Killer death metal from the city of Churches and serial killers
Truth Corroded’s debut long player, 2001’s Begin, caught my attention. I couldn’t really nail down why but something about it lead me to wanting to see them live at Brisbane’s (Australia) Overcranked festival the following year. They impressed but this was only the beginning of even better things to come. After a rough patch, disbandment and some indecision, they re-grouped to unleash 2005’s excellent The Enemy Is Our Weapon. It was an album that saw a new focus, some new faces in the band’s line-up and plenty of brutal metal to boot. So it was with much anticipation that I sat down to tackle their latest effort, dubbed Upon The Warlords Crawl.
Right from the get-go, as Crown The Apocalypse unleashes its unrelenting attack, you get the vibe that Truth Corroded are onto something special. It has a bit of a Devildriver like vibe to it, which isn’t a bad thing in small doses of course and Jason North’s vocals at times have that Chuck Schuldiner (Death, Control Denied) snarl to them which simply adds to the ferocity of their aural attack. There’s no relief in sight either as The Immolation Seen savagely takes hold and even the mid paced Salute The Horrors contains enough venom to keep aggo-meter in the red. There’s plenty of variety to be found within the aptly named Decimate, the slow building epic Buried Alive By Demons and the sinister sounding rhythms of We Are Failed keep the flow of the album alive and well.
The almost Gorefest like chug of When God Is Murder continues to mix things up without straying out of character and has been the case with each track so far, the fret work from guitarists Mark Lennard and Corey Grieve has been top class. Of course, a solid rhythm section provided by bassist Greg Damon and drummer Liam Okninski ensures that this well oiled machine never skips a beat. The noise and sample based interlude (Dust) provides a brief passage of breathing space before the quintet launch at full speed into the Devildriver-esque The Waste That Is Their Word. There’s a strong Death vibe to the excellent The Disfiguring before the crushing behemoth of a finale, Despair Your Black Earth which features guest vocals by Lee Gardiner of Double Dragon, brings proceedings to an end.
There really are some gems in the Aussie metal scene all around the country, and the one shining the brightest in South Australia right now is clearly Truth Corroded. Upon The Warlords Crawl is easily their most brutal and focussed work to date and things are clearly on the up and up for this quintet, and deservedly so as well.
(Truth Inc. Records)
