By:Chris Markwell
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 10/5/2013
Label: Cyclone Empire
"World
Lobotomy" track listing:
1. Prelude To The
Lobotomy
2. World Lobotomy
3. The Sky On Fire
4. Mass Of Parasites
5. As Blood Grows
Cold
6. Ödeläggaren
7. You Call It
Deviance
8. As The Maggots
Gather
9. Trail Of Human
Decay
10. The Drowners
11. The Last Chapter
12. Hunt Eat Repeat
The Review:
Nothing
about PAGANIZER is subtle. Even their
name, all capitalised, is a bold statement of loud intent, and their latest
album ‘World Lobotomy’ is 12 tracks of punishing death metal riffs and
screaming, scorching solos. If you like
your metal to sound like a living mosh pit, then PAGANI
ZER are the guys for you.
ZER are the guys for you.
Their
intro song ‘Prelude to the Lobotomy’ starts with an ominous piano piece, which
descends into discord and then you hear it.
The sound of drilling. With
headphones on, it’s as though your entire skull is being broken into by some
mad doctor. As soon as you’re pared open
sufficiently by the unknown driller, the title track blasts into you with the
force of surgery without anaesthesia. The
guitars shred and tear at you like they were bone saws going for your exposed
flesh, and Rogga
Johansson’s voice simply delivers blunt force trauma to your ears. Nowhere is safe from PAGANIZER’s death metal
attack: it’s just that brutal.
Dennis
Blomberg’s chugging bassline begins ‘The Sky on Fire’, a menacing backbeat to
the relentless guitar assault that hammers in with a jackhammer’s ruthlessness.
Just as soon as the last growls die
down, ‘Mass Of Parasites’ steps up and delivers another dose of crushing,
howling metal that makes you set your jaw in a show of angry defiance. This is death metal of the finest vintage:
drink deep and listen well.
‘As Blood
Grows Cold’ builds on what has preceded it and snarls at you like an enraged
beast from the Jurassic Period. ‘Ödeläggaren’
(which I’ve found out is Swedish for ‘Desolater’) follows the carnage, and is a
minute-long blast of grind core, a suitable nod to Napalm Death and Nasum with
a twist of PAGANIZER’s own brand of aggression.
‘You Call It Deviance’ is strewn with pinch-harmonics and Jocke Ringdahl’s
masterful and punishing drumbeats: it’s a heavyweight track that threatens to
choke you out with its sonic savagery.
If you feel
the need to take a breather or relax, there’s no opportunity for you to do so
as ‘As the Maggots Gather’ slams into you with demonic intent to damage your
eardrums. It wrenches and batters you
furiously, then the next track ‘Trail Of Human Decay’ rushes in with a lead
pipe to pummel you some more. There is
seriously no let up of the pace or intensity on this album, so prepare
accordingly.
The final
three tracks of the album – ‘The Drowners’, ‘The Last Chapter’ and ‘Hunt Eat
Repeat’ – are storming, surging offerings of death metal, filled to the brim
with bloodthirsty riffage and boiling, angry lyrics. Each one elevates the anger scale to near
maniacal levels, until ‘Hunt Eat Repeats’ closes ‘World Lobotomy’s proceedings
with a suitably brazen, brash rush of drum blasts and guitar shrieks. The Swedish quartet’s ninth album is an
old-school death metal blast that would look great in any metalhead’s
collection. Put it on, strap yourself in
and let the surgery commence.
