If you, like many of us here at Last Rites, are an ancient, or at least ancient-adjacent, then perhaps you’ve been listening to death metal for quite some time. For my part, I happen to be falling apart enough to have been there since its inception, which equates to four decades of having my head bashed in by metal’s most brutal off-shoot. I have indeed ingested some rather questionable and / or damaging fare in that span, and at this point my only hope for being startled by a release in the same way I was for, say, the Deicide debut or the way Symphonies of Sickness dragged grind into the game is for a modern record to very literally spew lethal refuse into my face the moment the music escapes from the speakers.

Does that mean the death metal needle only moves around these parts when the death metal itself is so buried in the underground that it literally needs to crawl from a toilet to catch our attention? Not necessarily. Check out our collective No. 1 album from 2025, Unbirth’s excellent Asomatous Besmirchment. Sure, it’s not exactly as… basic as, say, Frozen Soul, but it’s also not exactly Sulfuric Cautery’s Killing Spree, which also made our list.

Bottom line: At this point on the timeline, there are as many death metal bands swimming in the public pool as there are bacteria, so if you’re stepping up to the plate playing “good old fashioned death metal,” it better cross all the i’s and dot all the t’s if you hope to catch the attention of those who’ve been toiling in the death metal mines for decades.

Have you yet had the pleasure of New Jersey flatteners Funebrarum? Being “active” over the course of the last three decades and releasing only two full-lengths leading up to Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence isn’t exactly the most ideal route to renown, but what Funebrarum lacks in quantity is outweighed by quality, so we’re still very much operating in the black. And if you’ve still managed to avoid dipping thy blessed piggies into the pool, know that, as much as I triple heart their punishing debut Beneath the Columns of Abandoned Gods, I think at this point I’d recommend working backwards from Beckoning because this record marks a terrific place to start for anyone interested in what it might feel like to be brought to your end at the behest of straight-up DEATH METAL that both hits like a sloooowly rumbling tank AND transforms into a Mecha that uses a fusion-powered hammer to pound your pulp until full evaporation.

Caveat numero uno: You gotta love it slow, baby.

Slow, yes, but not exactly funereal slow—the kind of slow that makes you think of giants on a crucial trek, not sap running down a 300 year-old oak. And those sluggish stretches are often spiced with atmospheric keys and / or a penchant for crushing with the sort of serious weight that might leave you wondering if the planet’s just been tea-bagged by Galactus. Point of fact: As much as I’d agree that Funebrarum is a band largely rooted in a… less swift form of death metal, calling them death / doom isn’t terribly accurate because, despite a foundation clearly built on rotted death metal, there’s also a ferocity built into each song that conjures a parallel dimension where the early interpretation of Carcass might’ve ended up on Peaceville rather than Earache. That is to say, there’s a distinct doomed grind element here whenever the record decides to hustle, and it hustles nearly as often as it slogs.

“Anhela Odor Mortuorum (The Adepts)”: A rotted death metal grinding wheel that catches you in its cogs and pulverizes your bones into a grouting paste—hey, that’s just the sort of reduce, reuse, recycling we need in our world today. That crumbling decay that chews the corners here (and up and down the entirety of the record) is certainly magnified by sole founding member / chief architect Daryl Kahan’s approach to some of the most decrepit, rumblingest vocals you’ll hear from a living creature that’s not an irascible grizzly bear with a festering thorn in its paw. And what’s this we hear? Why, it’s extreme metal’s busiest gadabout Phil Tougas, the newest recruit to the ever-shifting gaggle packed in behind Kahan. Tougas is actually… a little restrained on this record? Is that even possible? Did Kahan chain one of Phil’s arms to a radiator? Whatever happened, Tougas gives the whole of Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence a perfect little pinch of noodling melody, but it’s never used to a degree that might make trick the listener into believing this is anything but a vehicle bent on flattening with relentless brutality.

If you need another taste of what’s in store, cram “From Rotting Burial Shrouds” into your worried ears, a song that emphasizes the more hostile face of the band for the bulk of its run, but still manages to sliiiide into that absolutely crushing groove that guides the overall vibe of Beckoning’s 50-ish minutes. That’s not Tougas on the pretty little splash of melody this time around, but rather GOREMENT legend Patrik Fernlund. Squeeee! Squeeeee, I say!

Caveat numero two-o: Don’t come to this party looking for innovation.

Does that come across as a slight? If so, it’s fully unintentional. Again, this is all caps DEATH METAL that doesn’t bother with infusing Tubular Bells, “Us and Them” or some farkakte Dream Theater potpourri into the mix. Instead, heed the following directions: Pound, grind, rumble, grumble, repeat as necessary, just as Funebrarum has done basically since day one. In the hands of a lesser band, that might result in something far less convincing, but here the outcome is an absolute triumph. GET SQUASHED.

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