Calloused down to the nerve and shaken apart at the vertebrae Santa Rosa, California-based death metal quartet LACERATION reassemble the very spine of their work, the battery and volatility inherent, so that this sophomore full-length album might strike with greater-reinforced steel. Knowing the ideal achieved thus far and now finessing the weight of past work into a most concise work ‘I Erode‘ tempers down to weightiest essentials, making room for presentation to bolster each hammer-point with greater impact. With all expectations per those ‘ready in the know set exceptionally high the tendency is for a death metal band to over-deliver and indulge but in this case their craft is extreme enough that it might speak for itself, direct and deadly in its strike.

By the time I’d discovered Laceration, probably their ‘Imitation‘ demo from 2018, they’d already been to trench Hell and back again having formed somewhere around 2006 and solidified by their ‘Realms of the Unconscious‘ (2010) demo tape before an extended hiatus from recording, at least. Their original focus was on brutal thrash metal or just simply death/thrash and you can basically no-clip through their first life via the ‘Remnants‘ (2019) compilation to get an idea of where they’d been and where they went with it upon return. Once they’d stepped back into view, with more-or-less with a different drummer every pass, they’d arrive upon an increasingly pure early 90’s death metal sound rooted in the early days of Suffocation, Malevolent Creation and still some late 80’s thrashing brutality in hand (i.e. Demolition Hammer, Solstice.) It is absolutely worth taking the time to tour their past discography and formative years here for the sake of understanding what’d survived all configurations of the band and getting the brunt of what they’d been aiming for all along.

Of course I could’ve recommended Laceration to anyone at that pivotal point and they’d get it, appreciate the razor-lipped cut of their riffcraft and familiar vocal cadence (something like Van Drunen and Steve Reynolds circa ’92) from vocalist/guitarist and main founding member Luke Cazares at the time but I don’t think anyone’d really seen the potential there (beyond maybe Rotted Life Records) ’til their debut full-length album showed up on the proving grounds ahead of the curve. ‘Demise‘ (2021) is still one of the absolute best examples of thrashing yet pure 90’s death metal we’ve gotten out of the United States in the last decade and a true contemporary to top-of-the-heap groups like Skeletal Remains who focus most squarely on USDM proper. That album’d make it to my Top 75 Albums of 2021 at #4 after an overwhelmingly positive review, where I’d explained where I’d canonized their work: “‘Demise’ is the kind of record you grind beneath your skin, a riff tattoo you warp your damn mind with via countless, seemingly endless shreds through its tunnel of head-down, guitars out traditional death metal roar. It isn’t particularly catchy, or technical, nor do these guys play so fast that you’ll lose your shit but the merciless erosion that Laceration provides is, again, an authentic approximation of the kinda Slayer-assed death metal we were getting out of Florida after ‘Altars of Madness’ left the mold wet and pliable going forward.” Needless to say I’ve gone into this second album with nothing but the highest expectations, assuming iteration rather than reinvention was in order, and figuring some extra polish might occur in the presentation department with the jump to 20 Buck Spin.

Of course there is always room for improvement and I think what’d ultimately held back ‘Demise‘ for some was also one of its best traits in my mind as the insistent brutality of its drumming left much of the album’s nuance to its riffs. This’d work for the sake of a decidedly classic sensibility in terms of grooves which sidle alongside the cadence of the vocals placing the core impact of these acts through a forge of repetition (or, consistency as I’d heard it.) None of that’d been a flaw so much as a very traditional, hard as nails approach to pure death metal… and one that finds the band repositioning themselves today on this follow-up so that ‘I Erode‘ lands at a more impactful, slightly more succinct ~33 minute format. This allows each song to frame its own statement or take its spot in the run-through thanks to interludium (“Dreams of the Formless”) and introductory vignette (“Degradation”) which help to set the tone of the record and its most key scenes. This isn’t outside of the wheelhouse of the band so much as ‘Demise‘ was more of a total sandblast per the brutal death drummer they’d employed at the time and this one rolls it out a bit more while still leaving behind a similar Laceration-specific tread.

Beyond a more succinct showing and polished sound (via engineering from Matt Harvey at Dark Corners Studios plus mix/master by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studios) the big deal here on ‘I Erode‘ is of course the all-new rhythm section featuring Eli Small who replaces the band’s original bassist and drummer Aerin Johnson of Vile Rites who has impressed the flesh of my face between this album and the upcoming ‘Senescence‘ this summer. It’d make sense to suggest the inherent finesse of Johnson‘s work helps make this album feel like a finesse point beyond ‘Demise‘ but I also think he speaks a language closer to that of Cazares and co-guitarist Donnie Small either because they’ve played in thrash bands together or they’re keen to how this next level craft might sound given cleanest potency.

Do we lose any of the underground death metal appeal of their brutal-ass sound in translation? I’d argue there are points where this album hits much harder than before and probably because they’ve found points of pause and pull-back throughout which allow their bigger hits to wind-up more. Opener “Excised” is certainly slapping hams out the gates whirling its lava-smoked leads and finding a comfortably diabolic groove n’ blast mode in under a minute. I think right there you’ll understand what I mean in terms of Laceration finding some extra finesse in their action while keeping it all balls-out for the opener. Sure, you’re going to hear some late 90’s Morbid Angel in some of those leads and the big transition on the song is pure ‘Pierced From Within‘-inspired maniac stuff but again this is a band to find their own way and you won’t find anything outright aped in their work. Again the drums are a big point of consideration here as the loose-banded whip of the double bass sits perfectly above the impact of the snare (see: “Sadistic Enthrallment”) making for one of the most punishing finishing moves on any song on this album. The precedence set by the first couple of songs here is only amped in terms of some technical fills, faster grooves and again I’ll emphasize the incredible sound design that coats this record in a perfectly hi-fi but still rawed-over veil of slime.

Dragged down by society, not by the riffs. — “Carcerality” was probably the first point on this album where I’d felt like ‘I Erode‘ had a specific over-arching lyrical theme, beyond the obvious statement of the title itself at least, and of course the use of movie/film samples and such help to frame this more clearly as we find minds on the brink in an increasingly greyed-out world. Not only does the Side B starter do well to match the intensity of the opener but we get one of the best solos on the album around ~2:10 minutes in, the type of simpler folding-in-upon-itself kind of lead we’d gotten more of on ‘Demise‘. It feels like Laceration haven’t left this peak efficiency machining for the entirety of the album and in most ways Side B is round two but with bigger, harder still impact to delt out; Standout single “Strangled by Hatred” was featured for good reason as one of the faster, chunkier riff-driven songs on the album and one they’ve thankfully set on the back half so Side A hadn’t been wall-to-wall with crushed out blasts.

The clincher, the finisher and actually the closer and title track (“I Erode”) brings that last-round slug that the full listen needed as we pass through the most densely set pieces on the album avoiding . When these guys hit the bigger, more percussive grooves in more of NYDM style and cross over into the more thrashing Floridian stretches of riff there is an incredible simpatico between those two forces which we’ve found the band perfecting over these first two LPs. Thankfully they’ve made sure to pull out some extra details, some extended solos and moshable change-ups, to keep it going ’til the end but overall this album ends just as it needs to, finishing the thought and letting the listener run it back before they’ve overstated themselves. The classicist might want another five minutes more, as we’d found on ‘Demise‘, but in my case this was the exact right dosage of Laceration I’d needed for a sophomore album intent on refinement rather than retooling their whole gig.

Taking a long stare at the well-set color choices for the layout and the heap of rot gracing the cover artwork from James Bousema no doubt the curation of this second album has been well-considered via not-the-usual choices and an image that fits their circa ’92 death metal style well enough. There’s no mistaking this album as a pure and pretty damned brutal death metal album in the classic style at a glance or in the depths of analysis and in that sense -that- is the reason to be stoked as fuck about it. It isn’t the draught of serious or bad-ass riff psycho death metal allows a band like this to be an oasis but rather they’ve taken on death metal with more conviction and taste in the dark and skull-stomping side of things than most. Without trying to be everything to every listener we get a far, far more potent example of death metal’s efficacy delivered with finesse despite its closed-fist assault throughout. Granted, I went into this album setting Laceration as one of my favorite death metal bands these last several years to start… but a focused escalation of this order only intensifies that double thumbs up from me. They’ve amped up every aspect of their craft to be sure but what I’ll walk away from this record admiring most is knowing when to tie it off and leave as succinct and high-damage record as possible. A very high recommendation.

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