Misantropologi – Undergang

Dark Descent Records – 2017

Another album featuring David Torturdød, this time listed as David Mikkelsen. 2017's been a busy year for the man, and we thank him for it, as the three records he's participated in have been phenomenal !

Undergang is a danish death metal band whose cover art has always been reminiscent of that oldschool, hand-drawn demotape-style art common 20 years ago. David is responsible for most of it, shaping him out to be some kind of twisted artistic genius, only capable of creating the ugliest and most suffocating pieces.While their sound isn't that close to old-school death metal, they do oscillate between an osdm-tinged bouncier style and a more straightforward, brutal-influenced death metal, giving Misantropologi a very fun and almost merry aspect.

Mid-tempo grooves, slower dragging power chords, and drawling tremolo-picked melodies that trail off into the hellscape Undergang's created – Misantropologi, while more fun than a classic death metal album, is still sinister and evil. Some memorable leads help set the tone, such as that of En bedemands bekendelser, with notable Autopsy influence. Full-on chromatic writing and strange arpeggios give Misantropologi an edge over similar caverncore records.

David's vocal performance is impressive – his tone sometimes verges on goregrind-levels of toilet gurgling. The album would be dragged down by any vocals that weren't as sludgy and repugnant as the riffs are, and Torturdød understands this. Variation is out of the question, and while there isn't much to say about purely rythmical vocal lines, David certainly sounds powerful, despite somewhat low mixing.

Speaking of mixing and production, the latter is extraordinarily good for this kind of album – but not overbearingly so. The guitar tone has just enough clarity to feed my ears with delicious riffs, without losing its personality as a muddy vehicle for hatred. As a passing note, it's nice to hear death metal recorded in a mountain cave use clicking bass drums, and actually have it work, albeit not at the same level other modern death metal bands do.

Misantropologi goes from genre to genre – it's a pendulum, but neither apex takes itself seriously, which makes for a goddamn fun album.

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