Internal Bleeding - Voracious Contempt (1995)^{Release ID: 20736}

The early-to-mid 1990’s were a marvelous time to be alive for budding young extreme metal enthusiasts like myself. I was lucky enough to discover brutal death metal right from its inception at the commencement of the decade & it very quickly became an obsession of mine to find every band on earth that even hinted at a more muscular brand of death metal. The New York scene became a haven for these acts in the wake of the Suffocation boom & my letter box would very quickly start to become a place of refuge for young bands from that part of the world. Amongst those would be Levittown locals Internal Bleeding, originally through their 1994 “Perpetual Degradation” demo & then via this 1995 debut album “Voracious Contempt” shortly afterwards. Both releases gave me a great deal of enjoyment at the time & I can even hear a bit of that influence in the 1995 demo tapes from my old band Neuropath when listening with fresh ears. It’s been a long time since I revisited Internal Bleeding's earlier efforts though so I thought I’d pull out “Voracious Contempt” for a trip down Memory Lane, particularly given my recent dalliances with slam death metal which is a genre that Internal Bleeding played a large part in creating.

Internal Bleeding’s sound (& slam death metal’s too if you want to get technical about it) is built on a fairly limited palate of techniques which are repeatedly utilized throughout the tracklisting. Many of these tools are borrowed from Suffocation’s early works only slam death artists give them a much more thorough working over in order to milk them for everything they’re worth. If we start with the production job you’ll find Internal Bleeding drawing upon a super-distorted & ultra-compressed guitar tone to create an abrasive yet predominantly rhythmic effect. The compositions are made up of a mixture of slow-to-mid tempo slam riffs built on the breakdown techniques popularized on Suffocation’s 1991 debut album “Effigy of the Forgotten”, combining them with faster blast-beat-driven parts that borrow heavily from Suffocation’s 1991 “Human Waste” EP. Drummer Bill Tolley seems to only know the one simple blast beat technique so he tends to repeat it on every track. It’s worth mentioning that Tolley had passed the vocal duties over to newcomer Frank Rini since the “Perpetual Degradation” demo &, while Rini’s death grunts are certainly ultra-deep, they aren’t especially aggressive in death metal terms. I prefer Tolley’s style from the demo tape to be honest but Rini does a reasonable job here nonetheless.

The ten-song tracklisting is very consistent with a few of the stronger inclusions being reworked versions of songs that originally appeared on “Perpetual Degradation”. There are also a few that featured on earlier demos that I don’t recall owning as well. The album starts off in very solid fashion for the first couple of tracks before taking a slight dip for the remainder of the A side & rising again for a unanimously high quality B side. Despite the fact that there are no weak tracks included, I’m not sure I’d class any of these songs as death metal classics. My personal favourite “Inhuman Suffering”, opener “Languish In Despair” & “Prophet of the Blasphemes” are probably the pick of the bunch but it can be hard to pick out individual tracks given the similarities in tone & approach. X

There’s a case to argue that Internal Bleeding really created the slam death metal sound with “Perpetual Degradation” & “Voracious Contempt”. If not, then they certainly brought it to the attention of the death metal public. “Voracious Contempt” still possesses many of the calling cards of the early brutal death metal sound as well though which gives it some added appeal for me personally, particularly given that it’s not tainted by modern-day slam traits such as the pinging snare drum or the indecipherable drainpipe vocal gurgle. Fans of bands like Devourment, Repudilation & Soils of Fate should definitely make themselves familiar with it as I can’t see it disappointing too many slam/brutal death metal nuts.