In the process of personifying an unspeakable horror descending upon the devious corridors of an obscure crypt Sherbrooke, Québec-based death metal quartet DISEMBODIMENT present a corpse mulching feast for dull senses on their debut full-length album. Eight offerings of fetid slop to the circular maw characterize ‘Spiral Crypts‘ as low-tuned, slow battered barbarism in some sense but they’ve pulled beyond their most straightforward tendencies along the way via sparing brutality and a few horror-adjacent synths. The result here offers a reasonable standard for ‘new old school’ death metal grime as the band avoid over-polishing or overstating their first signs of life after a half-decade wait.

Disembodiment formed back in 2020 as a seeming offshoot from their work as Oath Div. 666 and any other past work worth mentioning is similarly focused on various forms of death metal. The core idea behind this band was something less interested in blasphemy, a simpler approach to groove-driven death metal style which centers its lyrical themes around subterranean decay. Their debut EP (‘Mutated Chaos‘, 2020) arrived at a time when a lot of folks had similar ideas and made full-time scrub of it during the pandemic and in review I’d suggested it met a reasonably high standard but didn’t stand out beyond a few hits of gloom towards the end. Though I am not a wild fan of the mid-paced, bouncing trot of neo-‘old school’ death metal of late these folks carry some sense of cavernous Disma/Incantation-esque atmosphere which they’ve built upon within this full-length.

There is no real struggle here, no major point of defiance or any point of view established beyond a fascination with rot, horror and trotting mid-paced death metal grooves: Disembodiment are a death metal band and only just that, no complaints on my end. This straightforward approach is especially evident as the first few songs hit like a crew warming their hands in the rehearsal room, cutting some mean ‘Domination‘-level buzz as opener “Morbid Infestation” fades into view beyond a bout of howling suffering. This entrance gives the ear plenty of room to admire the thick and sickly cut production values here which suffocate when all cylinders are firing and chase down simple riff progressions when called to sprawl. Not entirely cavernous but realistic enough in their ~live feeling stature these production values offer a reasonable standard for ‘old school’ death metal inspired gear and it helps that the opener gets right to its grinding without any fanfare, interruptions etc. as their thudding n’ roaring beast continues to hulk out on the next few songs.

The first sign of life arrives within the title track, “Spiral Crypts“, and the album picks itself up off the crawlspace floor from that point. Though it takes a minute for them to quit drilling through a few plain-ass four count riffs as they build speed the chunking-hard step into a keyboard assisted bout of dread and doom immediately caught my ear as one of the more uniquely set ideas/moments on ‘Spiral Crypts‘. I don’t think every song on here needs that same horrified vibe or accoutrement but a creeped touch of the keys goes a long way toward keeping the ear juiced along a pretty straightforward path. Another rung down the ladder we find “Larval” kinda going there with its intro and that helps reinforce the general atmosphere of the slow-swung chop that Disembodiment foster through the end.

There -are- riffs here but you’ll need to hunker down to pick off a few within “Infected to Rot” and maybe “Putrification” too as each offer a solid enough burn through the more brutal side of the band’s cut. Disembodiment haven’t pushed the envelope in any sense but each of these songs appears well-formed and they’ve left very few dead ends for the ear to hit on the way through. They do well to cap off the experience with bigger grooves and another horror-keyed outro via “Sentient Inorganic Mess”, which takes a clip from the crux of The Thing and ends it there. Without much serving to tie these eight pieces together beyond style ‘Spiral Crypts‘ just kinda rolls out, ends and leaves it at that. Sans any fanfare, choked with slogging riffs and in feature of a memorable cover image via Slimeweaver there is a dead-eyed brutality to this debut that I can’t help but appreciate even if none of it carries a particularly strong personality. A moderately high recommendation.

---