It’s been six years since Iowa death metal trio Mutilated by Zombies released their last album, Scripts of Anguish. As I wrote then, Mutilated by Zombies executed the classic, meat-and-potatoes style of death metal with the precision and savagery needed in the genre but it left the question of where to go next. The answer comes in the form of Scenes From the Afterlife, the OSDM crew’s fourth album, which you can listen to today.
Mutilated by Zombies haven’t gone prog or soft, but they’ve recalibrated their sound, looking toward more technical and brutal bands for inspiration. Scenes From the Afterlife is a lot groovier, bordering on slam or brutal death metal breakdowns at times (“Gutsplit”), incorporating stop-start tempos, hectic blasts and a generally-higher sense of violence into their sound. If you like old-school death metal but wish it had more Decapitated and Dying Fetus-esque breakdowns (minus the hyper-technicality), give Scenes From the Afterlife a spin. Like Scripts of Anguish, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel but rather keeps things direct, nasty and potent.
“Our latest offering is a collection of horror inspired by the trials and tribulations of everyday reality,” Mutilated by Zombies tell Decibel via email. “Musically, we took a different approach for this album and added some twists and turns along the way. Scenes From the Afterlife represents the decay of humanity through tales of terror.”
We wouldn’t want to distract you from witnessing those scenes any longer; listen below and grab a copy via Redefining Darkness.