California's Warface have put together a real honest to goodness death metal album here-no orchestrations, no atmosphere, no epic arrangements, just plenty of gutteral growls, monstrous guitar riffs, and relentless drum blasts. Taking their cue from some of the early 90's Florida death metal corps like Deicide, Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, as well as Nile, the trio go for the juggular on Insanity of the Obsessed, their debut for Deathquake Records. Nine tracks of grueling mayhem and twisted brutality, featuring the six string talents of perhaps death metal's only true female guitar hero, Laura Christine. She doesn't pretend to dazzle the listener with "faster than the speed of light" riffs and solos (although she can and does on occasion), instead Christine pummels you with a relentless barrage of super heavy riffs and sharp fills. When she does solo, as on songs like "Judgement Defiles", "Climatic Annihilation", and "'Full Term Refuse", look out! She also shreds with the best of them on the crushing mosh pit clinic "Induction". Drummer Scott Ellis (who has since left the band) lays down plenty of furious drum parts, and bassist Dave Smith pulls down the bottom end quite well, although I do think his monotonous death growls are the weak link here. If you are going to tell your tales of death and destruction, a little better job of enunciation would be the key. Many death metal growlers can get their point across and still sound menacing and brutal, but Smith's gutteral warblings just seem way off the mark.
Still, there's plenty of good death metal here, and a very promising start to the career of a band as well as a potential guitar goddess.
Track Listing
1. Judgement Defiles
2. Fatal Inequity
3. Full Term Refuse
4. Insanity of the Obsessed
5. Suppression of Heresy
6. Fragmented Salvation
7. Climatic Annihilation
8. Out of Death
9. Induction
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