Bells and Ravens – What Death Cannot End
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14th December 2022Iron Flesh – Limb After Limb
Label: War Anthem Records/Sure Shot Worx / Release date: 4th November 2022
Iron Flesh is a one man band born in early 2017. It’s founded by Julien Helwin (songwriter & lyricist) who, after the recording of Worship the Necrogod EP, decided to start playing live shows to unleash some old school death metal. Sebastien Lalanne (bass), Sylver Alexandre (guitars) and Guilhem Arbogast (drums) joined the band prior to the recordings of the two EPs, namely the afore-mentioned Worship the Necrogod and Scourge of Demonic Incantation. Thus, the band released their 2019 full-length debut Forged Faith Bleeding and the highly-aclaimed 2020 second album Summoning The Putrid.
Now they’re back with third full-length entitled Limb After Limb. It consists of ten tracks, still in the best 90s Swedish-style death metal, while incorporating some new influences. They combine amazingly varied song-writing, and eerie melodies, with a massive & heavy wall of sound. Instrumentally there’s not much change from the previous work, and that is ment as a good thing. They just continue in the vein of Summining The Putrid, but this time maybe with a few more NWOBHM influences. The guitars are dominant in the mix and on a more than few occasions Julien Helwin and Sylver Alexandre show what they’re capable of, best exemplified with a self-titled “Limb After Limb” track. It’s my favorite song on this record, mainly due to punishingly and overwhelming heavy riffage. Apart from massive and heavy guitars, one can also hear numerous bombastic grooves and bulldozing & stampeding drums. It’s spiced-up with meaty & growling vocals of Mr. Helwin.
In order to break the monotony the band also includes some doomy moments like the track called “Blessed Be The Creators”. Apart from this track, also tracks like “In Agony You Must Reborn” and “Limb After Limb” both have many doom-laden melodies. On the other hand we have a closing song called “Procession of Living Cadavers” which even begins with a violin opening, following this melancholic tone, which ultimatevly ends in silence. A perfect ending to an almost perfect release!
The production is massive & with excellent sound-quality. Cover artwork is equally gorgeous, a work of Skadvaldur (Cryptic Blood, Misthyrming, Sinmara, Ripped To Shreads). Limb After Limb is excellent and triumphant release that will please all fans of death metal/doom/NWOBHM. Limb After Limb is definitely band’s best effort to date!
For additional info on those French deathers visit https://ironflesh.bandcamp.com/