Asphyx - The Rack (1991) Reviews

I started listening to The Rack, expecting to be blown away by another great early 90s album. I have to say I've been left a bit underwhelmed. But before I get into that, I need to state that I find it hard to understand why this is being voted as death doom metal (for its primary genre) by so many fans. Yes, The Rack occasionally slows down and touches on atmospheric, slightly doomy sections. But for most of its running time, it's straight forward death metal all the way. It certainly doesn't resemble death doom metal bands like My Dying Bride or Saturnus in any way, shape of form. But I'll stop being pedantic about silly labels and move on.

There are a bunch of good riffs throughout The Rack, particularly on the 9-minute title track. I do find much enjoyment to be had within Vermin, Diabolical Existence and Evocation. When the band add small touches of melody, things start getting interesting. But there are also quite a few tracks that leave me feeling a bit empty. It doesn't help that I find Martin van Drunen's vocals to be fairly grating at times. I didn't completely enjoy his work on Pestilence either although it’s hard to put my finger on why. Then again, there are heaps of fans out there that think he's great, so I guess it's each to their own.

The Rack is a mildly entertaining album that has a few tracks of note. But when I compare it to other albums of this ilk from the early 90s, it doesn’t quite match up. In my opinion, this is not an essential album. A good album…but not essential.

My introduction to Dutch death metallers Asphyx would come through their 1991 debut album "The Rack", a release that was highly praised within underground death metal circles at the time. I enjoyed it too, enough to explore their 1989 demo tape "Crush the Cenotaph" which was also quite good but I can't say that I ever found enough premium quality to see me lumping Asphyx in with the more elite artists in the thriving death metal scene of the early 1990's. Their 1992 follow-up "Last One On Earth" left me feeling fairly similarly & to this day I've always felt that Asphyx was more of a third tier death metal player that's largely built its reputation off the back of the pedigree of their illustrious front man Martin van Drunen whose prior exploits with fellow Dutchmen Pestilence & subsequent contributions to bands like Grand Supreme Blood Court & Hail of Bullets have seen him placed up on a grisly pedestal of blasphemy & decay by many. I can't say that I've ever rated his vocals as highly as some but I've never had a problem with them either so I guess I'm in a good position to make an unbiased judgement on a record like "The Rack" where Martin also plays bass guitar.

"The Rack" comes from the rawer side of the death metal spectrum with the performances being noticeably unpolished & the song-writing pushing the musicians to perform at a higher level than they were capable of delivering at the time. The guitar work of Eric Daniels (Grand Supreme Blood Court/Soulburn) is pretty basic & lacking in subtlety while drummer Bob Bagchus (Grand Supreme Blood Court/Soulburn) stays well within himself for the most part. These technical limitations are perhaps the reason why the slower, doomier parts of the record work best & it may not be a stretch to suggest that the success of those elements on their early releases may have contributed to the musical direction that Asphyx have chosen to take with their music over the decades since. You see, Asphyx have built their reputation around their ability to incorporate crushing doom riffs into their grimy European death metal sound & there are some very clear examples to be found here on "The Rack". In fact, it's the doom component that I find most attractive about Asphyx with my album highlights inevitably being the doomier inclusions.

While I don't think "The Rack" offers anything terribly life-changing in terms of genuine classics, it's also a very consistent record with no obviously weak songs. Most tracks suffer from the occasional dud riff or two which sees all of the band's best intentions brought back to the pack but none of their creative missteps are drastic enough to warrant you reaching for the skip button. "Diabolical Existence" (my personal favourite), "Ode to a Nameless Grave" & "Pages in Blood" are my picks for the stronger examples of Asphyx's sound but I'd suggest that others might pick alternative tracks given how compressed the quality band is across most of the album.

If I was to provide some points of reference for the early Asphyx sound I'd probably reach for acts like Obituary, Morgoth & Celtic Frost who are all obviously crushingly heavy bands who utilize(d) elements of doom metal within the context of extreme metal. The technical limitations of a young Asphyx do cap the potential for them to reach to upper echelons of the death metal pile for me personally but there's definitely enough here to keep me interested nonetheless & I'd have to say that "The Rack" appeals to me slightly more than 1992's "Last One on Earth" does, mainly because I think it offers one or two more highlights. If I'm being completely honest though, I'd actually take Asphyx's last record "Necroceros" over either of them but none of the three are records I reach for all that regularly.