Funeral Whore - Step Into Damnation

FUNERAL WHORE - Step Into Damnation (CHAOS Records - CD 2012)

“Inhale the violence and smell the gore of the death squad!”

Funeral Whore has popped up several times before I got this debut full length album of theirs. Prior to that I unfortunately missed all the demos of Funeral Whore, but managed to purchase “Two Morbid Ways to Die” split EP with Profanal, which was kinda cool and promised there are two, completely new, but hopeful bands. I guess you know already that it’s yet another band from the current wave of old styled death metal bands and as such it only depends on you, whether you’re in mood for another such band. Personally I never have enough of good music, so once I listened to this Dutch crew I liked their music. Despite its unoriginality…

And this unoriginality of Funeral Whore’s music may be the main problem, which many of you, even myself, might have, when listening to “Step Into Damnation”. The fact is that quite often, more than in some other bands, the music just sounds like the band has cut off the riffs from band X, band Y, band Z and glued them all together into their own songs. This impression comes to my mind quite repeatedly and it erupts especially, when I listen to “El Salvador Death Squad” or “The Bitch Died”. Well, listen to these tracks and tell me if you don’t know some of their riffs already? Whether it sounds like Autopsy, old Death, old Asphyx, Grave, Bolt Thrower or whatever, the resemblances are sometimes just too obvious and the riffs too close to some originals, being on the verge of simple copy. Luckily (for myself and Funeral Whore hehe) this complaint, which I have towards them, do not really disturb me in enjoying the album, as I still tend to listen to “Step Into Damnation” regularly and with a lot of pleasure. I don’t know why really, but it may be due to the fact that I just really like the way Funeral Whore managed to resurrect the old school spirit in their music? I mean those songs really do break necks and smell like rotten flesh! There is killer feeling and atmosphere in this music and maybe this is why I like it.

Each song is just a paragon classic death metal tune. They’re mainly mid paced, very heavy, very dark and obscure, violent… man, the songs are obviously memorable, in terms of the catchiness of the riffs and whole feeling. The music is simple, but effective, it drives you insane for headbanging and really it just sounds as good – sometimes even better – as many of the best bands from the current death metal scene. Definitely it is a good accomplishment for Funeral Whore, but hopefully for their second album they will be able to pick up some more originality and have more of their own personality. But OK, I am not moaning, all in all I did listen to “Step Into Damnation” many, many times now and I did enjoy it. Definitely I can recommend this CD to all of those, who like their death metal to be ugly, morbid and obscure.

Standout tracks: I’m not gonna mention any; they’re all pretty solid and none of them stands above the rest with some extraordinary.

Final rate: 70/100