Birthed too soon, forced to evolve under harried circumstance and returned from the throes of a decade long development beyond their brutal inception North Holland, Netherlands-based ‘old school’ inspired death metal quartet Ecocide present a neither here nor there alternative to straight-up classics worshipping forms on this oddly prismatic sophomore full-length. ‘Metamorphosis‘ can be viewed from a number of angles per tradition depending on vested interest in the groove metal inflicted era of 90’s death metal, its adjacency to early moshable extremes, and quickly identifiable nods to some of the most obvious classics. The knack to be found here is traded-off between a too-familiar foundation refined and a nuanced bent upon those core ideas, all of which they’ve presented with modest enough conviction and a fair spread of riffs to keep even the most reductive ear nodding the way through.

Ecocide formed circa 2012 and their initial three year run burnt hot with a fairly raw, roughshod demo (‘Ecocide‘, 2012) showcasing a band in very early stage of development, making a few strange over the top choices (“Labyrinth of Stars”) which were too green to consider referential beyond splitting the difference between late 80’s death and general thrash metal influences. In building their first full-length album (‘Eye of Wicked Sight‘, 2013) their sights weren’t set too far beyond the Florida death metal scene’s early inspiration as it’d spread across parts of the Netherlands and Germany with the shared traits of ‘Leprosy‘-era Death and the more thrashing edge of early Pestilence and Morgoth rounding out their style. It was a pretty straightforward and modest debut for its time and one which I was never all that impressed with. All that I cared about back then was the riffs and their tank started to run dry and chug out around the mid-point in the tracklist. The band would eventually split in 2015 and then try to revitalize during 2017-2020 with a more brutal-leaning, almost deathcore inspired song (“The Godhand“) and another single they’d put out before splitting up again (“The Sleeper“) which sounded a bit more like Revocation. At some point between then and now they’d put together a more classics-leaning set of songs and ‘Metamorphosis‘ is the result.

The material on ‘Metamorphosis‘ doesn’t seem interested in such a drastic renovation of forms and instead keeps things simple, giving a sort of groove metal and hardcore influenced twist upon an otherwise palpably mid-90’s death metal inspired sound. The nuances might not be all that evident upon introduction as we jam right through the title track/opener (“Metamorphosis”) since it (again) reeks of ‘Leprosy‘ in a very direct way one moment and has a Van Drunen circa ’91 cadence to the vocals. As we hit the actually pretty sharply cut riffs which blaze open “Terminus” things take a quick turn towards chugged triplet-fed verses and almost modern crossover-thrash style percussive riffing. There is still a hint of a ‘Testimony of the Ancients‘ type verve to the way they string together rhythms and in this sense it is still death metal at is core but if we’re stepping back in time this is kinda built with slugs of what I’d have called mosh metal back in the day, simple step-to rhythms. It sounds hard-assed enough in a classic sense, and if we’re looking for points where crossover/hardcore punk and ex-thrashers hit upon that sound, I suppose comparisons to a certain era of Benediction make sense as we bump up against standout piece “Corrupted Reality”.

We’ve not escaped the realm of ‘Cursed‘ and early Death inspired death metal (see: “On the Shores of Madness“) in such a glaring way beyond the mid-point of the album but this isn’t a release entirely stuck in the nineties when we take a closer look at its nuts and bolts. When it comes to this type of death metal familiarity doesn’t hurt and with the record hitting just a few minutes over a half hour I’d pretty much sat back comfortably and enjoyed the flow of riffs and the moshable insertions (see: ~2:02 minutes into the aforementioned song). At the very least I’d begin to ask myself if they’d named themselves after an Earth Crisis song and not a Polluted Inheritance album, after all? In jest, of course. But the hi-fi crunch of mid-to-late 90’s Colin Richardson-era designed groove/death metal angling continues with the syncopated double-bass wallop of “Vortex Singularity” and it is ultimately this type of riff that’d caught my ear most often and interrupted the flow of the full listen. I wouldn’t excuse myself from sidling up with their gig as pure ‘old school’ death metal entirely but there is something a bit extra here despite familiar foundations.

I started to enjoy the thread Ecocide were building up whenever they’d kept it short, brutal and thrashed out hard, such as the Obituary-esque turns taken on closer “Amongst the Tombs”, though I’m not sure the full listen ultimately transformed those old ideas into anything above-average if we’re raking through the sea of riff ideas for an effective, memorable statement. There are certainly bands who’ve managed signature transformation without breaking out the box, Rude is probably the most impressive example for my own taste when it comes to songcraft and Temple of Dread an interesting outlier, but I’d come out of my experience with ‘Metamorphosis‘ not feeling the suggested level of transformative thought. Of course this is not a bad thing, I am all about classics minded death metal which wears its inspiration loudly, but there’ll be no forcing the lack of memorable or standout issuance here on this solid, much improved second album from these folks; Otherwise I’d felt like the aesthetic of the album was well done, especially the centerpiece of Costin Chioreanu‘s illustration which is fittingly textured and abstract in its disembodied, terrified imagery per the cover artwork. A moderately high recommendation.

http://www.memento-mori.es/

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