Facebreaker

Artist: 
Album Title: 
Dedicated To The Flesh
Release Date: 
Friday, June 28, 2013
Distribution: 
Review Type: 

Swedish outlet Facebreaker was formed at the very end of last millennium. A demonstrational and a promotional recording during the early 2000’s made the band draw attention of Rage Of Achilles, whom the band signed to shortly after. The band recorded a first full length, Bloodred Hell, but because of financial problems at the Rage Of Achilles headquarters, the promotion on that album unfortunately was far beneath acceptance (‘unfortunately’ because of the exceptional high quality). When Pulverised Records showed up, the band could start working on the second album. Dead, Rotten And Hungry became a fact in early 2008. The next year, Facebreaker signed to Cyclone Empire and the re-release of the 2004-debut took place with a decent promotion. During 2009 and 2010 the band recorded the third full length studio album, Infected (for the review, see the Archives-section, update December 21st 2010), followed by intensive touring all over Europe, and last year Facebreaker started working on the fourth one (2012 saw the release of the two-track EP Zombie God, by the way). Dedicated To The Flesh was recorded at several studios (Slowly Rotting, Panic Room and Crypt Of Death), with mastering and mixing taken care of by renowned engineer Plec at the Panic Room Studios (Watain, The Few Against Many, Miseration, Scar Symmetry, TorchBearer).

Dedicated To The Flesh goes on, and this for 99/100, in the vein of the former material, and this idea might please all fans of truly Old School Death Metal. Of course there’s a focus on the Swedish scene (Carnage, Grave, Unleashed, Edge Of Sanity etc.), but as we’re used to, the whole is sort of expanded all over the world, with elements from other European and American bands. In this case I’m referring to masters-of-the-scene like Massacre, God Dethroned, Bolt Thrower, My Darkest Hate, Sinister or Six Feet Under. In this case the ‘fuck originality’-attitude might prevail, because who cares about being renewing when the quality of song writing and performance is way beyond the average. One minor detail, however: the variation. The songs do not differ that much from each other, especially the tempo is strongly focused on mid-speed. Therefor the rhythmic background execution might be less inspirational than before. But it isn’t but a minor element, because in general, again, this Facebreaker-record is top notch!

The recording line-up for the interested ones: vocals done by Roberth Karlsson (Solar Dawn, Scar Symmetry, Zombified, Tormented, Edge Of Sanity, Pan.Thy.Monium and many more), guitars by Mika Lagren (think: Backwardness, Redscream, Blackicide, and last but certainly not least: Grave) and Janne Ivarsson (ex-Fistel, Scypozoa, Kill, The Nasty Flames, No Fucking God etc.), drums by Micke Wassholm (formerly in e.g. The Deadbeats and Ashes) and bass by Jonas Magnusson (ex-Ashes / KCK).

82/100