Imagine: You’re just sitting there, minding your own business. Where is “there”? In my case, it’s my bedroom/office, but I digress. All of a sudden, a vicious hellstorm of death, grind, crust, and thrash comes ripping through, knocking you on your ass. Before you can stop to admire the display of sheer brutality taking place, it’s gone, ready to decimate the next victim. Does this sound like an ideal scenario? Well that’s exactly what happened to me when listening to Galvanizer’s Prying Sight of Imperception.
The dictionary definition of “galvanizer” is to “shock or excite someone into taking action”. Taking that into account, I can’t think of a more appropriately named band. Imperception “shocked” me with its steadfast authenticity and “excited” me with enough riffs to feed a small nation. From beginning to end, I found myself headbanging and wearing a cringe of approval. You’d have to be dead not to yourself, or maybe you just have a poor taste in death metal. After all, Gatecreeper and Full of Hell’s legions seem to be growing by the day.
The first half of Imperception is firmly rooted in old school viscera drenched death metal. Think back to the g(l)ory days of early Carcass, Exhumed, and Haemorrhage. Cuts like “Servants of the Scourge”, “The Inexorable”, and “Chthonic Profanation” mix it up with gut wrenching grooves, devastating d-beats, violent mosh sections, and grinding death fury. Somehow, Galvanizer pieces all these elements together and make them work, unleashing one lethal blow after the next. If you close your eyes, you can imagine yourself fighting off a horde of zombies while these songs blare in the background.
As Imperception continues, its focus shifts towards the “grind” side of deathgrind”. The bloodthirst of the album’s first half remains intact, although now the songs have less in common with the aforementioned bands and more in common with early 90s Napalm Death. The riffs and arrangement of “Dia De Muertos” and “Grotesque Devotion” capture the chaotic frenzy heard on such masterpieces as Harmony Corruption (1990) and Utopia Banished (1992). And while I’ve spent a majority of this review fawning over the riffs, that isn’t all guitarist Aleksi Vähämäki has to offer. Throughout the album are ripping, yet well thought out leads reminiscent of early Swedish death metal. This is most evident on the album’s closer, “Of Flesh Unknown”, which ends things on a gloomy, melodic note.
I don’t know what’s in Finland’s water, but this country continues to crank out some of the finest and filthiest death metal ever laid on tape. Whereas so many American death metal bands come off as trite, vapid, and downright unoriginal, Galvanizer go for the jugular with no mercy. There’s no trends, no posing, and no bullshit to be found here. Only death.
8 out of 10
Label: Everlasting Spew Records
Genre: Death Metal
For fans of: Carcass, Exhumed, Napalm Death