Review by Rexorcist for Devourment - Butcher the Weak (2005)

Today I'm gonna get through both versions of Butcher the Weak.  If you want total, raw heaviness, then this album is a major improvement over the already further step of heaviness from brutal death that their debut was.  I ever noticed early on that there were some improvements to the rhythmic aspects of their music.  The heaviness, however impressive, still has a habit of acting as a wall to drown out some of the more creative aspects.  And as a result, it can be seen that Devourment are still guilty of the very same mistake of sameyness that many death metal albums, including their debut, follow.  Instead of showcasing everything slam death can do, they decide to throw around a few creative ideas per song, not realizing that many songs share the same ideas, and let heaviness do the rest of the talking.  Sure, there are occasionally clearer songs that only have a few moments of raw heaviness, like Serial Cocksucker.  But songs like Tomb of Scabs have almost no actual writing aspects, and just maniacally beat music on the head with Goblimon's studded cudgel rather than focusing on songwriting.  But overall the album feels more like another exercise with heaviness with just enough of a creative improvement to keep the band's career strong.  It's kind of like the difference between Symphony X's first two albums: Symphony X and The Damnation Game.  I'd give both sets of albums about the same ratings.  So if you're hypnotized by raw heaviness, you're far more justified in loving this than loving the debut, but I'm still concerned about Devourment's lack of fixation on the artform that many death bands have proven death metal can be.  In short, the SOUND of the album is perfect.  Everything else is hit or miss.  If the re-recording is superior like RYM says, let's find out.  But I was NOT impressed with their debut, which some say is their best, so maybe not.