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Repulsive Dissection - Cut Open the Aberration

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You haven’t heard of Repulsive Dissection. But now you have, and you’re going to remember it.

I didn’t hear of Repulsive Dissection until late last year. The reason was simple: they weren’t in my inbox. I don’t have enough time to hear all the music that publicists and bands send me — at any given time, I’m over 100 albums behind — so I rarely explore music on my own anymore. I just don’t have time.

Every so often, though, I freak out and waste a few hours looking for music on my own. Usually it’s music of other genres, because, well, there’s a world out there. But sometimes it’s metal. Late last year I spent a few days obsessing over Sevared Records. This was exciting, because the experience was so unlike my usual publicist-MySpace-YouTube routine.

Sevared Records is one guy. Its website looks stuck in the ’90s, and its music is B-grade at best. OK, it’s mostly C-grade: ham-fisted, brutal death metal with some seriously offensive cover art (NSFW). This stuff makes Cannibal Corpse look like Jewel. I don’t like the offensive cover art — it seems to come from 12 year-olds raised on Saw movies — but I do like that it’s offensive. Metal has pushed so many boundaries that hardly anything is shocking now. Sevared is sort of the last frontier in offensiveness.

But while I was gleefully discovering gems like Viral Load (hee!), Decrepidemic (haw!), and Vulvectomy (how does that even work?), I discovered a band with actual musical value. The band wasn’t offensive. In fact, it was quite smart. Its music was complex but not self-indulgent. Its artwork was haunting yet cute. (See above.) And it used the word “calumniation” in a song title. I was smitten.

[audio: REPULSIVEDISSECTION_UC.mp3]

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That band was Repulsive Dissection. By all rights, they should not work. The members live in four different countries (Ukraine, Sweden, Japan, UK). They wrote Cut Open the Aberration (Sevared, 2009) by email. But, amazingly, Repulsive Dissection sound more like a band than most bands I’ve heard. They have that raw energy that modern production sucks out of recordings nowadays.

They also have serious writing skills. Cut Open the Aberration has cumulatively soundtracked days of my life. Even after countless listens, it still gives me the thrill of when I first discovered death metal. In name, it’s “brutal technical death metal”. In practice, it’s like Necroticism-era Carcass, complete with old-school, scratchy, gnawing production, but with Unique Leader-grade chops. Combining low growls and psychotic screeches, the vocals recall the first Deicide record — not a comparison I toss around lightly.

But, really, never mind all those comparisons. The problem with death metal in recent years is that it’s gotten so formatted. Technical, melodic, old-school, -core — these are neat, little boxes, and death metal should not be about neat, little boxes. It should sound like something is wrong with the world. And Repulsive Dissection do. Jagged riffs swarm like locusts, and solos flare up with dramatic entrances before descending/ascending into chaos. The effect is like going downstairs into a dark basement, turning on the light, and discovering that the basement has turned into a nest for some horrible creature.

[audio: REPULSIVEDISSECTION_MS.mp3]

Repulsive Dissection are indeed repulsive, in the best possible way. And, miracle of miracles, they’re getting together to make their live debut — at the Dead Haggis Death Fest, August 28 in London. If I had unlimited money, I’d book a flight in a heartbeat.

— Cosmo Lee

Amazon (MP3)
Amazon (CD)
Sevared (CD)
eMusic (MP3)
Metalhit (MP3, $4.99)
Hells Headbangers (CD)
Amie St. (MP3, currently below $2)