originally written by Chris McDonald
Bands like Murder Intentions are sort of peculiarly appealing to me. An ultra broo-tal assortment of breakdowns, blasts, and grunts, A Prelude To Total Decay is dressed in the kind of ultra-macho savagery that I find myself wanting to hate, yet unable to. Fortunately, when I spin this particular disc this I’m not stuck with the kindof mild shameful guilt that I get when I listen to something like early Devourment, because Murder Intentions actually deliver this style with a great deal of clarity and focus, making for one of the year’s more visceral death metal offerings.
If you’re able to stomach hilariously testosterone-fueled chorus lines like “All you fucking bitches, get down on your knees!”, you’ll find that Murder Intentions has sculpted an impressively engaging sound on their debut full-length. The crunchy, slam-heavy guitars are catchy and well supported by a boisterous but sturdy drum performance, giving the songs a sense of structure and coherence that is missing from many of this band’s sloppier genre-peers. While blastbeats and chump-chump breakdowns are obviously commonplace, a thrashy element is also prevalent in the songs which adds an unusual dimension to their flow. This formula is established in volatile fashion with the opening twosome of “Violent Future” and “Infected Casualties,” both of which showcase Murder Intentions’ affinity for contrasting heaving mid-paced tempos with technical breakdowns and blasts. Vocals are primarily a standard gurgle/bellow, but they thankfully never venture into pig-squeal territory, and the growls are augmented with some distorted, almost hardcore-sounding shouts which contribute to the ferocity nicely (even if they render some of the cornier lyrics a bit too clearly for my tastes.)
With nine songs in under half an hour, Murder Intentions makes the most of their time. While a familiar assortment of sample clips is peppered throughout the album’s nine tracks (often into the songs themselves), the main draw of A Prelude to Total Decay is, in fact, the music, not the lyrics or movie clips or vocals. While this shouldn’t be too much to ask from a band, “brutal” death metal has become such a redundant, image-conscious parody of its roots that seeing a band of this style deliver such a blistering musical product is refreshing. However, there’s no denying that all of these songs are basically cut from the same formula, and it can be a bit disconcerting to hear a breakdown that sounds almost identical to one heard in the previous song. At least the instrumental outro mixes it up a bit with a slower, more ominous atmosphere, and “Failed Humanity” delivers a sick harmonic-driven riff followed by an interested, oddly-metered slowdown that effectively re-hooks you in around the album’s halfway point.
If you dig brutal death metal but feel that many of the current bands of this ilk could use a little more wallop, Murder Intentions may well be of interest to you. A Prelude To Total Decay is a well-produced and surprisingly memorable exercise in one of metal’s most inaccessible strains, and signals a solid start for this young outfit.
