Regurgiting Reviews: Reviewing Regurgitate Life.
Before i begin the review, i’d like to forcefully impose my opinions on you. Here are some things that have been pissing me off lately.
1. Shitloads of generic metalcore bands are being marketed as Melodeath, so when i go to check out a band expecting something like In Flames or Soilwork, i am instead hit with a watered down Bleeding Through or a poor mans 36 Crazyfists.
2. Not being able to see anything on the facebook page‘s news feed. How the fuck do i fix this.
3. Out of all my Nintendo 64 games, the one i have the incredible urge to play is the only one that doesn’t work any more. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, if you were wondering.
Now that my rant is over and you now know exactly what’s getting on my nerves, i feel better. Why? Because i am a blogger and that’s what bloggers do.
Now onwards to the review! I have been meaning to cover this release for quite a while now, so i’m glad i finally took the time to do it. It is a fantastic release, which will hopefully get some more listens as a result of this article. Hailing from Woking, England , Sammy Urwin‘s one man death metal project – Regurgitate Life! I’ve caught this dude live a couple of times up here and he certainly knows how to brutal. I am going to tell you why this album is fantastic and why you should buy it for the incredibly low price it is on Bandcamp.
After a suitably creepy intro track, we are greeted with some similarly creepy chords in The Human Complex Part I. It then moves on to a slow, riff and takes on an entirely different approach to what i expected from this album. The riff crawls on, with a few jolts and shudders while Sammy lays down some brutal lows. Not full on piggy lows, but rather some old school death growls. It feels like it’s building up to something – the repetitive nature of the riff builds up to a climax of intense technical riffing when The Human Complex Part II is unleashed. There are some truly wondrous riffs in this song. The harmonic styled riff is incredible. The Outro techy riffs are fucking huge! There is an interesting, innovative twist to the entirety of this album.
And this is paired with impeccable instrumentals and a heaviness so crushing that it feels like your lifting weights at the bottom of the Mariana trench. See, that metaphor likens the heaviness of this album to the pressure at the bottom of the sea, which is 1000 times more than up here. See, now you get the metaphor. Or is it a simile. I can’t remember.
There are even some epic sounding chords in there, like in To Incarcerate and 20 Years, almost delving into the realm of melodic death metal. These elements weave in amongst aspects of brutal death metal, technical death metal and progressive death metal. Add in a hint of thrash and black metal. There is actually a lot more to this album than truly meets the eye. Especially when you consider it’s all just the one dude. Stunning displays of musical skill structured into death metal epics. It doesn’t lose any of it’s feel to mindless wankery, though.
I love how a lot of it sounds like old school death metal writing. There are some old Suffocation-esque riffs in there, with some Pestilence creeping in and even some Death (Which gives him 2 of the 4 horsemen, that’s got to count for something!). I think i might even detect some Seasons in the Abyss era Slayer. Yet it isn’t just a non-stop barrage of unyeilding ferocity. There are some tastefully written riffs in there. There’s even a little clean guitar interlude. “WHAT?”, i hear you exclaim; “CLEAN GUITAR ON A DEATH METAL ALBUM!? IT IS A BLASPHEMY, GOING AGAINST THE TEN DEATH METAL COMMANDMENTS ISSUED BY GLEN BENTON IN 1996!”. Well, suck it up. There’s clean guitars on there, and its lovely. You can’t avoid it forever.
The drums in The Tempter fire out an unrelenting wall of double bass, clearly as a result of some kind of warp drive hyper engine attached to the double bass pedal. Or they were programmed. Which they were. But one can dream of warp driver hyper engine double bass pedals. One day. One day.
Scientists, get it together!
Diminish is a full frontal attack, with horrendously heavy riffs and a torrential downpour of double bass. There are some interesting black metal-y styled chords, but with better production that most black metal, obviously – so you can hear the notes, which is apparently a luxury rather than a right. We also see the return of interesting harmonics being implemented in the riffs.
Also more clean guitars and lovely arpeggiated chords. It all adds to the slightly creepy atmosphere that this album has.
I wish the kick drum and bass were slightly louder, but that is the smallest of problems with an otherwise masterfully written album. Overall, i would like to state that this album is a standout in it’s genre. There are enough unique aspects in this album to merit a listen, and i know most of you love death metal, so don’t skip out on this. It’s cheap as fuck on bandcamp – only £5! You can buy and stream it from right here.
Like i said, this is a brilliant album, so i’m gonna go ahead and give it 4/5!
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-Ell
The Great Northern Blogkill 
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