garoted formed circa 2008 between folks in the Lincoln, Nebraska area and quickly making headway on a demo CD-r circulated in 2009 before getting to work on their debut full-length (‘Praise Hate, Praise Murder, Praise The Beast‘, 2010) which I’d view as a complete reflection upon the ferocity of the previous decade, pinging snares, huge grooves, classics influenced riffcraft which wasn’t focused on the typical throwback hungry style of the new decade. They were doing death metal the way it’d been ramping up ’til about 2005 when deathcore, mosh-tech, and ‘old school’ revisionism sort of took the wheel for many. Up front you could tell their drummer was a beast and there was no getting out of the way of that bus, it was a beating that’d sounded vitally underground at the time and remains a sign of a certain breed of lifer. Their riffcraft at that point was teetering on the edge of technical flair, side-eyeing the supreme overkill of Midwest brutal death of the era while also holding close some idolatry for the early Deicide and Immolation-esque side of things.

As they worked on blackening the skies up a bit, pushing some bigger grooves and generally intensifying the clobber of their rhythms Garoted‘s second LP (‘Visions Of Death And Destruction‘, 2014) would gain some broader notice beyond their nearby spheres and primarily within the brutal death heads in the states; As far as I remember they’d started black metal side-project Verräter and the guitarist’s label (Sordid Curse Productions) to release both around that time. It was the sort of CD you’d find on a distro like Deathgasm at the time, a distinctly blasphemic product of the United States death metal underground that was appropriately militant in its tempo map but still had riffs cut into every moment. That’d more-or-less work as a description of any of their four full-lengths to date. At face value the band’s signature was basically set by the time their third full-length (‘Abyssal Blood Sacrifices‘, 2017) released but it was arguably quite a bit more successful at deploying a Lecherous Nocturne or Angelcorpse-esque aggression which’d been tempered into precision beyond their previous release, bearing a sort of death-thrashing quality to its riffcraft and a general step up from my point of view. If you’re down with tasteful hit of snare ping and serpentine rhythm guitar trade-offs it still serves a damned firestorm of a spin which you shouldn’t have missed that year.

You could call it a logical progression, an inevitable stroke of mastery from a persistent crew but each album from the band to date has created a sense of momentum from a pretty rare standard, the sort of gear the pure death metal fan would recognize as the real thing from a hundred miles away. Anyhow, the important point to make here is that Garoted always had riffs but they’ve whipped-at more neck twisters and throat-punchers than ever here on ‘Bewitchment of the Dark Ages‘, as they take the expected next level kick and apply it to their titan step within to make album number four feel like the top of the stairs, a new personal standard set beyond the last three. “Their best yet.” would basically work as a review set beside each record from these folks and not at all in jest.

Fans of classic Polish death metal, the post-‘Exterminate‘ era of bestial death metal, and anyone conditioned by records like ‘Legion‘ from a young age will appreciate what Garoted‘s guitarist and drummer collectively take from the extreme reconditioning of death metal in the late 90’s as they forge a style of death metal that’d never lost the original plot throughout the ages. Their work is intense, merciless in its percussive trait but never machine-like in movement thanks to the lucid consciousness shared between the performances, most of which maintain a thrashing death metal standard despite having arisen from the tail-end of chug metal’s most maximalist years. It would just as well suffice to suggest everything has improved here overall in terms of the music and performances but I think it makes more sense to praise the time and attention that went into the nigh perfected sound design here via Axel Harvey Productions as this is the first record from the band that truly gives these folks enough space to all have a voice. This sense of dynamic space being used by the band is particularly notable as we hit upon “Pestiferous” and the tank-like roll of the bass guitar recalls the finer brutal death records of a certain era, growling its low end all over the piece while the three-dimensional space occupied by the drums uses the whole room to both engage the ear and play around it. It is as good a place as any to start with the listening experience ‘Bewitchment of the Dark Ages‘ as each song generally upholds that vibrant ‘Imperial Doom‘ level of attack and a hint of ‘Litany‘-era brutal death smoking through the scenery as Garoted build upon the thrashing heave of ‘Abyssal Blood Sacrifices‘.

There are plenty of points of genius to pick through as the berserker barrage of the full listen sparks up but the whole thing becomes such a compacted, dense-with-ideas sort of full listen when left on repeat that it’d make sense to instead champion the pell-mell it serves rather than analyze it beyond that very simple effect. There is nonetheless a generally sophisticated ‘conversation’ had within the rhythm guitar writing and tightened interplay of the quartet as a greater beast at a prime point of action but this shouldn’t feel far removed from their equally inspired work since they’ve done nothing to adulterate the core brutality of craft. Garoted have always been solid, great even, and this fourth time around it feels like the extra edge they’ve brought alongside their best and most damaging attacks also includes their sharpest production values to date. At ~36 minutes it’d been a quick and addictive joint packed with enough asphalt and burnt scriptures to sate the need for engaging, violent death metal mastery. A high recommendation.

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