By sheer thanatophobia he is willed kill and kill again, fostering a grinning-wide obsession with murder as desperation for survival becomes predatorial obsession… a damned quest for immortality from the disturbed minds of Oslo, Norway-based death metal quartet HORRIFIER who’ve themed this maniac sophomore full-length album with their own slasher narrative. The stench of their handiwork becomes impossible to ignore as ‘Revelations of Gore‘ piles ’em high within its basement-level thrashing death and horrified bouts of doom, another class showing of late 80’s/early 90’s informed character from otherwise nowadays skulls. Tightened ancient death songcraft writ with a freer hand and given to an authentic attack finds this material up there with the better ‘old school’ inspired death metal coming out of Norway these days.

Horrifier formed back in 2022 between four folks otherwise involved in black metal act Dizmal as well as a variety of more recent death metal bands: Voidspire, Hideous Death, and Impugner. For this configuration their intent was brutally straight forward from the start aimed at late 80’s/early 90’s death metal specifically tuned to the dark lurch of Autopsy, the adjacent spanking roar of Repulsion and the European bands each’d inspired. You’ll hear the horror-death and thrashing ramble of those sounds on their first demo (‘Howl From the Grave‘, 2022) and direct lineage to its punkish, ‘Clandestine‘-esque morph per their debut album (‘Horrid Resurrection‘, 2023). Though it’d make sense to praise the variety and quality of performance on that first album its real boon was its riffcraft, not only with regard to their approach to the Swedish/U.S. death inspired realms but a broader reflection of their love for the thrashing simplicity of early underground death metal and its doomed variants beyond.

Naturally a spat of touring, an ethos upheld, and temporal gains in rehearsal made for stronger material as their follow-up EP (‘Burial Ground‘, 2025) carried in a louder dose of thrashing Floridian death metal mania. Still bearing their grinding, horrified edge (re: “Nederlag”) it was their best material to date and an ideal promo to get the juices flowing toward what they’d get up to next. ‘Revelations of Gore‘ is more-or-less a direct analogue for what that EP’d promised a year ago but it also manages to be a concept album, or, at least one bearing a horror inspired narrative within its lyrics and imagery: A dying man makes a Faustian deal at the eleventh hour, compelled by an unknown force to commit grisly murders in order to ensure his own immortality. Horrifier‘s (assumed) intent here is to convey each step taken towards morbid insanity per their crusty old school death atmosphere and general strafing between death, doom and grinding mania.

Opener “Compelled to Slaughter” recalls the early 2010’s era of ‘old school’ death metal revivalism with shades of Verminous‘ wrathful accost and the structured classicism of stuff like ‘Summoning Black Gods‘ pushed to a modest technical consistency. Horrifier‘s whole gig is all right there in that song where the rawly grinding early 80’s death push off the rip hunts down a slower doom-lead refrain for the solo before exploring both escalation/extension of the main riff’s simple groove. This is more of an introductory array, a show opener, than a truly memorable song by my measure but I’d appreciated how they’d kicked the listener right into the macabre act at hand with a simpler composition, propping up the next two pieces to stun. Again I think these folks’ whole dynamic hits hardest when they veer into Autopsy-esque death/doom metal territory in general but the balancing of this on “Human Butchery” (b/w the rocking edge of “The Ingestion“) is particularly ideal, not only in terms of the riff but the sinister tone achieved within their execution. The standard is basically set there and the whole album follows.

The two major standouts on ‘Revelations of Gore‘ for my own taste come a little bit later, first with Side A closer “Rejoice, Children of the Flesh” and “Morbid Lust” over on Side B. The former develops the horror of its subject with characteristic patience, using the same general modes found on the album opener but developing a narrative with that vernacular, even resorting to a spoken break in its middle to illustrate the dementia at hand. The latter piece (“Morbid Lust”) is otherwise one of the finer threads of riff on the album and features some of the better quick-change drumming on the album with its skronking ‘Severed Survival‘ kicked movement (see also: “Blood for Ascension”.) Knowing when/how to interrupt themselves and transition away to an even better idea sets Horrifier as notably above-average in their study of ‘old school’ death metal dynamism, a feature many comparable bands miss out on per a sheer lack of ideas.

Horrifier were already an above-average troupe on their debut album, a showing from strong performers with a decent ear for the standards of old from a newfangled perspective. All of those same traits and tendencies are deployed and exploited here on album number two but it seems carrying a theme through their work has given their efforts much needed directive, a landscape of horror and mayhem to invoke from song to song. It makes for a superior thread, a rotten ‘old school’ death metal trip to follow front to back without any too-serious dips in quality, nothing out of place yet nothing so rote that it blurs past without meaning. I’ve no doubt they’ve got an even better album in ’em down the road but for a sophomore LP it raises the bar on morbid, horrified death metal to an ecstatic result. A high recommendation.

---