Review: Human Infection – Gravesight
Might have an infection because this album is SICK!
You ever wonder how much great music has been lost throughout history? Let’s face it. It’s always been hard to break through in the music world. I’d bet anything Mozart had a ton of talented contemporaries that time has simply forgotten. The same thing is true of your favorite local band. You know they were special, but the bass player got his girlfriend pregnant, the singer had to take over the family business, and the guitarist and drummer got too strung out on dope to ever record an album. Circumstances are a bitch. Crazy to think the world has evolved to make it easier and more affordable to produce music than ever before, yet getting discovered is still an overwhelming task. Even if all the stars align, you can simply get lost in a sea of over-saturation. Fuck anyone who says there’s no good metal these days (lord knows I’m guilty of this). Now there’s just too much of a good thing. It’s pretty hard to sift through all the new music that comes out, and damn near impossible to hear everything you want in what little spare time most of us have. Good thing for you, your old pal Bobby GK Esq. is here to cut through the clutter. I bring forth a true ripper for your earholes! An album so good you’ll want to visit the rest of the band’s back catalog. I can only hope you have time to listen before some kind of Human Infection leads you to your Gravesight. 😉
Now before you accuse me of having written an introduction irrelevant to the source material, I should point out that this record is actually a remaster. The original dropped back in 2019 and I completely missed it. I am a huge fan, and this album still almost passed me by. Fortunately, Horror Pain Gore Death Productions has resurrected this bad boy and is giving it a second life. I won’t pretend any metal label is popular outside of our own niche community, but it never hurts to have someone else take care of the promotion and distribution. I think you’ll agree, Human Infection deserves a wider audience. Here they present a greasy, grimy, blood-soaked death metal adventure, and it only gets better with repeat listens.
Since this is technically a re-release, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you to check out the original from 2019. I only recommend that to illustrate just how good this remaster is. Apparently the guitarist, Jeremiah Tuck, is responsible for the new sound and he absolutely killed it in my opinion. It’s bigger. It’s fuller. Every instrument seems to have more punch. The original isn’t bad at all, but now there’s a distinctive clarity. It’s a tricky business to produce metal records using modern techniques—One false move and the whole album sounds robotic. That’s definitely not the case here. The guitar tones are massive. Nothing is buried in the mix. The vocals cut through and add a distinct Cannibal Corpse feel. The drums are just going to work the entire time. There’s a lot of technical playing happening, but it’s never overwhelming or hard to follow. It’s one of the album’s greatest strengths in my opinion. The complex song structures feel entirely natural. It all just flows.
Before I finish singing their praises, I also want to point out the musicality presented here. Death metal is a genre where “noodling” on a guitar is often misrepresented as riff writing. Human Infection never even approaches that kind of nonsense. The guitar work is intricate, but not in a “look what I can do” way. If I had to describe it, I’d say it was catchy. Even the guitar solos are like that. The drums support everything with proper cymbal accents and fills. No need to show off. The level of playing is just constantly top notch. I also want to shout out the vocals (no pun intended). I can actually understand a decent amount of the lyrics without needing to look them up. It doesn’t hurt that the singer seems to know precisely when to back off. He lets the music breathe, which I think is pretty important. There’s some serious impact when he takes his breaks, and even more impact when he growls his way back into the mix. The whole record seethes with an evil energy, creating an atmosphere best compared to a horror movie. Rated R for RAD AS FUCK!
5/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell
Get this shit NOW! Gravesight released May 3, 2024 through HPGD.
