Time Signature Utter chaos...

Genre: death-thrash

Veterans on the death metal scene Jungle Rot recently released their seventh album Terror Regime, released via the eclectic label Victory Records. Not everything released on that label is stuff that I find interesting, but this album is pretty good.

Rather than going off in an orgy of technical show-off and shreddy madness, which otherwise characterize many death metal bands on the scene these days, Jungle Rot take cues from thrash metal, and, to my ears – although there are definitely many death metal elements on Terror Regime - this album us more of a death-thrash affair than an all out death metal one, with tracks like 'Voice Your Disgust', ' I am Hatred', and 'Ruthless Omnipotence' striking me as all out thrashers, while 'Terror Regime' boldly features a metalcore styled breakdown (teaching us the lesson that metalcore breakdowns, when used with moderation, are pretty cool). Thus, you can expect several thrashy riffs and not that many blastbeats, for instance. And, when Jungle Rot do tilt over into death metal territory, it is exclusively old school death metal akin to Obituary and the dirty death metal associated with the Stockholm scene of the 90s.

What is more, several tracks on the album are more punky in character, drawing on crossover, hardcore and crust, as is the case of, for instance of the crossover thrasher 'Scorn' and the hardcore track 'I Don't Need Society' (which is of course a D.R.I. classic) and the more crusty 'Pronounced Dead'.

The production is pretty well-defined and professional for an old school death metal release, what with the preference for lo-fi productions that is otherwise preferred. And the album as a whole is, I think, pretty enjoyable. It has raw punky energy, thrashy aggression and the brutality of death metal.

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)