Album Details

• Artist: Exhumed
• Album: All Guts, No Glory
• Label: Relapse
• Year of Release: 2011
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2011-10-25

Man, if you look at even random sites, any review of the new Exhumed is full of crazy praise and awe. But one listen to "All Guts, No Glory" will show why. All eleven songs are relentlessly heavy, hard and punishing. It might be impossible going forward to talk about metal albums without using this for comparison. Eleven songs. Thirty five minutes. An imaginary visit to a aural ER in hell.

Giddy you will be as the unglued as one biting, steely riff kicks in, fades and makes room for another, always with a super growl that is suitably pissed and impatient. Things happen fast in a half-hour; only one track is four minutes long, and even that one-"Through Cadaver Eyes,"-hits and runs with malice.

It is hard to pick out any one track on this thrash classic, but for today personal favorites are "I Rot Within" and "Distorted and Twisted Form," since today they feature the riffs that are staying in my head. Tomorrow will surely bring a pummeling from some of the other tunes.

Guitarist Matt Harvey is the star here, but it takes a total group effort to create and maintain such a level of aggression and control. "All Guts, No Glory" is not only Exhumed's finest moment, but probably the best metal record of the year. If something better comes along, it will be from another planet.

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