Fleshcrawl - Impurity

FLESHCRAWL - Impurity (BLACK MARK - CD 1994)

I feel a great respect for bands such as Fleshcrawl. If you look at what was going on in the death metal scene around 1993-94 then you can see that the majority of old bands has started to suffer for the annoying lack of ideas or the need to change their musical style and thus started to walk away drastically from their original style and sound. Than can especially be noticed among some fellow German bands, such as Morgoth and Atrocity, both of which have destroyed themselves when recorded some utter, pure shit after a couple of truly classics records. Meanwhile Fleshcrawl never disgusted us with such crap. They didn’t give a shit about the trends or the fact that death metal is not as popular anymore and just played this music with passion and enthusiasm. And this is why they managed to record several truly killer albums. After a phenomenal debut “Descend Into the Absurd” they came out with a second CD “Impurity” and well, the slaughter carries on! I guess there is only one thing, which I don’t like about “Impurity” and it is the artwork for this album. And the fact that they didn’t use their original logo (which obviously wouldn’t fit the artwork… but that should be a good reason not to use it and find a better picture to have on the front cover hehe!). Other than that, “Impurity” is an essential, pure death metal record and a real must have for every maniac’s collection.

Fleshcrawl’s first album was a great piece of kind of doomy death metal. “Impurity” brings some changes. First off, I think that the production is more similar to the classic Swedish sound, especially the guitar tone. Musically it also has some similarities to few bands from Sverige, mainly the mighty Grave, but not only. I can spot also a resemblance to the British monsters from Bolt Thrower, Benediction and such. Finally I cannot forget that there are way more faster parts on “Impurity” with less slow and doomy fragments, so the album feels just more brutal. Generally though it is just a pure fuckin death metal beast with several excellent songs! There are some tracks here, which I just love, like “From the Dead to the Living” (for being so damn fast and relentless, but also so well arranged, with some diversity as well), “Stiffen Souls” (maybe the best song here?), “Center of Hate” (with very Swedish like doomy theme in the beginning… which I just love!) and “Inevitable End” (total Bolt Thrower / Benediction worship!). So yeah, there is just a killer death metal on “Impurity” and I am afraid that for me personally it sounds like almost impossible to resist to these truly fantastic riffs and great brutality. Fleshcrawl did not come up with anything new, this music was already quite explored at this moment… but somehow they managed to compose just excellent songs and so this is why “Impurity” sounds so damn awesome, nowadays maybe even more than in the past.

Many years have passed, but the time was merciful to “Impurity”. Oh, I didn’t mention also that Fleshcrawl have a cover of Demigod’s “Resurrection” on this album… and it also is just fuckin amazing! I actually am quite surprised that they have covered a band like Demigod already back in those old days… but I guess this is to honour the great Finnish band, which I think was already split up in the time of the recording of “Impurity”. Anyway, “Reincarnation” (which originally was on Demigod’s demo / split with Necropsy) sounds awesome. And is a perfect addition to already an excellent album. Very recommended.

Standout tracks: “From the Dead to the Living”, “Reincarnation”, “Stiffen Souls”, “Inevitable End”

Final rate: 85/100