Savage Land is the forthcoming debut full-length from death metal perpetrators, GRUESOME. Featuring within their bestial ranks members of Exhumed, Possessed, Malevolent Creation and Derketa, GRUESOME is a supergroup of sorts paying homage to the game-changing sounds of Death’s early recordings.
GRUESOME was borne out of guitarist/vocalist Matt Harvey (Exhumed) and drummer Gus Rios’ (Malevolent Creation) mutual involvement with the Death To All tours – Harvey serving as frontman for the original nine-member mini-tour and Rios performing “Baptized In Blood” and working with DTA drummer Sean Reinert on the following US tour where Exhumed filled in as support on a several dates. After discarding the idea of putting together another incarnation of DTA to focus exclusively on Death’s first two albums, Harvey half-jokingly suggested writing their own songs in that vein. It wasn’t long before the idea gained traction, and the “band” had five songs written. Rios later recruited Possessed guitarist Daniel Gonzalez and Derketa bassist Robin Mazen to record the material in Florida.
The result is the eight scathing tracks contained on Savage Land. Recorded by Rios and Gonzalez at Riversound Studios in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, mixed by Jarrett Pritchard at Mana Studios in St. Petersburg, Florida and including a guest guitar solo on “Closed Casket” by James Murphy as well as cover art by legendary illustrator Ed Repka (Death, Megadeth, Massacre, Athiest et el), Savage Land is a truly gruesome slab of late-’80s/early-’90s Florida-styled death metal.
Set for release next month, today team GRUESOME offers up fourth track “Hideous” for communal absorption. The track is based on 1932 horror film, Freaks, in which the characters were played by people who worked as carnival sideshow performers and had real deformities. The original version was considered too shocking to be released, and no longer exists.
Rios further elaborates, “‘Hideous’ was one of the last songs to be written for the album. By that point Matt had really hit a stride with the writing and this song turned out to be one of our favorites! It seamlessly blends influences from the first three Death albums with even a tiny tip of the hat to Human. Listen closely after the solo section…you’ll swear it’s 1988 for real! We sincerely hope that everyone enjoys this as much as we did creating it! Hail Chuck [Schuldiner]!”
Sample “Hideous” via SoundCloud HERE or YouTube HERE.
Tragically, there will never be any truly new Death material, but GRUESOME is humbly determined to keeping the band’s classic sound alive as faithfully as possible. Savage Land will be released in North America via Relapse Records on April 21st, 2015, April 17th in Germany, Benelux and Finland and April 20th in the UK, rest of the world on CD and digitally. For preorders scroll on over to THIS LOCATION. Digital preorders are available via iTunes HERE and the GRUESOME BandCamp page HERE.
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