(We’re nearing the end of a long string of reviews DGR prepared in advance of his travels to Seattle for Northwest Terror Fest, and in this one he talks about a new album by the Japanese band Kruelty that was released in March by Profound Lore Records.)

At some point we’re going to have to come up with some sort of clever portmanteau to describe the level of ‘stupid’ that takes place within the scraping-hands-on-ground style of music that is working its way through the current death metal scene, and is especially present on the latest album Untopia from Japan’s Kruelty.

The best we’ve come up with so far is ‘Ridicudumb’ but it feels like three syllables too many for the type of low-end rumbling, brain-turned-to-jelly style of music that is happening here. You start to feel a little like Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road, pointing out of the car and declaring ‘that’s bait’ after instantly recognizing the situation around him. So too, can you listen to something like Kruelty‘s Untopia and know near-exactly what the hell it is aspiring to do within the first two minutes as the drums settle in to the solid and consistent groove that forms the backbone of death metal like this.

We’ve been to many a show where the vocalist has proclaimed to the crowd at one point or another that ‘now is your chance to hurt somebody!’. Kruelty’s Untopia is written to be just like that; it is an album that has set out for the sole purpose of hurting somebody. Continue reading »