Warning: there’s gonna be cursing in this review, because an album like this warrants it, so please check your delicate sensibilities at the door.
It’s been quite a while since anything of this ilk has crossed my desk for review, and in preparation I dug out some Morbid Saint and Noia to get me in the right mind frame. With the addition of a bleak-as-fuck day and the tail end of the stomach flu, it worked. After that, I was prepared for war, or at least one of an aural kind.
The Doomsayer’s Call is the third full-length from Swedes Coldworker. Much like their previous efforts, it’s essentially a fucking frigid slab of twisting, heart-ripping death grind. However, its tunes border the line between filth and calculation effortlessly, roiling with as much dirty recklessness as they do punctuated groove. Thanks to that, the appeal of The Doomsayer’s Call should be wide in the ever-more-genre-riddled death metal world.
You’ve got tracks like opener “A New Era,” which isn’t, thank goat, a lame spoken word or weak instrumental intro, but a sick ‘n’ slow prologue foreshadowing that which is to come. It leads right into the dissonant and disturbing “The Reprobate,” a gnarly tune that cuts with the subtlety and finesse of a rusty, pitted blade. The grind really comes forth and shows itself here, with a Napalm Death influence stabbing through.
Also of note from The Doomsayer’s Call are tracks like the groovy “Flesh World” and its love-it-or-fucking-abhor-it breakdown section; the angular and hate-fueled “Pessimist” and “The Walls of Eryx;” the balls-out grinding madness of “Violent Society;” and the cutely titled technical hymn “Becoming the Stench.” I could continue, but you hopefully get the point.
The Doomsayer’s Call is overall pummeling, yet sharp enough to keep things churning as they should: a solid chunk of viscera, fury and nails being forced down your throat by a jackhammer fist. This is Coldworker’s specialty. Don’t forget your goddamn antacids.
