Album Reviews : Limb From Limb – Rip Him From His Fucking Throne

To put it simply, this album is as brutal as the title suggests. 8 tracks of absolutely brutal death metal that gets more and more powerful as you turn the volume up.

There isn’t a lot of variety on this album, which isn’t really unexpected in this genre. This would probably be less of an issue if the guitars were a bit more prominent, because if you listen carefully there’s some bloody interesting, technical guitar work happening. But unfortunately, it tends to be drowned out by John Sankey’s massive sounding drums. Not that the drumming is an issue, it’s really solid and follows the music really well. The pedals in particular are very powerful and you can feel them go right through you when you turn it up loud, which is definitely a good feeling. But they do hide the guitar work a tad too much at times.

Vocal-wise, the growls are generally just long, guttural growls, with the occasional higher growls. Not bad, they fit in well, but not my type of thing. There are moments when the vocals are shortened and they actually sound like lyrics, rather than just random growls, which I think Brent Waddups should’ve done more often because they sound good.

You don’t really get a break from the brutality here. Other than a couple of relatively short intro’s and outro’s, it’s fast paced and extremely heavy all the way through. Not too much of an issue as it’s only 34 minutes long, but I can’t see it having quite the impact if it was a full length (45-50) minute release.

With song titles like Delimbed by the Minions and Crush All Living Things, similarly styles lyrics, and some great, dark artwork, everything fits together well to give the whole brutal death metal experience. The huge, evil growls, which I’d say are samples from a horror movie, in Delimbed by the Minions sound awesome and really give that song a particularly evil feel.

This is a good album, and I’m confident that the majority of brutal death metal fans will enjoy it, but the (sometimes) hidden guitars let it down a bit. Fixing that, and using the vocal style previously mentioned a bit more would improve it. It’s worth having a listen to, but if you don’t like the first song you hear then there’s not much point trying another one.

I’d just like to add that this release has one of the coolest sounding album titles i’ve heard in a long time, and is worth listening to just because of that. 6.5/10

Band: Limb From Limb
Album: Rip Him From His Fucking Throne
Year: 2007
Genre: Brutal Death Metal
Label: Obsidian Records
Origin: Brisbane, Australia
http://www.myspace.com/brutalozzydeath

Track Listing:
1. Rise of the Rotted
2. Hell Shall Be Thy Name
3. Delimbed by the Minions <- reviewers choice
4. Relentlessly Beheaded
5. A Lust to Burn
6. Crush All Things Living
7. Punish Prophecy
8. Man Shall Abolish