Afterbirth – In But Not Of Review

[Cover art by Alex Eckman Lawn]

Metal is at an interesting nexus at the moment. When else in time could four lads born after The Sound Of Perseverance, a quartet of slightly more seasoned musicians from South America, and a pair of dudes from Texas that released a demo in ’96 be in the running for some of the finest death metal of the year? Not to mention a band of multifaceted musicians that can return to the well when inspiration ambushes to keep things fresh and exciting. When else would you get bands that laid down essential precursors to the genre returning to their classic material, not just to get out of a contract or for a cynical payday, but doing it with what feels like a rekindled spark for the passion to play this music in the first place?

Afterbirth have their own story behind the music. Formed in Long Island, New York in 1993, the first incarnation of the band seemed short-lived. Only a rehearsal tape and a demo were released, boasting but a scant five individual tracks between the two recordings. Leaning head-on into the brutal side, shaping themselves among building blocks of New York brutal death like Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse, Afterbirth planted a seed. Whether it’s chalked up to an organic desire for an individual artistic voice or an ethos of an era where the boundaries were still being discovered at a rapid pace, the shell of Afterbirth’s attempt to push forward to craft their own style can be heard cracking through ever so slightly on those early recordings–if they are but a faint echo of what the band would grow into. The result of these sessions feel like a precursor to the more technical brutality of Defeated Sanity, topped with the earth-shattering quake of Matt Duncan’s throat that would have carried these guys well through the 90s had they stayed active in death metal.

Unfortunately, Afterbirth were devoured by a gigantic wormhole, vanishing from the planet Earth for a few hundred thousand years before re-emerging from the galactic goo roughly two decades in terrestrial time from their inception. Naturally, they got right back into action, releasing a four song demo in 2014 that roughly sketched out the idea of what the band had become (would become? Wormholes wreck havoc on grammar). In a much more tragic turn events, the band that had somehow managed to hold together its entire original lineup through a twenty year gap with such renewed vigor and creativity tragically lost their vocalist two years later. Duncan’s rich, gurgling contribution to the genre notwithstanding, his typewriter-on-wet-paper annunciation through some of the most fluidly pleasing guttural vocals that harkened back to the demo days were an integral and defining aspect of the band’s sound.

It doesn’t take an astrophysicist to figure out that a comic book readin’, death metal obsessed kid in Long Island like Will Smith had probably been jamming out to a tape of Psychopathic Embryotomy back in the day, and given the reverberation his vocal chords would later put forth in the similarly transhumanist dystopia of Artificial Brain, he was a natural fit for vocal duties when Afterbirth at long last released their debut album, The Time Traveler’s Dilemma in 2017. By now, their sound had evolved to something far more… alien. Using technical playing and progressive structures as tools, Afterbirth showcased an ability to carve fascinating–and oddly pleasing–melodies from the brutality with oddly warm, captivating but coldly inhuman tones as they traversed the cosmos, armed with the gravity hammer of Smith’s vocals to keep things anchored in the brutality even when the music is playing hopscotch through dazzling quasars.

The follow-up album, Four Dimensional Flesh, tightened the songwriting while pushing their sound even further into alien star systems. The spaced-out progressive edge felt fully blossomed but also instantly memorable–playing it back after the first time there were these instant bullet points that already felt familiar. “Catchy” isn’t the right word, and neither would I describe the experience as “having hooks,” but the music essentially covered the job of both in its own inverted way.

Their latest work, the aptly titled In But Not Of, loosens the concise songwriting a bit and lets the band explore even further, opening them up to drift a bit deeper into the oxygenless void. Testing the limits of the lifeline to the mothership, the album feels more untethered, as though floating through the cosmos of the band’s imagination. Their greatest skill–the ability to sneakily but profoundly mix elements of space rock and post-rock into their riffing style while retaining every ounce of sheer heaviness they professed back in the promising demo era remains a touchpoint for their sound. Even the album’s title feels like a statement of self-realization, or perhaps intent: Afterbirth may be lumped into brutal death metal, but they don’t feel at all confined or restrained by it. In, but not of.

For recording, the band returned to work with Four Dimensional Flesh engineer and all around studio whiz Colin Marsten. I can’t speak on it with any impunity, but judging from the final product I have to imagine the audio gremlin had an absolute blast coloring, placing, and painting with the array of sounds Afterbirth brought to the table with In But Not Off. There’s a lot of love put into the production (including a dedicated vinyl master) to make it an immersive experience. The kicks punch deep and low, more felt than heard. The bass has its own vacuum in which to play, allowing both the percussive and melodic elements of bassist David Case’s musicianship to shine. The guitar sound morphs from crunchy, violent asteroid showers in the mid space to glimmering nebulae and shimmering star clusters, and the light use of keys on “Hovering Human Head Drones” glows like irradiated belts of space dust on the fringes of the astral body of the music. All of this swirls around the light-crushing black hole of Will Smith’s growling voice, slowing and inhumanly sucking it all into the maw like some sort of unfeeling celestial being: a dark, solar system-devouring Kirby.

The most straightforward track on the album is still a pretty bizarre one. “Vomit On Humanity” continues the band’s tradition of working one track from their 2014 demo into their current work (or is the current work built around the one track? Space-time is wild, man), with “Maggots In Her Smile” on The Time Traveler’s Dilemma and “Spiritually Transmitted Disease” getting an updated treatment on Four Dimensional Flesh. “Vomit” is a thrashy number, like early Cannibal Corpse getting shoved into an airlock and jettisoned into the orbit of some zombie-infested moon. The riffs may be thrashy, but the song almost inverts thrash tropes, teasing hammer-smashed breaks and suddenly shifting the mood to send the listener on a whiplashing ride around the undead asteroid that found its way into orbit.

It’s impressive how a band can use brutal death as an anchor and make a song like “Autoerotic Amputation” feel like a Sonic The Hedgehog boss battle on Mecha World at the start and morph it into the stargazing alternative rock of Hum–the latter being an element that pops up extremely organically across Afterbirth’s albums. “[Hum] are probably as intertwined/hardwired into my guitar writing DNA as Suffocation is,” explains guitarist Cody Drasser upon a brief inquiry about the matter. Intertwined is correct–none of the cross-genre workings feel in any way forced, flowing naturally into the music as the songs take form. Bits and pieces pop up more prominently from time to time, but songs like “Autoerotic Amputation,” the instrumental title track “In But Not Of,” and especially the bridge of album highlight “Angels Feast On Flys” (its impact punctuated with the choice of drum patterns by percussionist Keith Harris) really bring the introverted space rock influence into focus. “Hovering Human Head Drones,” in a stark contrast to the reworked “Vomit On Humanity,” feels like its expanding the universe of Afterbirth. Perhaps it’s the far-out keyboard work of Martsen or Drassar’s soulful, drifting guitarwork, but the band’s ability to translate something human in the depths of something as cold as space makes their work radiate even more. It’s lonely up here, Major Tom–it’s frightening, it’s violent, it’s inhuman and beyond our understanding, but goddamn if it isn’t beautiful to witness.

While I was instantly impressed with In But Not Of, it took a few more spins and a more focused listen to fully appreciate than my experience with Four Dimensional Flesh. Their latest work feels like the band are challenging both themselves and their listeners–they’ve found a sound but don’t feel like the sort of band that can sit too still or stay too comfortable. Forever in, but not of. There are all manner of smaller surprises tucked in, lurking behind the gas giants of the songs themselves, just begging to be discovered by the keen ear. For a new listener, I’d still recommend Four Dimensional Flesh as a starting point for its balance, to understand the world Afterbirth is playing in–if only so the experience can tee their brain up so In But Not Off can knock it into the ionosphere with a sick, wet thwack.