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I'm not all that familiar with Autopsy. I love their debut Severed Survival, but somehow I just haven't heard the rest of their stuff yet. I do know good music when I hear it, though, and The Tomb Within, the band's hallowed comeback release, is a study in masterful riffing, filth-caked atmosphere and bile-drinking, zombie-pus-infected bloody wounds that will not fail to please. It's not quite perfect, but it's a hell of a lot of fun anyway, and I found it plenty enjoyable.

The guitars are heavy, raw and gritty, churning out unholy riffing with a manic kind of energy. I really think the riffs here are great; they're just so hooky and aggressive and varied. Sometimes they're fast and chunky, sounding like a zombie shoveling dirt through the ground to escape back to the surface, like on the title track and the awesome "Seven Skulls." But on "Mutant Village" we get a slow, doomy dirge that just shows how little restraint this band has – there's no genre-mindedness here at all, just like in the old days. A lot of modern bands have pigeonholed themselves into a more distilled and less entertaining version of the classic sound, not allowing any other influences to really seep in – unless of course they're going for some kind of silly 'avant garde' sound, in which case you can expect the outside influences to be treated like circus exhibits on display, rather than a natural concoction. Autopsy's music on this EP is great because it's got this real earthly, naturalistic heavy metal sound to offer, purely and honestly written.

But I digress. Listen to that title track. Hear how it starts off soft and far away, unassumingly making you turn up the volume to hear it better? Better not lose your focus, lest the coming storm of heaviness destroy your eardrums. I mean man, this is heavy as hell. In three minutes the band conjures up a volleying, mutated slime that shifts through slow and fast sections naturally, spiced up with some seriously old school Mercyful Fate styled leads. The twisted, pained screams of "My Corpse Shall Rise" are intense and visceral, and the song packs some seriously killer hooks. "Seven Skulls" is the best song on here with chaotic, hellish guitar cacophonies that make me feel like I'm descending the river Styx or something. I don't really think the last two songs are as good, but they're not too bad; just not as inspired.

Yeah, this is definitely the sound of a band that knows how to market their music to their fans – they've been gone a long time and are back through a tirade of newfound hype for their early stuff, and so the sound on here is definitely pandering to that demographic. But I don't really see much wrong with that. The band has still composed some pretty damn good material here, with some fine riffing and some lethal energy. Check it out if you loved their old stuff, it just might surprise you.