Worship Metal Album Of The Week – All Consumed – Stain Of Humanity

Uk death metal – forever sidelined in favour of America’s output – has always had a certain sound, or the Bolt Thrower effect as we like to refer to it. That grinding, mid-paced bludgeoning interspersed with thrashed-up bursts of speed perfected by Karl Willetts and co. and also delivered with such panache by underground legends such as Benediction, Cancer and Warlord. Fundamentally, it’s a sound indescribably British in nature and it’s fuckin’ awesome, right?!

All Consumed, as you’ve probably already guessed, tread a similar path with riffs that are never overly technical. Instead, this grooving colossus revels in old-school death metal’s penchant for ground-shaking power and macabre atmosphere, with All Consumed’s brand of molasses-thick riffing supplying a suffocatingly swampy barrage of insanely heavy sounds and catchy as fuck phrasing. A conventional use of song structure is satisfyingly evident (All Consumed couldn’t give two shits about modern death metal’s obsession with showboating technicality) and it’s left to their overall aggression and effective songwriting prowess to leave their indelible stain on humanity.

“A Price Forced And Paid” – with its thrash rhythms that recall the aforementioned Warlord – is a highlight, grinding its way into your guts in the way death metal used to do. Here’s a band that instinctively understands that death metal works best when appealing to your base instincts, tapping into that part of your brain that responds to primitive head-banging commands! Frankly, they make this shit look like child’s play.

It’s worth noting that when frontman Rob Durrant recently departed, All Consumed quickly bounced back with a new throat – in the formidable shape of Mike Tingle – a man who favours a more guttural drawl, purpose built for the kind of death metal All Consumed peddle. He’s a good fit indeed!

If the likes of Cannibal Corpse’s Gallery Of Suicide, Broken Hope’s Swamped In Gore, Warlord’s Maximum Carnage and Benediction’s The Grand Leveller tickle your death metal fancy then All Consumed should now be considered mandatory listening. These guys have very quickly left a permanent mark on the UK’s death metal landscape and Stain Of Humanity is a must-hear release. A definite force to be reckoned with! 8/10