With Vertebrae After Vertebrae, Japan’s Pharmacist return with another satisfying dish of filthy, gore‑soaked deathgrind, pushing their Carcass-worship blend boldly into Heartworks territory. It’s a bold move, executed perfectly; this record finds the duo firing on all cylinders and delivering a sound that blends deathgrind and melodic death metal. “Endogenica”, the third track on the record, is an excellent showcase of the mixture, along with the album’s incredible closer “Zenith of Mnemonic Forensication”.
This record feels like the logical continuation of what Pharmacist started on Medical Renditions of Grinding Decomposition and what they sharpened on Flourishing Extremities on Unspoiled Mental Grounds. You can hear the whole lineage of subgenre greats bleeding through: Carcass (Obviously), General Surgery, Exhumed, and early ‘90s-era Napalm Death, and I am instantly reminded of one of my favorite recent deathgrind records: Grieving Birth by Internal Rot.
Therapeutist’s drumming is an all-out assault on the senses, and the constantly mutating riffs and vocal attack delivered by Ukrainian-born “Pharmacist” stay abrasive throughout. This will easily land near the top of my Metal AOTY list.
Listen now:
