Fleshcrawl may be German, but they have been stalwarts of the Swedish Death Metal sound for like 30 years. This is their ninth studio album in a career that stretches back to 1990, though only drummer Bastian Herzog remains from that incarnation of the band—in fact only he and their bass player remain of the people who even played on this one, four years ago. I missed this when it came out, so when I ran across it I was like: I wonder how Fleshcrawl are doing? I hadn't heard any of their stuff since Soulskinner, and that was waaaaay back in 2002.

It's not like this represents any kind of stylistic shift for the band. Fleshcrawl still steer by the stars of Carnage and Dismember, though they do sound a bit more pugilistic than they did in the old days. The guitar sound is that patented Swedish sound, the vocals are a bit more upfront than maybe they should be, though I do like the slightly more intelligible vocal style of the late Sven Gross (RIP). There are not any really bad songs on here, but not any really great ones either. This is pretty much just what I expected—solid, unimaginative, and with no surprises whatsoever.