Review: Exhumed – Red Asphalt
Exhumed‘s latest 10-track-pile-up burns rubber and drives recklessly. For fans of David Cronenberg’s Crash.
The American mind holds many (idiotic) beliefs, but one of the most prominent of them is central to how our most vital cities are constructed: public transit is for pussies. Yes, our most beautiful braindead of nations loves driving Ford F-150 suburban tanks and Chevy pedestrian killers almost as much as we hate frilly European concepts such as “walkable cities,” “sustainable and safe transportation,” and “not dying at the hands of God’s drunkest driver.” This adoration comes with costs, ranging from mundane hours spent in traffic to closed casket funerals, yet the allure of the automobile is as American as state surveillance, unchecked cruelty, and the humble McDonald’s breakfast combo. This fascination with the car extends to the destructive spectacle of the car crash. Most complain about the rubberneckers of the road, causing even more highway danger by gawking at piles of scrap and anguish, until they are the entranced observers of gruesome collisions themselves.
Exhumed have spent their whole career making music that stands as a testament to human interest in death and gore, beginning as one of the strongest and most successful offspring of early Carcass. Their debut, Gore Metal, and sophomore LP, Slaughtercult, both stand tall as goregrind-influenced classics (even if they aren’t pure goregrind like Regurgitate and Pathologist). After the reunion in 2010, the group has been consistently dropping a new album of splatter-themed death-first-deathgrind every couple years, resulting in a late career highlight with the 80s-slasher-themed Horror and a steady stream of quality rippers (To The Dead, Death Revenge, All Guts, No Glory, etc.). Yet, 4 years since their last full-length, Exhumed return with Red Asphalt, sounding more hungry (for viscera) than they have since the 00s. This time, their obsession with pulpy violence is focused in on the most overlooked, yet extremely common, venue of carnage: the road.
Considering the amount of grume-first metal that has and will forever be released, it’s surprising that Exhumed are one of the first groups (I can think of) to tackle the genre from this conceptual angle, seemingly proving that they still have a level of inspired creativity that festival-filler-goregrind-youngins can’t quite attest to. This spirit of ingenuity can be heard in the lead single for Red Asphalt, “Unsafe At Any Speed.” This bombastic cut emanates vigor in its performances and sees the group bringing back the Carcass and General Surgery-adjacent influences of their early career while still maintaining the melodic focus from their pre-Death Revenge period. The hook of this single is effortlessly catchy, which is a rarity in a genre this focused on brutality and speed. Follow up single, “Shovelhead,” is on the slower side, honing in on mid-paced death metal grooves that, surprisingly, show more energy than previous attempts at this style in their back catalogue.
As for the whole of Red Asphalt, it regularly walks this line between slower death and speedier grind portions, all the while doused in blood and trudging through scrapyard wreckage. There’s a distinct forcefulness to this album that makes Exhumed sound rejuvenated and as vicious as ever. Much of their back catalog seems to have prepared the band for this moment, as this full-length is able to balance the various sounds and styles the group has played within the past better than most of their other post-reunion releases. “The Iron Graveyard” and “Death On Four Wheels” both exemplify this, shifting gears from breakneck speed to heart-pumping collisions. Other moments, like “Symphorophilia,” take off at a whiplash-inducing pace that’s as exhilarating as watching Dale Earnhardt crash into the side of Satan’s very own hot rod.
As one can expect, Exhumed’s trademark splatter-lyricism is as debauched and humorous as ever. “The Iron Graveyard” details a strange character who steals bodies and car parts to create vile tributes to careless drivers, whereas “Shock Trauma” details the final thoughts of a man on his last booze cruise and the previously detailed lead single revolves around a vehicular serial killer straight out of a Carmageddon game. The various tongue-in-cheeks tales of automobile terror are cartoonish and tactless, sure, but carry a unique charm for a lyrical topic that’s done to (literal) death.
Clearly, the inspiration point of motorized mayhem has lit a fire under the asses of Exhumed, whose newest release is their greatest and most gratifying full-length since 2000’s Slaughtercult. It’s a beautifully depraved return to goregrind flavorings that maintain the songwriting lessons and ideas of their long history—resulting in an album that’s about as nuanced as you are going to get from a band this lowbrow. So, strap in and pray to God that your air bag is working when you listen to Red Asphalt—you’ll need it.
4/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell
Red Asphalt releases February 20 through Relapse Records.
