Broken Hope
Mutilated and Assimilated
(Century Media Records)
Horror and death metal have a beautifully ugly marriage, even if the best scary movies prefer scores littered with violins and synths. Metal lyricists, or at least the guy who comes up with some words to gurgle in between riffs and solos (kidding!), love to indulge in the dark and twisted, and the style’s trademark speed and chainsaw guitar tone are a wonderful match for the macabre. Unfortunately, groups often veer too far into the extremes (grind and tech-death) or lack any sort of musical nuance (later Cannibal Corpse) to nail the essence of horror; it’s more than manic killers and gore splattering all over the screen.
Chicago’s Broken Hope surely know a thing or two about death metal, as they have a career that now spans four decades. Only guitarist Jeremy Wagner has been with the band since ’88, but he’s assembled an excellent assortment of acolytes since the band came back from hiatus in 2012. The resulting record, Omen of Disease showed Wagner still had the creative fire in him, but after hearing its follow-up, it’s clear that record was more of an omen of the further greatness to come. Broken Hope absolutely nail the feel of horror with their fantastic seventh record. With a distinctly American brand of death in hand, the group’s sound recalls the best of Autopsy, Cannibal Corpse, Immolation, and Dying Fetus, though their multi-faceted style of brutal death is certainly their own. It doesn’t hurt that this is easily the band’s best and most varied release to date. Mutilated and Assimilated sounds impressively fresh, and it may go down as one of the best death metal albums of the year.
What is immediately obvious is the musical dexterity shown throughout the album. Broken Hope helped usher in the brutal and technical death scenes in the early 90s, yet Mutilated and Assimilated feels somewhat tame by today’s standards of extremity; I’m often reminded of the menacing melody of The Black Dahlia Murder at their heaviest here, and that’s a great thing (“Outback Incest Clan” and “Blast Frozen” immediately come to mind). The name of the game here is serpentine, bloodthirsty riffs that change speeds like a mood ring changes color on a teenager, mixed with impressive solos. Yet, it’s the impressive rhythm section of drummer Mike Miczek and bassist Diego Soria that helps keep the shape-shifting sound grounded. The pace goes from oozing doom to one step slower than mind-melting insanity, yet the sonic shifts almost always work. They certainly drive home that horror feel, as you get the sense that whatever unearthly creature is depicted on the cover is hunting you down at the varying paces on the record.
The title track references the horror classic The Thing, and that sort of Lovecraftian body horror is at the center of why Broken Hope’s horror metal works so well: they understand that a good monster needs to be scary, but it also needs nuance and times when you can catch your breath and ponder your futile existence. Mutilated and Assimilated nails that aesthetic, as the band’s shape-shifting death melodic brutal death is a (horrifying) beauty to behold. Songs immediately sink their meat hooks into you and stay there for a while. This is the kind of gorefest that is meant to be savored, even if you’d rather look away. Broken Hope have, after all this time, crafted their sharpest statement of intent, and it’s deadly, seriously, great.
