Incredible things are happening in the slamming brutal death metal (SBDM) genre. It’s bigger than it’s ever been, and it’s being led by a new wave of young bands. I didn’t mean for this to be such a long review, but I rarely talk about this genre and I’ve been sitting on some thoughts.
As a side note, my earliest memory of SBDM is a YouTube video that compared it to deathcore. This was probably 15 years ago so they were comparing slam bands to deathcore bands like Chelsea Grin, Suicide Silence, and Despised Icon. Deathcore was the hot new thing and the metal elitists thought it was a fad that would die out.
The funniest part of the video was the focus on style – the young deathcore bands would wear trendy clothes, have stretched ears, and sometimes have a “gangster” persona in their music videos. Meanwhile, the slam bands wore cargo shorts and looked like they just rolled out of a basement. The point was that deathcore was for edgy teenagers that wanted to get famous by making heavy music while SBDM was for diehards that knew their music would never pay the bills.
Well, deathcore obviously stuck around and is significantly bigger than ever before. In some ways, it has also helped pull SBDM into the modern era. Of course, there are legendary staples like Abominable Putridity, Pathology, Disfiguring The Goddess, Disentomb, Kraanium, Acranius, and many others, but they mostly hover around 30k monthly listeners.
The path to the new generation of SBDM has been in the works for at least 10 years. I give Acrania a lot of credit for helping create and popularizing “brutal deathcore” in 2014. Vulvodynia and Within Destruction took the next big steps forward in 2016 and Mental Cruelty and Hollow Prophet deserve credit for their 2017 albums. They all brought a lot of attention to the slamming elements of SBDM by combining them with deathcore’s popularity and production. They also helped rehab slam’s identity by showing that it didn’t have to be defined by crazy medical words and gore.
Fast forward to the last couple of years, and Peelingflesh and Snuffed On Sight have literally taken over. Peelingflesh has 178k monthly listeners – almost as many as every legendary SBDM band I mentioned above…combined. Snuffed On Sight also just opened for Thy Art Is Murder. Bands like this aren’t supposed to be playing in venues like The House of Blues, but that’s the power of this new era of SBDM bands.
And it’s not just hype. Peelingflesh is legitimately the most fun I’ve had listening to slam in a long time. Just straight up ignorant fight music inspired by thuggery. Ridiculously heavy with enormously thick grooves.
Originally formed by a few members from Strangled after a split due to creative differences, Peeligflesh immediately started making waves. Their combination of slam, hip-hop, and rap is insanely fresh and unique. Funnily enough, their identity (and Snuffed On Sight’s) is one of gold chains and illicit activities – the exact thing that early deathcore bands were criticized for. Kids love that stuff though, and if you’re going to reimagine a whole genre, you’re going to need the younger generation’s support.
It’s not even a gimmick with Peelingflesh though – their sound is literally built around that culture. It’s seamless because it’s not a special combination they’re trying to get the hang of – the rap sections, hip-hop beats, and samples are critical parts of their sound. Plus, those fun moments add to the album’s replayability because they offer moments of reprieve from the heaviness. Most importantly, the slamming elements aren’t overshadowed by the DJ record scratches, nostalgic rap samples, or guest features. Peelingflesh is an accomplished slam band in their own right – everything else is just the cherry on top.
That being said, Peelingflesh isn’t exactly meant to be taken seriously. Slam in and of itself is somewhat satirical and over the top. One thing’s for sure though, the George W. Bush clip in “Shoot 2 Kill” is one of the hardest samples I’ve ever heard.
Peelingflesh is like no other, and that’s why they’re at the top of the game right now. You’ll either love it or hate it, but as a fan of heavy music, you should at least know about the youngsters that are breathing new life into a genre that has historically been limited to 100 cap dive bars.
Peelingflesh // The G Code
Categories: Reviews
