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LAST RETCH “Abject Cruelty”
LAST RETCH “Abject Cruelty”
by Thor
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada’s OSDM horde LAST RETCH is back with their sophomore full-length album, “Abject Cruelty”. It features eight tracks of homage to the heavy, alien sounds of the early-‘90s. In doing so, it sounds familiar. Comfortable, even. But is that a good thing?
Well, in short…mostly.
LAST RETCH plays detuned, slow-to-midtempo death metal with literally NO frills. The vocals are midrange gutturals with occasional high flourishes. The guitars vacillate between chunky palm muting and tremolo-picked sickness. The bass mostly reinforces exactly what the guitars are doing, and the drums keep it simple, employing few blasts or any other bells or whistles.
Even the lyrical content harkens back to the time of the fanny pack. Among songs like “Oozing Pustules” you’ll find socially conscious tracks like "Beasley Meth Merchants" that features dark commentary about drug abuse and systemic failure. It seems like forever ago that this music was being made by young people that gave a shit about society and the environment, and not a bunch of inculcated curmudgeons all staring into the abyss of senior citizenship, but I digress.
The mix of “Abject Cruelty” is great. It’s as heavy as heavy can be. That’s in large part due to this album’s MASSIVE low end, which itself is made possible by the band’s slower, simpler musical approach. The kicks don’t have to sound like a typewriter when the music never approaches 200-plus BPMs. Frequency masking and frequency buildup are less concerning here, and Davis Maxwell who produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered the album at Schoolhouse Studios, took full advantage.
My biggest problem with LAST RETCH’s “Abject Cruelty” is that at just eight songs long, there are still a few clunkers—songs that just don’t move the needle in any way. Too basic. Too slow. Too much like things I’ve heard a million times before. There are certainly five bangers here, too. So, maybe this would have been better served as another EP? Either way, it’s a little too up and down for such a short project.
Fans of OSDM in the vein of CARCASS, BOLT THROWER, and CANNIBAL CORPSE will find enough meat on the LAST RETCH bone to satisfy their appetites.
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