Punishers at the outset and now exhibiting expert-level brutality in precision study of the old ways Melbourne, Australia-based death metal quartet GUTLESS return six years beyond informal introductions with a debut full-length album that spells out their intent to kill clear as day. Far from a tribute album but steeped in the no-bullshit, all killer riff-belting school of pure death metal ‘High Impact Violence‘ is entirely a declaration of intent, a warning shot accompanied by a quick pan to brick-crushed skull and a pool of blood. You couldn’t miss the way they’ve telegraphed this album up front as all signs point to murderous ‘old school’ brutality ahead, guaranteeing the listener’s senses a slick half hour of mayhemic, bully level assault will follow.

Gutless formed circa 2018 around the time folks from Sewercide officially called it quits, including some of the musicians who’d formed Vile Apparition about a year prior. This is somewhat notable up front in that the talents of drummer Oliver Ballantyne help to characterize the brutal flow of each band in their own direction. In the case of their first demo tape (‘Mass Extinction‘, 2018) which I’d reviewed in early 2019 when Chaos Records released a CD version their style was inherently brutal in the ’92-’95 sense up front where I’d have referenced Midwest death metal rather than NYDM in terms of double bass drum techniques, instead reaching for something Deicide influenced or the meaner for the bark and whip of ‘Eternal‘-era Malevolent Creation with the occasional whammy-yanking lead spiking up for interest. The signature inherent to their work was more clearly solidified as we hit the moshable kick-off of “Manufactured God” from their split with labelmates Mortal Wound. While this was the standard death metal attack of the mid-to-late 90’s in some sense today folks are more in tune with braindead mid-paced gimmick-core and from my point of view a band like this remedies those issues with an exciting level of brutality which still finds room for bigger riffs to sprawl, leads to cut loose, and ranting bark-fests to stir up.

Despite coming across like a 2000’s-era Dying Fetus slogan at face value ‘High Impact Violence‘ titles itself with outright accuracy here in the sense that this ~27 minute follows up on the promise of their demo tape with a polished and amplified uptake which matches the level of punishing ‘old school’ death metal level brutality one’d expect after soaking up ‘Mass Extinction‘ for six years. You should get the right feeling from this album right out the box as opener “Bashed and Hemorrhaging” breaks out as a blunt-thrashing dummy, a ralphed roar and a dragged-hard main riff which finds its pit-level spin about ~90 seconds in and delivers a 90’s mosh metal riff guided break which sets a certain tone for the way forward without necessarily representing the level of rhythmic craft which is on the way. It nonetheless shows us what kind of shit they can stir up with simple brutal death showmanship and a few percussively guided missile-level riffs. You’ll get the Benton-isms are at least starting to fire up as we break into “Beyond the Catacombs” (see also: “Galvanized”) and how the harder-edged brutality out of Florida in a certain era might also lend a frame of general reference. I wouldn’t judge the whole record off of the speeding and chunking brutality of those two opening pieces but definitely appreciated how much intensity they’d managed up front without totally dumbing it down to clowncore for the masses.

“Avalanche of Viscera” kinda proves Gutless can make those string-scraping, all-chug beatdowns work in the context of a classic death metal furor though I’m not sure I was expecting their grooves to fully thug as hard as they do here, even if they never step entirely outside the bounds of 90’s-spanning brutal death metal gear. At that point we’ve gotten a good idea of the compositional tautness of their craft, the types of riff-runs they’re willing to adventure out into and I guess from my point of view I really hadn’t hit that point of being knocked on my ass by any given riff or song ’til they’d hit me with “Carved Into Existence”. That’d been the one to push me into their pit and of course it kinda sounds like a Terrence Hobbs-penned joint circa ’93, you’ll hear it in the riffs right away, but they put their own exaggerative swipe on that formula enough to leave big impression on my ear and the double-take punisher/closer “Viral Infection” wasn’t far off in compounding that feeling. I was maybe three spins into ‘High Impact Violence‘ before I found I’d heavily favored the ripping done on Side B but the album as a whole was always a pleasure to dig through, getting its point across clear as day while keeping my brains scrambled with its chug and punish heavy attack.

Without a doubt I went into ‘High Impact Violence‘ expecting the evolution of Gutless to be far more weird beyond their gnarled-out but brutal demo tape but at no point did I sit with this album and feel anything less than entertained by their brutal, directly whipped and concise shred through these eight songs. Rattling off pure death metal songs focused on the riff and delivering contained pieces which got right to the best shit they had to offer was the best way for these folks to re-introduce themselves in a serious way and, despite disliking a mosh-metallic riff or two, I’d say they hit their quota in terms of riff count and pure skull-kicking intensity throughout. Every piece has its place and lands a killing blow enough that I don’t mind the sub-half hour runtime and all that as I was left feeling fully impressed by this album as a finely crafted, no-bullshit debut album. A high recommendation.

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