Avulsed – Phoenix Cryptobiosis Review

Avulsed is one of Spain’s longest-running and earliest death metal bands. And with a near-complete line-up overhaul since 2023, Avulsed is also almost entirely a new band. Only founder, vocalist, mainman, and Xtreem label-head Dave Rotten remains from the line-up that released the Extraterrestrial Carnage EP not even two years ago, his low gutturals still (and seemingly always) the band’s most distinctive musical feature.

If you’ve been following along for these thirty years, through solid slabs of sickness from Stabwound Orgasm to Ritual Zombi (the latter, from 2013, the band’s last true full-length ‘til now), you’ve likely noticed that Avulsed tends to land in a middle ground between a Cannibal Corpse-esque gorespattered brutality and Dismember/Vomitory carving Swedeath, often with an aura of Necrophagia-like horror film eeriness. Certain albums skew farther towards one side or the other of that admittedly reductive description, but all fit within its confines, outside of the electro-misfire Cybergore. In some ways, Avulsed is almost a Platonic ideal of a certain kind of no-frills old-school death metal: not overly technical but never simplistic, occasionally melodic without being necessarily “melo-”. They’re heavy without sacrificing hooks, gross without being grimy, shiny without being overly slick, and so on.

Even a complete line-up change hasn’t really altered the course (nor should it have, really), although it has certainly lit a bit of spark in their collective belly. From the cinematic riff-laden opening of “Limbs Regeneration,” Phoenix jumps immediately into one of its best tracks, “Lacerate To Dominate.” That one hews closer to the Dismember-ish side of Avulsed’s style, all eminently catchy tremolo-picked melodies and as close to a vocal hook as death metal can get, a juggernaut of insidiously melodic death. “Blood Monolith” opens a cappella, an interesting choice for a death metal track, but after Rotten chants the title a few times, the song erupts and becomes Phoenix’s finest moment, a fine example of straight-ahead death metal done properly, all slicing riff and anger.

If Phoenix Cryptobiosis has any downside, it’s that it wanes a bit in the back half, later tracks like “Devotion For Putrefaction” and “Bio-Cadaver” not doing as much to differentiate themselves from those in the stronger first six songs. It’s not that any of those are bad – far from it, in fact – just that, after the title track, Phoenix’s most immediate highlights are behind it. Still, even if it repeats itself a bit by the end, Phoenix Cryptobiosis is a solid little slice-and-dice dash of death metal, nicely balancing sharp riffery against a hefty dose of epic horror atmosphere, and all that should be enough to keep the attention of anyone jonesing for some classic-styled death wrapped up in a new bow.

A brand new band with a decades-old name. A vocalist who’s a lifer, still playing the music that brought him into the fold so long ago. Old dogs, and new dogs, and new takes on old tricks, and it’s all hare, and if you’ve been keeping tabs on Avulsed for however long, then you’ll be pleased that they’re back, and as strong as they’ve ever been. And if you’re new, you’ve got some catching up to do…