Metal band names, when considered either in isolation or in conjunction with the bands’ music, span a range from terrible to perfect. The name Beaten To Death is damn-near perfect, both in isolation and especially in the context of this Norwegian group’s ferociously brawling brand of grindcore.
The name creates expectations, perhaps especially to someone who’s never encountered the five albums Beaten To Death have put out beginning in 2011. But then such a stranger could take one look at the fantastical cover of their forthcoming sixth album Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis and begin to get the idea that maybe those expectations aren’t going to be entirely accurate, or at least they’re going to be incomplete.
But those of us who have encountered one or more of Beaten To Death‘s previous releases won’t be entirely surprised, because while this band are indeed fully capable of beating their listeners to death, they are equally capable of adventurously turning conventional grind expectations upside-down — and as you’re about to discover, they do it again on this newest album.
Photo by Rune Lamøy
Mas-Kina Recordings, which will release the new album on May 31st, describes it as “Beaten to Death at their most physically merciless, creatively ravenous and gleefully mischievous”, and refers to that cover art as “a marker for a band forging new triumphant misdemeanours and profound examples of pure incitement for maturity or should that be joyous immaturity?”
You’ll understand the significance of those descriptions when you hear the music. You might also understand the connotations of the album’s title, a subject we’ll come back to.
On Sunrise… Beaten To Death tear through 9 songs in about 18 1/2 minutes. They welcome us to their latest madcap revels with the sharp short shock of “Dalbane”, a roughly one-minute barrage of clattering and pummeling drums, feverishly skittering and viciously roiling riffage, and bursts of hair-on-fire screaming. But even there, they switch things up repeatedly, down-shifting into thuggish chugs and gruesome growls, bringing in moaning bass tones, and uncaging shrieking guitar delirium.
With nary a breath between them, the tracks continue coming. “My Hair Will Be Long Until Death” quickly sounds like a massive excavation machine at work, with the snare resembling the crack of overheating pistons. The machine goes mad, crashing and mauling its way through whatever bedrock and concrete stands in its way, but also slows and mutates into a weirdly wandering and musing thing, as if suddenly wondering why it’s doing what it’s doing — and then loses those thoughts in a paroxysm of crazed mayhem. Again, the guitars squeal and screech, the rhythm section maniacally convulses, the vocals scream bloody murder and then seem strangled.
We’ll resist the temptation to similarly map with similarly garbled verbiage the manifold twists and turns of the next 7 songs. At a high level, the instrumental executions are bamboozling, especially at high speed when the drumming and the fretwork reach jaw-dropping plateaus of exhilarating dexterity and cataclysmic destructiveness, but also when the band repeatedly and suddenly switch tempos and patterns, interweaving a multitude of intricate tones and motifs, and simultaneously morphing the moods.
They’ll also get your heads nodding with back-beats and fun-loving frolics (e.g., the intro to “Minus Och Minus Blir Minus Och Minus”), routinely bust up the pavement with jackhammer bludgeoning, allow the guitars to quiver like some strange extraterrestrial radio frequency and the bass to murmur along in amusement (in “Mosh For Mika (Waddle Waddle)”), bring in bits of dystopian electronica, and use feedback as a weapon.
Through it all the vocals morph too, ripping throats with berserker screams, shivering spines with malignant roars, making distorted pronouncements, and engaging in somewhat woozy and somewhat demented and maybe even somewhat reggae-like singing (in “Dying the Dream”).
There are so many constantly moving parts in these songs (so many!), arranged in such elaborate and surprising ways, that you’ll understand why Metal-Archives affixes the label “Progressive/Avant-garde Grindcore” to B2D. It’s about as far away from “bog standard” grind as you could imagine, a truly head-spinning adventure that’s as pleasingly bizarre as it is ruthlessly obliterating.
And yes, there is also something joyful about this madcap mayhem. The bodies pile up, but you can indeed imagine sunrise over the rigor mortis.
BEATEN TO DEATH are:
Anders Bakke – Vocals
Martin Rygge – Guitar/Backing Vocals
Tommy Hjelm – Guitar/Backing Vocals
Mika Martinussen – Bass
Christian “Bartender” Svendsen – Drums
Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis was recorded live and mixed by guitarist Tommy Hjelm. That ohenomenal cover art was created by William Hay. The album is available for pre-order now:
PRE-ORDER:
https://tigernet.no/releases/972044-sunrise-over-rigor-mortis
https://beatentodeath.bandcamp.com/album/sunrise-over-rigor-mortis-2
BEATEN TO DEATH:
https://www.facebook.com/beatentodeath
https://www.instagram.com/beatentodeath
https://www.reverbnation.com/beatentodeath
MAS-KINA:
https://www.mas-kinarecordings.com
https://www.facebook.com/maskinarecordings
https://www.instagram.com/maskinarecordings