Slam death metal was a movement that found common ground between the brutal death metal coming from New York and Texas in the 90’s and the upsurge of pit riffs and breakdowns dominating metalcore post-Y2K. Eye of the Destroyer isn’t pure slam death though they do jump into pit-riffing and Ryker’s-like curb-kickin’ beats right off the bat. On ‘Starved and Hanging’ the band sound their best so far with even more old school death metal a la Internal Bleeding influences and plenty of metallic chugging old school deathcore misanthropy. As grating as the scream-and-chug thing can be, I think Eye of the Destroyer have a sweet balance of metalcore and brutal death that is no-frills enough to sit through for several spins.

The production is a step up from something like ‘Languish in Despair’ and should appeal to fans of old school Dying Fetus. In fact a lot of the riffs here are either already on ‘Stop at Nothing’ or they sound like they should have been. Without too much focus on who else they sound like, this is a step up in terms of writing and production for the band as they move away from pure, tin-can slam death sounding groups like Guttural Slug. ‘Starved and Hanging’ sounds downright serious compared to their last couple of EPs and returns to something closer to their ‘Methods of Murder’ full-length that was more rooted in Suffocation style death metal. Highly recommended if you like brutal death, slam, and old school metalcore influenced death metal. I recommend checking out the title track first to gauge interest.

Sacrificed to their idols. 2.85/5.0

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