Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Dying Fetus - Destroy the Opposition (2000)

The furious grindcore of Dying Fetus never sounded more alive than on their 2000 album Destroy the Opposition.  Full of chugging riffs and soaring technical wizardry it really is a release that epitomises the Dying Fetus sound perfectly.  The technique the trio are able to exhibit on this record is unbelievable.  Opening track Praise the Lord (Opium of the Masses) opens and closes with an almost hardcore riff that bounces along but during the intervening five minutes the track goes off in a much more aggressive and technical direction.

There's a real sense of things feeling tight and sharp throughout the whole opus, like the band are really hitting their stride.  The grim grunts compliment the riff structures brilliantly and the blasting fury of those drums feels like a volley of artillery in the face.  Whist undeniably brutal that brutality is not necessarily just in the sound, in fact it is integrated and contained really well in the sound.  There is a sense of more calculated brutality, applied with real aplomb to the recording.  Dying Fetus aren't here to fuck around.

I came to this record late, having only discovered the band via their excellent 2012 release Reign Supreme.  working back through their discography gleaned little in the way of equal magnitude until I got to this release and I think both records follow the same format of balancing brutality with technicality although I would argue that the latter of the two releases is marginally superior.