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Rating:
I am truly disgusted and appalled: there isn't a single review of this album among all the pages on the web in Italian (nor of the subsequent “The Erosion Of Sanity,” which I will review as soon as possible). I don't know if this is due to ignorance or the undervaluation of these two works, I only know that it is a true shame. For those who don’t know, Gorguts is a Canadian band that debuted back in 1991 with this album and, like the various Cannibal Corpse or Suffocation, has invented and brought interesting evolutions to Brutal Death Metal. The band revolves around singer-guitarist Luc Lemay, who I could define without fear of being wrong as the Chuck Schuldiner of Brutal: that’s right, this man possesses immense compositional and performance ability which, more than in this work, emerges well in the subsequent ones.
The ten songs that make up this CD are very structured and complex and develop a considerable power: despite the sudden tempo changes that shift from accelerations (never exaggerated) to slowdowns being the first thing you notice, it cannot be said that the rhythmic section is the album's core. Alongside the excellent performance of the drummer, we indeed find stunning and engaging guitar riffs that lead to equally magnificent solos and follow the “melody” of the song: finally, another feature of this album is bass breaks which, besides highlighting the skill of the performer, have influenced many subsequent bands (first of all, the fellow countrymen Cryptopsy). The singer presents a fairly clean growling that brings him even closer to the aforementioned ex-singer of Death, a thing that makes everything more fluid and more easily assimilable. It can't be called a monolithic album as the songs are all perfectly distinguishable from one another and show, with their variety, the great fertility of ideas of these four guys. There are also two instrumental tracks (the intro “…And Then Comes Lividity” and “Waste Of Mortality,” lasting over four minutes). The album also boasts contributions from two “greats” of the genre: James Murphy of Obituary, who gives us a nice solo in “Inoculated Life,” and Chris Barnes of Cannibal Corpse, who duets with Lemay in several songs. The production is entrusted to the ever-present Scott Burns, who, however, avoids the usual hyper-compression work on the sound, filtering the guitars only slightly. The lyrics are, compared to the standards of the genre, “delicate”: while dealing with the usual themes of death, they do so with a certain lightness, not dwelling too much on the macabre details and relegating them (for once) to a clearly marginal role. Knowing both Cryptopsy and Gorguts well, I can say that the former, over their various works, have taken the ideas and insights that the latter published a few years earlier in their releases to the extreme; with this, I do not mean that they copied from the group in question, I simply mean that the fact that Gorguts have influenced and contributed to the development of monsters like Cryptopsy speaks volumes about the quality of their music.
Power, imagination, and skill are the ingredients of “Considered Dead”: ten tracks that flow smoothly and bring the album straight into the “Hall Of Fame” of Death Metal; a must-have, a pride for every self-respecting metalhead.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
03 Disincarnated (04:28)
Have you ever thought
Where your soul will be
When you'll lie to rot
Die physically
Being so fascinated
By those mysteries
I've began some weird
Out of my body
I saw a light
In front of me
It blinked my eyes
Invited me in
Forever will shine
This tremendous light that drives me blind
When I got behind
Control was no longer mine
Meeting those who dies
Those who've been here before I arrived
I should have stayed behind
Only incarnation can now bring me back
To mankind
[Lead: Luc Lemay]
I'm where souls are lost
For eternity
I shall never come back
To reality
04 Considered Dead (03:33)
Back in the fourteenth century
When the world was plagued by horrid diseases
Discovered lifeless bodies were buried
Knowing very little about true symptoms of death
Those who stiffen in the stage of morbidity
Were then considered dead
Autopsies were unknown at that time
Unconsciousness could have been fatal to your life
Catalepsy, from this plague a lot have died
Ignorance sent to the grave people alive
There's no way to save yourself from this calamity
Life will be for you a simple memory
Faint! Now you're paralysed
Catalepsy soon will take your life
Try not to close your eyes
Cause death will be to life a deadly lie
When you're entombed Within your mind you wait and
pray if you could talk The only things that you would say
"I'm still alive...Please!" "I'm still alive...Don't bury me!"
[Lead: Luc Lemay]
What a sad way to end a mortal life
But it's better off buried
Than to be embalmed alive
05 Rottenatomy (04:46)
I've been lost in a jungle
For an hour and fifteen days
Hopelessly searching for exits
In this lethal maze
Footsteps I have taken
Each one driving me insane
Always turning in circles
In this hostile jungle
Having dropped my last piece of food
The most vital thing I never wished to loose
I slipped and found myself in a dark place like hell
At the bottom of a pit where I had fell
Surrounded by a rancid smell
Of corpses that previously fell
Among bones shredded flesh and crawling maggots
Then I knew that I shall stay there to rot
Gashes appearing everywhere
Scars I'm wishing in despair
Before maggots devoured my insides
I'll commit myself to suicide
Above me I heard people talking
Having lost my voice, I was unable to scream
They had a look and saw me lying in my knees
Then went away thinking I was deceased
Below me no one is talking
If you have your voice, just once you're screaming
Have a fast look before falling on your knees
No hope is left when you are deceased
06 Bodily Corrupted (03:41)
While I'm waiting
The rotting process consumes my life
Excruciating suffering
That none can identify
Agonizing game
Drugs can't numb the pain
Death would be for me
A peaceful recovery
Severe amputations
To stop the infection
Morbid auscultation
Livid coloration of my skin
Self deterioration
Organic corruption
Innards explorations
Gives no explanation of my disease
Doctors agree
No recovery
In the morgue, I'll be
left to rest in pieces
[Lead: Luc Lemay]
[Lead: Sylvain Marcoux]
While I'm lying
My coffins cover is closed to eyes
My mangled restful body
No one could identify
08 Drifting Remains (03:44)
When we left the shore
It was a sunny day
Far from the small and quiet bay
Lightning struck the sky
Asleep, we were sailing away
I woke up and realized
We were now the ocean's pray
The sky was darkening
As the rain was falling
The waves were striking
As our boat was wrecking
"God! please protect our lives!"
The storms, just a few had survived
When I looked around me
Boat remains, I had found
Not too far on the sea
My friend's corpse who had drowned
When we left the shore
It was a sunny day
Our nice trip turned to gore
Far from the small and quiet bay
The sun is rising
As the clouds are fading
The waves are settling
As the wreckage is drifting
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