REVIEW: Fit For An Autopsy – Hellbound [2013]

HELL

Band: Fit For An Autopsy

Album: Hellbound

Labels: eOne / Goodfight Entertainment

Preview: Still We Destroy

Pre order / iTunes

Humanity as a whole is a horrible being; we systematically destroy all of this planet’s resources and life forms, all in the name of human evolution and progression. Not only do we ruin this planet but also our fellow man, being brainwashed by power, money and religion we commit the most horrible atrocities, either enslaving the masses or killing them in cold blood. We live in a world where cold statistics, meaningless materialism and economics rule above the quality of living and even life itself. These occurences will never cease to be as long as humans exist, the only proper solution is the final war: the great apocalypse that is fueled by humanity’s own lies and corruption. In the year 2011 New Jersey band Fit For An Autopsy has brought you a slaughtering battlefield with the cataclysmic The Process of Human Extermination that perfectly resembles this apocalypse in audio form. With that release Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death walked the Earth, leaving burning bodies and smoldering ruins in their wake. Now it is the year 2013 and Fit For An Autopsy have returned from the deepest depths of hell to finish the job, the beast of beasts is here: Hellbound.

With two years of extensive touring under their belts Fit For An Autopsy silently prepared for this second coming. Now they stand ready on the battlefield, prepared to sweep all competition and haters from the board once again, this time with a slightly different approach than before. The band draws lots of additional influences to their signature earth-splitting sound, giving the listening experience a well-rounded sense of diversity. Don’t let the seemingly harmless intro that can be heard on The Great Gift of the World fool you for even a second, instead heed them as a warning; the calm before the impending storm. Sure enough, when the intro ends the unrelenting tirades of Nate Johnson blast out of your speakers, the listener will find himself glued to the seat shortly after. Nate his vocals are as good as ever in this release, his suberb, constant demonic bulldozing throughout all the songs have become a signature trait in the metal universe, but never have they sounded as vivid and unforgiving as in Fit For An Autopsy, expect to hear lots of quality screaming in Hellbound. The Lyrics are equally unforgiving, topics that are based around real world problems (and there are PLENTY of those to write about) are portrayed in the most vile, spiteful and angry manner humanly possible. Some songs (like Do You See Him and Dead in the Dirt) have even more negativity in them, with lyrics about Hell itself and senseless, unadulterated loathing for everything and everyone, including the vocalist himself. So for all you die-hard death metal enthusiasts out there who need their music to be constantly pissed and aggressive; not one song on Hellbound is about unicorns, rainbows or clouds with smiley faces, and even if that was the case Fit For An Autopsy would probably find a way to make that sound insanely brutal as well.

Instrumental wise Fit For An Autopsy has ventured to higher grounds with this album, while still holding true to those solid essentials that became the standard for every metal album that followed the release of The Process of Human Extermination. In one corner you have the unrestrained death metal pummeling that drills straight through your face, skull and eardrums (of course), in another corner you have shattering percussions and maniacal blast beats that pulverize their way through every song like an out-of-control freight train, in the third and fourth corner you have dissonant guitar assaults and mixtures of atmospherical, technical and melodic riffing. All of these elements bombard your senses and attack your sanity throughout the album; showing off brilliant, diverse musicianship and thus proving to the haters once and for all that Fit For An Autopsy is anything but another one of those one track run-of-the-mill deathcore clones.

To add even more awesomeness to the brutality Hellbound features some guest vocals, these are not performed by some random douchebags you would find at your local bar either, all four of them are top of their class. I won’t reveal them all to you (that ruins the fun of you finding them on your own) but I will reveal that Vincent Bennett of The Acacia Strain can be heard on Children of the Corn Syrup, because you can’t have a CD that has multiple guest vocalists and not include him (unwritten rule). The other appearances might be somewhat harder to recognize, maybe because Nate’s growling is still echoing through your cranium or because the vocals simply sound too similar, good luck with finding them all.

This is it. The pieces are in place. The stage has been set. You can either love it or you can hate it, whatever the case may be you better be prepared to be blown away faster than dust in a hurricane once you listen to Hellbound. You can crawl in the deepest hole, you can climb the highest mountain, you can hide behind your lies and corruption or you can pray to your god, none of these things will make a difference now. Sooner or later you will have to face the cold, unrelenting reality when you are washed away by this towering tidal wave of total annihilation. There is no escape from the searing animosity and vengeful wrath Fit For An Autopsy generates through their music, all you can do at this point is watch the world you thought you knew so well shatter before your eyes.

With Hellbound Fit For An Autopsy has yet again set the standard of how a full length album should sound like, unless someone invents a genre that is more brutal than metal in the near future this band will continue to do what they do best; making the heaviest fucking music possible!

Rating: 10/10

For fans of: Thy Art is Murder, Molotov Solution, Impending Doom, Whitechapel, Carnifex