Fleshcrawl - Bloodred Massacre

FLESHCRAWL - Bloodred Massacre (BLACK MARK CD 1997)

1997 wasn't the best year for death metal, but some great records obviously were released that year. Dismember unleashed one of my favourite albums "Death Metal", Necrophobic came up with their fantastic second nocturnal opus "Darkside" and Vital Remains blew heads off with "Forever Underground"... And Fleshrawl released one of their best albums, the guts-ripping "Bloodred Massacre". It may sound funny that one of the best bands, which play the Swedish style of death metal is from Germany, but who cares, Fleshcrawl fuckin rules and released many killer albums. "Bloodred Massacre" is a real highlight of their discography, an album, which sounds perfect from start to finish and has no time wasted for filler songs or bullshit. These 33 minutes bring very well selected death metal songs, where not even a single moment is dull or uninteresting. It's intense and aggressive, but occasionally also groovy and melodic death metal, which you have to worship! 

This album may have similarities to Grave's heaviness and aggression or to Hypocrisy's and Dismember's dark harmony. But that doesn't matter if it sounds like these bands or not. What's important is that Fleshcrawl really came up with fantastic riffs and great songs. I truly think that "Bloodred Massacre" has no weak parts and I love every bit of it. I like how Fleshcrawl blends blasting and ferocious parts with mid-paced sections, how nasty are many of these riffs. But Fleshcrawl doesn't forget to include some melodic parts. And despite its death metal viciousness, "Bloodred Massacre" is surprisingly memorable. There are many hooky chorus sections and the simplicity of this sort of death metal also helps these songs to be remembered. On top of everything, Sven Gross who replaced Alex Pretzer on vocals, did a great job and sounds like a beast and the production fixed by Peter Tägtgren in his famous Abyss Studio is simply top notch. 

"Bloodred Massacre" is not a death metal best masterpiece. But I don't care for such descriptions, all I want is to hear some killer death metal tunes. And Fleshcrawl delivers that on this album in perfect and most solid way. I can listen to this album over and over again and it simply never gets boring. It has many strengths and no weak parts, even Slayer's cover of "Necrophiliac" sounds awesome. And such songs are "Bloodred Massacre", "The Messenger", "Awaiting the Flesh" or "Dark Dimension" are pure joy for every death metal maniac. 

Standout tracks: as above mentioned 

Final rate: 80/100