Review: Scorched – Ecliptic Butchery

September 10, 2018

5939

Ignorance is bliss.

According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary (one of those things that tells you what all the garbage you say means) the definition of “ignorant” as of the start of 2018 is this:

1a : destitute of knowledge or education

b : resulting from or showing lack of knowledge or intelligence

2: unaware, uninformed

Delightful! Informative! Yet, soon to be tossed into world’s greater bin of obsolescence. I propose that, starting immediately, we toss the current definition and simply replace it with this:

Why yes, that is the latest release from demented Delaware death, uh, desperados, Scorched, and as you may have guessed they are absolutely not fucking around on it.

Their debut LP, 2016’s Echoes of Dismemberment, was a fun gore soaked, stompy throwback that seemingly got lost in a sea of insane death metal releases (seriously, 2016 was nuts). Fast forward to 2018 and the amount of great releases remain insane, but Scorched are now poised to fight each and every one of them head on for your time and affection with their latest, Ecliptic Butchery. Everything from Echoes is here but tightened up, tuned up, amped up, ramped up and generally just upgraded in every conceivable way. The album art should be the first dead giveaway that this album is an all around improvement upon their debut, itself evoking the same retro drive in sleaze cinema feel but in a much cleaner, visually legible, and more memorable manner.

As alluded to, this sense of growth and improvement carries over to the music on the album itself. The songs present on Ecliptic Butchery are varied, wonderfully paced and brutally heavy in a way that makes Echoes feel like a warm up for the horror to come. Tracks like “Disfiguring Operations” perfectly display this varied and unrelenting heft, quickly shifting from a slow and steady fretboard scaling riff to a skull caving chug, all topped by some of the most absurdly gross and over the top vocals in death metal today. That’s not even to mention the Slayer-esque whammy madness solos, breakdowns or clean (!!) sections found in the likes of “Mortuary of Nightmares,” or the tripped-up, reverb intense intro, harmonies and unexpected bass break of “Barbarous Experimentation,” (this bear’s personal favorite track on the album).

It all adds up to a much more memorable, crushing, fun, and absolutely ignorant listen than anything the band have put out to date. If you fancy yourself a fan of any type of death metal, but especially the newer wave that has dominated the past few years, Scorched have fully arrived to lay claim to their place among death metal’s new elites…and your heart.

I award Ecliptic Butchery one “Greatest Promo Pic of All Time” Award”