Flesher - Tales of Grotesque Demise

Flesher – Tales of Grotesque Demise
Release Date: 15th September 2023
Label: Redefining Darkness Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Old School Death Metal.
FFO: Cannibal Corpse, Torture Rack, Jungle Rot, Morbid Angel, Suffocation.
Review By: Mark Young

Sometimes you will love an album based purely on the tone of the guitar. This has been a defining factor in some of the music I love. Anthrax’s Persistence of Time has (for me) a unique dark tone that just made the album better. They never recaptured that sound, and I’m glad they didn’t try. I realise that this is a bit of a meandering start, but stay with me. Flesher’s Tales of Grotesque Demise has a sound that I love. It’s heavy and possesses that ‘thing’ that once I hear it means I will defend that album forever. This is a powerhouse of a release, an absolute beast, and makes September just that little bit better.

Did I mention Ed Repka? No? Artwork by the legend, so there’s that. Here’s the thing, they formed in 2022, released a demo (Murder Sessions) in August of that year, and have returned with this absolute belter.

Enter the Realm with unsettling noise runs into Wisconsin. This song just shows its class in the first 40 seconds with that fast then unrelenting heavy stomp. Everything here is on point – palm muting, drumming and brutal vocals. This just has the right balance of a melody line, just enough to sweeten the battering, and then into Scroll of Thoth, it gives you classic Deicide, Cannibal Corpse with a brand-new filter. It’s just great, two songs in, and it’s going to have to suffer a catastrophic failure from getting top marks. Students of the form can argue about looking to the past for inspiration and sounding too much like those who have gone before. Not interested when the songs are of this strength. Creature Beast hits like Corpsegrinder, it has a groove to it that doesn’t detract from the heavy stomp, and The Gates pulls in some triplets whilst just pulverising with a locked-in rhythm. Super tight, it just runs over you.

Curse is full-on drums with mid-pace that concentrates on crushing and will be a live classic with No Escape bringing the down pick-or-die mentality into play, leading to a monstrous slow-down that will lead to carnage and a visit to accident and emergency. In Suffering ups the ante for the final one-two. Mighty riffs on display, double bass = chef’s kiss. And then they bring out the final song, Flesher (Will Kill You) which has one of those class swinging riffs, pitched perfectly and supremely heavy. Then they pull out the rug and change the attack to a middle section that has these chord stabs whilst ramping up the speed. The song fades as distorted voices talk over the diminishing music and a horror scene starts to play out as the riff returns and bang! Done. It’s just class.

This is a fantastic effort from the Indianapolis three-piece, and reading back, it feels like a short review. All told, there aren’t many words you can continually use to say ‘THIS RULES’ when you might as well say it. Fans of Death Metal in general should get all over this because it is another addition to a stellar year of Death Metal releases. If I was being super critical, I could say that balance-wise, they stay within that mid-tempo range of speed. I could also say ‘Don’t be super critical’ because they don’t have to play at light speed. No Escape is a fine example of using that pace to extract a ton of heavy goodness and hammer that song home. Looping back to the start, I mentioned the sound, and how that can instantly put me off an album, no matter who has released it. Flesher has captured a sound that is just so heavy and yet has a ton of clarity to it. It just sounds so good, and the songs back it up.