We need to talk about the latest slab of German artillery from Casket. German stalwarts Casket have spent over 35 years churning out pure, unadulterated Old School Death Metal. If your neck still aches from headbanging to mid-90s Cancer, Asphyx, or Vomitory, you know exactly the kind of blunt-force trauma this veteran trio delivers.
I certainly don’t need to introduce this band to any of you. Schorsch, Susi Z, and Marinko have been operating as a unified death machine since 1990, refusing to bend to trends, hypes, or dress their sound up in modern gloss. Their seventh full-length, ‘In The Long Run We Are All Dead’, just dropped via Neckbreaker Records, and let me tell you, it’s a near 45-minute masterclass in how to crush skulls without overthinking it.
From the moment the record kicks into gear, the production immediately grabs you by the throat. It is robust and thick, boasting a massive low-end where Susi’s bass actually punches right through the mix instead of just hiding in the shadows of the guitars. Schorsch’s guitar tone is pure filth; downtuned, chunky, and dripping with that subterranean 90s grit. His vocal delivery isn’t your standard modern pig-squeal or cavernous gurgle; it’s a deep, rhythmic, grinding bark that operates almost like a secondary percussion instrument. He hammers down on the riffs, giving the entire album a relentless, militaristic weight.
You can hear this perfectly on the opener, ‘The Will To Comply’. The band bypasses any spooky cinematic intros and dives straight into a barrage of dissonant tremolo picking and filthy mid-tempo palm-mutes. There’s a remarkably measured, deliberate pacing to Marinko’s drumming here. Instead of relying purely on unhinged blast beats, he utilizes clinical double-kick rolls and lock-step grooves that push the tracks forward like a steamroller. Later on, ‘Hammer, Knife, Spade’ flexes razor-sharp staccato riffs that eventually break down into massive, doom-laden grooves guaranteed to have the whole room nodding in unison.
If I have one minor constructive gripe with ‘In The Long Run We Are All Dead’, it’s that this same clinical precision can sometimes strip away the chaotic, loose danger that makes early Death Metal so thrilling. The tempos are so tightly controlled and the structures so rigid that by the time you hit the back half of the record, the relentless, mid-tempo chugging can feel just a bit claustrophobic. You might find yourself wishing they would occasionally go off the rails, add some swing, and just let the wheels fall off entirely.
But honestly, that strict control is also the primary source of the album’s suffocating heaviness. They aren’t trying to wow you with technical noodling; they are trying to grind you down through sheer, inescapable repetition and honest songwriting. It’s a stubborn, grounded, and brutally effective piece of Old School Death Metal that proves some graves are better left completely unearthed. Buy the wax, spin it loud, and let the riffs do the talking.
