Looking over at my music DVDs I can see Autopsy’s ‘Dark Crusades’, a rough and raw set of cuts dating all the way back to 1988. Back when this was released in 2006, Autopsy were a band who had been replaced by Abscess, no-one ever daring to believe that one of the most influential death metal bands of all time would ever return. But after a fifteen year hiatus that is exactly what happened, with founding members Chris Reifert (drums, vocals) and Eric Cutler (guitars, backing vocals) again joining forces with long-time guitarist Danny Corales and new bassist Joe Trevisano to hit the road and release some new material. However, there were no new albums after 2014 until 2022’s ‘Morbidity Triumphant’ which saw the first recording appearance of new bassist Greg Wilkinson. That album was seen as a major return to form and just a year later they have returned with the next, which shows the band are not content to just rely on old classics such as ‘Severed Survival’ but are still as relevant and brutal today as they have ever been.

Reifert will always be seen as death royalty, in no small part to his work on ‘Scream Bloody Gore’, but that album was released in 1987 and he has stayed active throughout, with this being yet another great extension to his canon. This is brutal death metal, as if it was ever going to be anything else, with Reifert still providing the raw vocals which make us think he is about to lose his lungs while also driving the band from the back. Wilkinson has managed to find room to make his presence felt, often sounding like a third guitar as opposed to a bass, tying in with Cutler and Corales who clearly demonstrate why after 35 years together they are still very much a force to be reckoned with, with interlinked harmonies as well as plenty of hammering riffs. This is Autopsy yet again showing that when it comes to death metal there are few as dominant within the genre as the original masters.

Rating: 8/10

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