Lately, I have been mostly impressed by Death Metal bands from the more technical or avant-garde range, not because that is more in line with my personal taste, but just for the simple fact that the Old School Death Metal bands seemed to have less to offer these days. Where the technical or more adventurous bands obviously have more leeway, that of the Old Schoolers is only very limited and they lose out to bands like Altars, VoidCeremony, Tomb Mold or Miscreance. But then, thankfully, there are bands like this Finnish Guts…
Like the band name, the title is simple but powerful. Both speak volumes about what the band stands for. This five-piece, hailing from Turku, certainly know their craft in writing devastatingly heavy riffs, which roll over you in mid-tempo like a steamroller on his lunch break. The overall sound is as equally crushing, making ‘Decay’ a genuinely overwhelming experience. The album plods on in an almost stoic monotonous tempo, unleashing riff after riff and spice things up with deep guttural vocals in the non-cavernous way. Basically, Guts takes the best of bands like Unleashed, (old) Six Feet Under, Nembrionic, Jungle Rot and Slugathor in what feels like a riff-based sort of Old School clinic.
Nope, you might have guessed it already, but Guts will not serve you with anything that can remotely be labelled as original or ground breaking, but where a lot of their contemporaries and peers only seem to deliver snoozer after snoozer, Guts prove to be talented riff masters. But that is not the only thing these guys prove, at the same time they also make it clear that the somewhat simpler Death Metal kind does not have to be boring and with a fat riff and a roaring groove, great success can still be achieved.
