DecoyMusic.com

Sign Up | Login |

Forgot your password?

The Berzerker - Animosity

Rating

RIYL

Carcass
Agoraphobic Nosebleed
Morbid Angel

Tracklist

1. Eye for an Eye
2. Purgatory
3. False Hope
4. Evolution
5. No More Reasons
6. Retribution
7. Cancer
8. Weapons of War
9. Heavily Medicated
10. Lonely World

Users Rating

Create an account or log in to rate this album

Your Rating

Create an account or log in to rate this album

For the uninitiated, The Berzerker is a two-piece outfit out of Melbourne, Australia that describes their style as “industrial death metal.” Call it what you will, Animosity is an exercise in extremity. From the relentless, high-BPM programmed drums to the distorted howling and grunting, there is very little time to catch your breath on this record.

The use of programmed drums gets The Berzerker constant comparisons to Agoraphobic Nosebleed, which somewhat makes sense, although instead of the piss-and-vinegar hyperpunk that ANb churns out, The Berzerker goes the guttural death metal route. The riffing is straight out of the early Earache playbook with a focus on being fast, violent, and dark. The boys admittedly have a huge crush on the first few Carcass albums and it shows. The programmed drums are ridiculously fast, but not overly intricate or anything rarely straying from hyperspeed blasts. Also, their electro-thump sound gets irritating very quickly.

When it comes right down to it, The Berzerker are an average-at-best Carcass-worshiping death metal band. If it weren’t for the programmed drum gimmick (and the elaborate stage masks that the band finally got rid of), it is highly probable that no one would care in the slightest about this band. Even though the band is obviously trying to be taken more seriously, it is hard to overcome gimmicky beginnings and they bring nothing new to the table whatsoever.

--Tyler Wagnon