Mutilatred’s 2017 split with From The Hellmouth wasn’t much of our VM-Underground’s chief editor’s liking, it was too much slam, groove and overall modernities for Ricardos taste. Knowing him for about two decades now, I can imagine him not being all too fond with the offering of these Americans. But, we are now a few years on and the band has not been idle in the meantime, so who knows what they might come up with next…
In fact, the band hasn’t changed much in musical direction, though it all sounds a bit slicker and has taken on a more heavy and clunky sound. The band still hovers on two thoughts, on the one hand I clearly recognise Ricardo’s objections (which I find less insurmountable, by the way), there are quite a few groovy pieces and the vocals sound more modern than Nunslaughter’s (to stay in Ricardo’s terms). However, it is also not entirely free of classic Death Metal influences either. It would not surprise me if Mutilatred might be considered too modern by fans of Old School Death Metal and not brutal and slam enough and with way too few breakdowns for aficionados of Brutal/Slam Death Metal or even Deathcore. This basically puts the band in the same boat as bands like Skinless or Broken Hope, although Mutilatred certainly doesn’t have the qualities of those two genre giants either. Still, it can’t be wrong for fans of both Skinless and Broken Hope as well as devotees of Severe Torture, Mortician, Vomit Remnants and Devourment (to name a few) to give Mutilatred a fair chance.
