Meathook Seed
Embedded

A good first album. Beautiful as a "debut."

There was all the hope that then... it would end like this, and yet in 1999, with a disrupted line-up, a full 6 years after this "Embedded," a second work was released that adds nothing and leads to the dissolution of the band.

But let's go in order. Meathook Seed is a side-project of Mitch Harris, guitarist of Napalm Death, aided by the always excellent (even today) drummer Donald Tardy and guitarist Trevor Peres, both from Obituary, although the latter leaves the six strings to tackle the microphone.

The result is a little gem, an album light years away from the frantic and frightening rhythms of Napalm Death and the classic Death Metal offered by Obituary, but that offers suffocating and oppressive sounds that carve a path between electronics and a dark industrial.

The effects and distortions permeate many songs on the album, both musically and vocally, so much so that they almost manage to transform Trevor into a full-fledged singer. Almost, eh...

The opener Famine Sector is one of the best tracks on the album, along with the paced "Forgive," "Day Of Conceiving" with its chorus trapped in a whirlwind of noise, and the paranoid "Cling To An Image". There are some fillers like the anonymous "A Wilted Remnant" or the instrumental title-track, but in general, the album flows pleasurably... well, 'mournfully,' there you go.

The beautiful "Sea Of Tranquillity" closes the album, a sonic magma of samples (chosen by Shane Embury, another Napalm Death member, and one Steve Guney—if someone tells me who he is, we'd rather be), sighs, drum-machine and guitars trapped in dark distortions, with an apocalyptic finale where the percussion leaves room only for a background organ.

What can I say, Mitch then wanted to overdo it, but the word 'end' (Nailbomb is a case in point) was, in my opinion, necessary after "Embedded".