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Decrepit Birth's debut kicked my arse good and proper back in 2003, with their charged 'tight as a nun's a-hole' brutality smacking me in the teeth like a 'Fist of the North Star' head exploding punch. It's been a long time in coming what with line-up changes and all sorts of other crazy shit going on in their ranks, but their sophomore album has finally arrived.

Initially hearing tracks released on the bands MySpace page, I was surprised to hear just how melody-laced they were. Though upon listening to the album all the way through, it now makes perfect sense. This is what an album created by the amalgamation of Suffocation and Chuck Schuldiner would've sounded like if they accidentally got spliced together in the transporter machine from 'The Fly'. Imaging Death's Symbolic on a rage-induced warp spasm out on a killing spree — this album would be the soundtrack. Though the added melodic edge, dual guitar progressions and clear production was a brave step for the band, it seems to have paid off. Immolating the timid and the mild with a firewall of unfettered technicality and crushing Death Metal just wasn't enough for them on their debut, they now have forced out riffs that would make any extreme metaller with half a working eardrum sit up and listen. Similar in a way to how the extra diversity in Deicide's sound suddenly made them fresh again after the addition of two new guitarists for The Stench of Redemption, the line-up changes have worked in Decrepit Birth's favor without changing the nucleus of the bands sound too drastically. The new members have undoubtedly pushed the core team of Bill Robinson and Matt Sotelo to the very peak of their abilities, adding in subtle (and occasionally, not so subtle) melodies that don't tarnish the overall feeling of being caught in a nuclear wind of guitar histrionics, bass explosions and technical drum storms. Similarly to the debut Brain Drill album I reviewed a few weeks back, this may still seem like three quarters of an hour of melody-flecked white noise to your average cheese metal fan, but it's far from it. Every listen has just gotten better for me so far, and the CD has been firmly wedged into my car stereo ever since.

Just to clarify, with all this talk of excess melody, let me not confuse you into thinking this is some kind of horrifying Nile into Soilwork transformation — they've not changed quite that much. Just to prove it there's even a re-worked version of the track "...And Time Begins" from their debut that's nestled nicely into the album, which I probably wouldn't have noticed if I didn't already know it like the back of my hand. Some tracks are pure Atheist worship, some hark back to the debut, but most settle in between the two. Decrepit Birth have pushed the very boundaries of the Death Metal genre into a new direction of technicality that doesn't forsake song structuring or a keen sense of melody. So, if you can't stand their new melo-brutality, you'd better stay out of the mosh pit lady.