Coffins: The Fleshland

Coffins is one of Japan's heaviest bands and this album—their fourth full-length—has been highly anticipated for a while now. The problem, as fans already know, is that Coffins tends to release a lot of songs here and there as singles or on splits and compilations. With this album, Coffins can finally offer up just over 45 minutes of music. This album also marks the band's debut with Relapse which should help them find a bigger audience. They deserve it; Coffins plays uncompromisingly heavy music and they do so very well. Fans of down-tuned sludge performed at a slow tempo will love it.

My main critique of this album is that, once it gets into the middle tracks, things start to like the same thing done over and over again. I get that these guys are playing in a very specific and distinctive style and that they are staying true to it, but somehow things begin to sound a little stuck. Part of the problem is that the vocals and drums sometimes dominate over the guitars. I can hear the riffs, but they sometimes seem to wash out, to recede too much into the background, making them hard to distinguish from song to song. Some of the guitar solos also sound a little out of place. In "The Colossal Hole," for example, there's a short solo that doesn't seem to know where else to go and stops too abruptly.

These guys have easily mastered low-end sludge and this album offers plenty of good songwriting. In the end, though, it was ultimately too short on ideas and left me wanting more.

Track Listing:
1. Here Comes Perdition
2. Hellbringer
3. The Colossal Hole
4. No Saviour
5. The Vacant Pale Vessel
6. Rotten Disciples
7. Dishuman
8. The Unhallowed Tide
9. Tormentopia

Added: July 11th 2013
Reviewer: Carl Sederholm
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 1969
Language: english

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