Autopsy Continue as Kings of Death Metal on "Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts"

It’s not hard to love Autopsy more with every passing year. Even outside of a classic run that competes with ease with the rest of the genre and some of the finest live performances in death metal, Autopsy have something that very few other classic bands do: a catalog of modern albums actually worth buying and listening to. Since their return in 2009 they’ve been showing an entire new generation of fans how it’s done, and the last few releases in particular (starting, in my opinion, with 2015’s excellent Skull Grinder) have been exceptional. 

Given the way that I am talking about Autopsy’s recent output it probably will not surprise anyone to hear that I think their newest album, Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts, also fucking rules. Sorry for the spoiler–maybe I should have couched that in a few paragraphs of flowery language first for the delicate amongst our reader base that like a little foreplay before getting into strong declarations of quality? That’s not Autopsy, though, and it never has been. Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts is not a delicate album. Right from the start with the opener “Rabid Funeral,” they make that clear. Autopsy is not in it for long build ups leading epic sections of ever-escalating melody, or long verses of flowery lyrics. It’s been decades since Autopsy started demoing out songs like “Mauled to Death” but their dedication to gross sickness is as strong as ever: we’re still getting ripping, fat riffs going back to back with sections of thrash beats, catchy choruses in singer/drummer Chris Reifert’s signature howls about pulling people apart, and deviations into groovy doom metal here. 

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Those sections of doom metal are really a signature of the Autopsy sound and something that I feel isn’t talked about enough. It’s no mistake that at Mass Destruction in Atlanta last month, various members of Autopsy could be seen rushing the Pagan Altar merch booth or going hard during the Legions of Doom set. These guys are genuine doom metal fans in a way that most metal bands called “death/doom” aren’t, and the dynamic between genuinely Sabbath-y sections and the more destructive thrash-rooted ones is something that not only adds a lot of catchiness and memorability to Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts but that makes it stand out amongst a sea of younger bands trying and failing to knock off Autopsy’s sound because that special ingredient is missing, and because Autopsy know that being death metal freaks isn’t enough: there’s more out there, and including it is what has always made Autopsy so great.

Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts is perhaps the slowest Autopsy record in years, which is why I’m making such a big deal about the doom metal that makes up such a big part of the record. Morbidity Triumphant certainly had plenty of doom to it, but most of it was less mid-paced than even the faster songs on Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts are, and the EP prior to it, Puncturing the Grotesque, almost felt like an entire release of Autopsy paying tribute to Motörhead because of the speed and rockingness that suffused it; Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts really only has "Throatsaw" as a callback to the sort of speed and punk influence present in the earliest years of the band, and even the shorter and faster songs on the album other than it tend to have long doom sections or stay pretty mid-paced. It makes for a nice offset from the other modern Autopsy albums: even where their classic dynamic shifts of slow to fast to slow are present (see: “Lobotomizing Gods” or especially “Death Is The Answer”) they’re mostly sandwiched between slow songs, and there are perhaps more slow songs back-to-back than there have ever been. 

As usual, the actual performances of each member are fantastic, and as with other recent albums the production is fantastic. Adam Munoz has been engineering for Autopsy since the beginning of the reunion and was doing all of the engineering for Abscess for years before that, and it’s clear that he has the Autopsy sound completely and totally nailed down. With such a strong album that, quibbles about relative tempo or quality aside, really does sound like “just” more killer Autopsy material it’s ultimately easy to laud Autopsy’s back catalog and talk about this being more of the same–but it’d be a disservice to assume it’s business as usual. 

Autopsy's core has been the same all these years, with Reifert on drums and vocals and with Eric Cutler and Danny Coralles on guitars, but there’s been an addition that seems to be really invigorating the band–namely, Greg Wilkinson joining up on bass guitar. After eight years with very little new material, we suddenly have two albums in subsequent years, both of them some of their best material since the 1990s… and maybe even better than some of the classic material, heresy as it is to say. Whether or not that’s Wilkinson’s doing is a question for the band and not for me but whatever’s going on, I am absolutely here for it–and you should be, too. 

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Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts is out now via Peaceville Records.