Review by Saxy S for Neuropath - At Damnation's Core (2023)

I find myself in a bit of an unusual position when it comes to this Australian brutal death metal band. Neuropath are absolutely a band that I would typically never give much attention to given its genre style. But this album is special as it is a collection of 1990s demos from Metal Academy's own Daniel. And I feel like I owe it to myself, Daniel, and the rest of the Metal Academy faithful to express, in some regards, my thoughts on a handful of the recordings that would eventually become the forum that we have here today.

One can immediately tell that At Damnation's Core is heavily inspired by the brutal death of the early 1990s, including Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse. And that shines through almost instantly with the sporadic tempo changes. This is certainly a personal issue for me, but seems to run rampant (even today) within this subgenre of death metal so I'll let it slide. The other major issue that I have with this is the Cookie Monster vocals. Again, this type of death metal is littered with it (i.e. Cryptopsy's None So Vile), but it really diminishes the value of the words that are being said, no matter how inconsequential they might be.

But beyond these structural issues that persist throughout this style of music, turns out that At Damnation's Core has some solid fundamentals. This album has some deceptively tuneful songs on here and does not feel like those main melodic hooks/motifs are getting rushed out the door as quickly as possible in favour of a completely new motif. I thought that some of the solo inclusions were well thought out and were not simply tossed in to every single song on the record to show off the guitar players virtuosity. Many of the solos also sounded like they were meant to say something and compliment the rest of the instrumental and vocal parts, especially near the end of the album.

Overall, I thought that At Damnation's Core was a pretty solid album, even if I am not the target audience for this style of death metal. I have been playing around with brutal death metal recently and having picked up on some common trends throughout the music, I can comfortably say where I think this record does good things and where it doesn't. I believe that the runtime plays very well to its advantage since some of the more herky-jerky compositions do not get as long to marinate outside of the individual track's runtime. 

Best Songs: My Bleeding Mortality, Masticated Cadaver, Rectal Pulpation