Album Review: "Battalion" by Humiliation

Battalion

It's always nice to hear new music, quality music that is.

Today we're living in a smaller world thanks to the magic of the internet. Cross cultural sharing is so much more common today than it was just 20  years ago.

Think of the death metal scene 20 years ago. 80% of the bands I think of as death metal from 1994 are all American and most of them are from Tampa, Florida.

Flash forward to now and we're looking at many more death metal scenes besides just that one scene and the grindcore scene from England.

Today's review subject is a brutal metal band from the other side of the planet. Humiliation  hails from the small nation of Malaysia. I cannot name a single other band from Malaysia, though I'm sure they exist. In 1994, would we have even given a second thought them? Probably not.

Humiliation

Thankfully, the times have changed an in this era we can hear music from everywhere without even having to leave our house.

I think back to our friends from Iran and Algeria.

Aside from just being from somewhere not normally associated with death metal, Humiliation is a different kind of death metal band.

They're not as riffy as Carcass or and they don't have the indecipherable, guttural vocals of Deicide.

They riff more like thrash metallers and juxtapose those riffs with stoner chord progressions. They've created something unique and interesting.

The songs are mid tempo crushers, charging forward into the abyss. Maybe it's because I lack the ability to play fast, but I'm growing a stronger appreciation for those guys who play it a bit slower.

Riffing at 1,000 miles an hour sounds cool no matter what's being played, especially underneath all of the death metal distortion, slow and mids, not so much.

Release: Out Now
Genre: Death Metal
Label: Deepsend Records
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