Autopsy - Mental Funeral (1991)Release ID: 604
One look at this album and I think you'll know whether it's for you or not. The cover displays an aberration of flesh, teeth and blood. The track listing includes titles such as Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay and Destined to Fester. It's not hard to figure out that you’re in for some ugly, raw death metal. And how beautifully unpleasant it all is! Mental Funeral finds Autopsy taking their already established dirty death metal sound and adding a large dose of apocalyptic, down-tuned doom. The result is a classic album that will either force an evil grin upon your face, or make you run for the shower to clean off the filth. Most likely both!
Chris Reifert is really the centrepiece of this album. His bone crunching drumming is at times chaotic and at other times, perfectly minimal. The riffs are always solid and entertainingly morbid, but his performance really takes them to another level. Add to this the fact that his vocals are fittingly brutal and disgusting, and it becomes apparent how important the guy is. I really enjoy the doom aspect of the album which when combined with Autopsy's oppressive nature, makes for a truly crushing experience. The leads are average at times, but I guess that's what the rest of the music called for. Shiny, pristine solos just wouldn't have done the trick. Highlights for me are Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay, Slaughterday, Robbing the Grave and Dark Crusade.
So, while my journey of discovery through the early years of death metal has brought me into contact with many releases for the first time, here is one with which I am exceedingly familiar and which sits near the very top of my list of all-time favourite death metal releases. Mental Funeral doesn't sound like a band playing their instruments, but rather like they are beating the songs out of them. There is a certain looseness to Autopsy's sound that belies the actual abilities of the musicians involved, but which imparts a cavernous brutality to the album that very few have been succesfully able to tap into. The production of Mental Funeral cannot be underestimated and I think Peaceville have managed to reproduce exactly the vibe the band were going for, which speaks of echoing underground caverns reeking of the foetid stench of decay where unspeakable acts of brutality take place. Track names like Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay and Torn From the Womb tell you all you need to know about the bands ethos, but where they score over the rest of the death metal sickos is by their inclusion of doom metal riffing that slows down the onslaught and allows a lurking fear of darkness to envelop the listener rather than an unrelenting bludgeoning that doesn't give any time for reflection. There are few better examples of what real death doom metal should sound like than some of the slower sections here, Robbing the Grave, after it's initial assault, slows to a menacing and spine-tingling crawl that should set the hairs on the back of your neck on end and send any would-be death doom pretenders heading for the exits. The doomy sections breaking-up the out-and-out brutality of the (admittedly still extremely brutal) death metal riffing imbue the album with a more memorable quality than some of the band's more high velocity contemporaries. Check out the riff to In the Grip of Winter for point in question - this has got to be one of the most iconic death doom riffs ever.
I must also state at this point that Chris Reifert is an absolute fucking beast. He made a significant contribution to Death's seminal Scream Bloody Gore, but here with his own band and agenda he has removed any shackles holding him back and his drumming is at times awesome to behold - I'm no technician so don't know how technically sound it is, but it is just so brutally pummelling that it almost becomes a force of nature - Bonesaw is a forty second death metal drumming masterclass in my book. Add to this arguably the filthiest-sounding vocals in all of metal and you can hear that Reifert has stamped his authority all over the album.
The riffs are fantastic and are some of my favourites in all of metal. The solos are wounded, howling beasts that sound like guitarists Danny Coralles and Eric Cutler have tortured their instruments to get them to give them up, suiting the album's atmosphere better than I would imagine a smoother, more technically gifted guitarist like James Murphy, for example, would. The songwriting is brilliant with several twists and turns throughout some of the longer tracks with multiple time changes and transitions and I don't think there is a weak track on the whole album. I think I would go as far as to say if you want an album to sum up what metal is truly all about then you should slam on Mental Funeral and be electrified! This is nothing less than doom-laden metal of death, necrotic and pungent with the malodorous stench of mouldering corpses and is a true classic.
Mental Funeral is one of those iconic albums in the canon that any burgeoning death metal fan will quickly learn about. It's an impossible album to forget once you've been exposed to it in one form or another.
Whether because of the monstrous green multiheaded creature (that cover was seared into my memory before I ever check out an Autopsy song) or because of the filthy macabre of the general sound, you will remember it.
Autopsy made a big impression with this release, pushing death metal to new extremes. They weren't aiming for new extremes of speed or technicality or blunt brutality like many of their peers of the era though. Instead, Autopsy expanded our concept of how sick and nasty and, well, "fleshcrawly" death metal could sound. For this reason, they are often considered progenitors of the Death/Doom hybrid subgenre and this seminal release of theirs has stood the test of time as a major landmark and classic.
How does it hold up as a pure listening experience in today's context though?
Very well! Thirty years later, and I daresay few bands have matched the feel Autopsy create on this album. The production remains perfect. It's clear and balanced, every instrument powerful. The guitar tones are dirty, and Chris Reifert's drums somehow sound demented in their own right, like the hits simply must be on skulls and human skin rawhide drums. When the two instruments rein in the chaos and synchronize into one of their deliberate riffy grooves, it sound like demons are pounding their staffs on the ground as you slowly march into hell (see: "Torn From the Womb").
Like any album whose main appeal is its texture and sheer visceral sound, Mental Funeral has some songs that create this effect better than others and a few expendable tracks. Fortunately, unlike many bands in this subgenre, Autopsy have the songwriting chops to create just enough diversity between the songs to prevent the album becoming one big blur of sameness. For example, "Dead" is unique in that it has spoken vocals and is centered around a repeated clean guitar lead (still an evil-sounding one, mind you) rather than dirty riffs, and "In the Grip of Winter" has that funky off-kilter riff and doomy section. It would have made a much stronger opening than "Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay", which is one of the more forgettable tracks.
TL;DR - Mental Funeral is a step or two below the ultimate masterpieces in death metal and a bit one-dimensional, but it is always a fun listen that doesn't overstay its welcome. It's dark and gruesome and it revels in the fact for its half-hour duration, with plenty of memorable dirty riffs and awesome-sounding drums. Should be part of every self-proclaimed death metal fan's collection.
Favorite Songs - In the Grip of Winter, Torn From the Womb, Dead
