EXHUMED
Killed by Death
By: John Mincemoyer
I want this article to tear you limb from limb, from fucking limb! Why? Because this article is about Exhumed and they deserve your undivided attention. Exhumed have worked hard and labored for over a decade in relative underground obscurity spreading aural carnage through myriad split singles, demos and two gore-strewn, but critically acclaimed, albums Gore Metal and Slaughercult. I mean, how many times do you have to be told that a band “kicks ass” before you buy their albums or give them at least one good listen?
Mass popularity and acceptance be damned! Exhumed have remained true to themselves, their rabid fans and the underground metal scene. Very few units remain under one flag, but for those that do, Exhumed are there – standing upon a mountain of bodies, on bodies, on bodies.
As much as Exhumed offers via sound recording, witnessing Exhumed live is what has propelled them into the upper echelon of underground metal acts. Exhumed live is an experience that is not forgotten. Whether it is the bullet-belts and spikes, fire, vomit, chainsaws, or amplified destruction, Exhumed leaves everything on stage and a scorched earth before it.
Yeah, I am a fan if you cannot tell. And I must tell you that Exhumed’s latest effort, Anatomy is Destiny, is an awesome collection of true head-banging, spine-snapping Death Metal forged from the finest molten metals and honed razor sharp. For instance, ‘In the Name of Gore’ features one of the most memorable and purely hell-banging gallop riffs since Slayer’s ‘Angel of Death’. You think I jest? Death awaits you… - John Mincemoyer
VISUAL NIGHTMARES
The first thing that struck me about Anatomy Is Destiny is the professional, yet still striking, album cover. This is a major change from the early gore-strewn covers. According to Matt Harvey Exhumed’s sanguinary and sickening secretor of nauseating necrony and egregiously obscene orator of execrable elocutions, “The picture was taken by a photographer named Max Aguilera-Hellweg. He has a great book of medical photography called ‘The Sacred Heart’ and this photo really grabbed our attention. There were a lot of other photos in the book that had more explicit imagery - exposed abdominal cavities, brains, copious amounts of blood, etc., but we thought that this image was far more disturbing. Even creepier is the ghoulish half-grin, half-grimace on the woman's face…She's like the Mona Lisa of gore...We definitely were looking for an image that conveyed a horrific disturbing atmosphere, in a non-gratuitous way.
It was important that the cover was different from what we've done previously and that it was different from what people usually associate with Gore Metal…Ultimately, that's one of the things that gore lyrics achieve when they're well done. And like the woman in the photo, we relish that confrontation - the moment when you come face-to-face with the finality, coldness and universality of death.”
The professional-looking quality of Anatomy Is Destiny is far removed from the B-movie feel/look that dominated Gore Metal and Slaughtercult. Matt says, “Well, we want each album to be different, musically and visually. The Gore Metal cover was more cartoon-style, whereas the Slaughtercult cover was more obscure. The cover of Anatomy Is Destiny is more creepy and suggestive, rather than putting it all out there from the get-go. All of the violence and splatter is implied—until you get to the inside artwork, which is pretty over the top. We also felt that the musick had changed by becoming more streamlined and more complex, so the cover and the overall look of the record should reflect that, while still retaining a lot of our trademark aesthetic elements from the first two records. In fact, the interior artwork is more directly descended from the Gore Metal imagery, but this time we had the time and budget and experience to put our ideas across in a far more effective way.”
If you are an astute follower of Death Metal you might notice the uncanny resemblance between the Anatomy Is Destiny cover and Impaled’s Mondo Medicale, which came out last year (Both feature faces being probed and/or prodded.). I had to wonder if this was an intentional stab—in essence, Exhumed’s OU812 to their Eat ‘Em and Smile? “Purely coincidental,” states Matt. “Col [Jones – drummer] and I had already selected the photo for the cover well before the Impaled record came out. There are constant comparisons of the two bands, so we decided to go ahead and use the image anyway. It's pretty obvious that if Impaled never used an idea that we had already done, they would probably never have released anything or played any shows. Although it's clear that Impaled are the direct descendants of Exhumed, especially imagery-wise and on stage, there is no rivalry or whatever people like to think. We are solely focused on making the best Exhumed record possible, not on competing with any other band, especially one whose career we have directly paved the way for, despite their insistence on ignoring our existence.”
I THINK THE ALBUM SHOULD BE CALLED…
Okay, I am going to say that when I first read the album title I was a little confused. After thinking about it, it would make more sense, to me, that “Autopsy is Destiny" would be a better title as we are all headed to the coroner's table at some point in time. “The phrase was actually coined by Sigmund Freud, to reflect the role our biology plays in our psychological and emotional development, but the context we use it in definitely has a different meaning,” explains Matt. “Essentially, what the title is meant to convey is that the sum total of human existence is nothing more than the raw physical elements that comprise our corporeal form. There is no afterlife, no metaphysical justice, and no higher purpose; ultimately there is only death, where we are all reduced to our physical parts and the chemical and biological components thereof. The only universal truth of human experience is physical death and that in light of that truth, there is no set meaning or purpose for existence. It's certainly not a new concept, but it is a truthful one that is indeed universal to anyone, and I don't know if it has been put across in a metal album up until this point. Songs throughout the album touch on different elements of this concept, while some others are completely unrelated. ‘The Matter of Splatter’, ‘In the Name of Gore’, ‘A Song for the Dead’, and to a lesser extent, ‘Grotesqueries’ all resonate these concepts in one way or another.”
THE SOUND OF DEATH
Anatomy Is Destiny is by far the best sounding Exhumed effort to date. Yes, I like all of Exhumed’s work, but this album stands out in stark contrast to their previous…And Neil Kernon is a rather well known producer. So what is he doing recording an Exhumed album? Matt says, “When talking with our fearless promotions director and spiritual guru Gordon Conrad about potential producers for the album, Neil's name kept coming up. We knew that it was necessary to get a clearer, cleaner sound than we had had in the past, and Neil definitely helped us achieve that. The reason that we ultimately wanted to work with him was not all of the killer work he had done with Nevermore, Queensrÿche, Dokken, Macabre, Cannibal Corpse, and other metal bands, but was that he had worked on all different kinds of music, from fusion to reggae, to Hall & Oates. It was important that we get someone that knew not just how to make a good-sounding meal record, but someone who knew how to make a good-sounding record.
The fact that he is getting so much work throughout the scene did put us off a bit, but after talking with him and seeing that he saw eye-to-eye with us insofar as being diametrically opposed to getting a ‘cookie-cutter’ type sound, we knew that he was the guy. The last thing we wanted was to have a ‘Neil Kernon’ production or a ‘Morrisound’ production, or a ‘Sunlight’ production, etc. We wanted our record to sound like us first and foremost. Working with him was a great experience. His enthusiasm and energy was insane…There were times when he would ask me ‘Are you sure that this isn't going to be too clean?’ We would always say, ‘No!’ It has to be as close to perfect as possible, because we want the clearest, most in-your-face production we can get. And we definitely got it.”
Of course, a lot of the album’s outcome had to do with Exhumed’s approach to the recording process. Matt states, “We definitely took it more seriously this time around. Obviously, we have always tried to do as good of a job as possible in the studio, but this time we all put a lot of pressure on each other, which led to a couple of relatively heated moments, but it was all definitely for the best. We also had more of an idea of what we were aiming for this time around. It was great that Neil was willing to listen to and try some of our ideas—us coming with barely any experience, and him with 25 to 30 years of studio experience. With Slaughtercult it was a bit more ‘friendly’ with Mieszko, because we're all about the same age, and have been playing Grind since around the same time, and had toured together. Not that Neil wasn't a great guy, because we got along really well with him, but the fact that he has done so many huge records and has been doing this for so long made us all take the whole process a bit more seriously, which really paid off.”
One of the most notable, probably the most notable, things about Anatomy Is Destiny is Exhumed’s performance, which is chilling in its brilliance. The fact that Exhumed have incorporated more textures into their sound speaks to their efforts to push themselves in new directions. Anatomy Is Destiny is the most “musical” Exhumed record to date. With that said, I asked Matt whether or not he had been influenced by anything he was listening to at the time of recording. “I'm not sure about the other guys, but I listened to Master of Puppets almost daily for about a year before we went into the studio,” he admits. “Slaughtercult was more akin to Reign in Blood in its relentlessness (I am not saying it’s as good or anything like that—that would be blasphemy!), where this one is more dynamic and dark, and has more pacing and dynamics like Master of Puppets (Again - I would never suggest that anything Exhumed has ever recorded is better than or as good as Master of Puppets.). That whole album is brilliant, from every note on it, to the way it’s put together as an album, track by track, and the overarching concept of the album's lyrics, and its iconic imagery, etc. That was a major influence on my idea of how to put the record together. The main thing was that we all felt that we were growing individually as players and together as a band and that really for the first time we thought our ideas were good enough to come out from behind the noisy production and simplicity that we had focused on in the past.”
DEATH IN SIMPLE TERMS
I don’t know about you, but I take my metal rather seriously. But that is sometimes tested when reading metal, especially gore-oriented, lyrics. When asked whether his approach to the subject of "death" was more profound than others, or more tongue-in-cheek, Matt says, “I think that our lyrics and concepts work on multiple levels. They are primarily there to entertain on the surface level, because even the most important concepts are uninteresting if they're not put across in a way that people will want to hear. Some of our songs are straight up horror stories – ‘Waxwork’ is based mostly on the old Vincent Price movie ‘The Wax Museum’...There's not a lot of subtext going on there... Then there's a song like ‘Grotesqueries’, where the actual concept is almost 100 percent sub-textural. I think we don't take ourselves seriously as people, but there are serious concepts being discussed at times…We have never entertained any kind of supernatural or metaphysical concepts - no zombies; no Satanism; just the brutal realities of murder and death. But we've had fun with it...”
Prodding him further, I asked what went through his mind when he was up on stage screaming about consuming intestines with a frenzied crowd before him possibly beating the shit out of one another. Matt, showing his quick wit states, “Usually I'm thinking 'What's the next line' or 'I hope I can nail the solo for this song' and quite often its 'Am I out of tune?' I just concentrate on giving the most intense show that we can do and having a good time up there. Of course the more violent the crowd is, the more we like it. It's always great to see bodies flying off of the stage and fists in the air...Heads banging all around and all of that good stuff.”
BE SURE TO GET ENOUGH GORE IN YOUR DIET…
Well, if I have done my job then after reading this you are going to seek out Anatomy Is Destiny, or any Exhumed for that matter, and bang your fucking head until it falls off. Are you a fiend? Still cannot get enough? Well, Relapse Records will be releasing a 2-CD compilation sometime in the near future. Matt says, “‘Platters of Splatter’ should be the be-all, end-all for Exhumed completists...Almost. It has all of our major demos: ‘Horrific Expulsion of Gore’, ‘Grotesque Putrefied Brains’, and ‘Dissecting the Caseated Omentum’; as well as all of our EPs: Exhumed /Gadget split, Exhumed/Sanity's Dawn split, ‘Totally Fucking Dead’, ‘Tales of the Exhumed’, ‘Indignities to the Dead’, ‘Instruments of Hell’, ‘Blood and Alcohol’, ‘Excreting Innards’; the tribute songs we've recorded: Impetigo, Carcass, King Diamond; the ‘In the Name of Gore’ split CD with Hemdale; and our tracks from the ‘Chords of Chaos’ 4-way split CD. The first 1000 will come with a third disc with alternate versions of songs, pre-‘Gore Metal’ versions of some of those songs, tracks from the Cadaveric Splatter Platter demo, and compilation tracks from the mid-1990s, as well as the most stupid cover song in the history of cover songs...I'm not sure when its coming out at this point. I believe it should be out in Spring 2004 now.”
I cannot get enough of Anatomy Is Destiny...The marked improvement of this album over their previous efforts makes me crave more. I know I’m being rash, but Matt says, “I have a couple of songs that I'm working on right now, but they're pretty similar to the material on Anatomy Is Destiny. I don't know exactly what will become of them. I think it's best to tour for this album and feel that we have really gotten it out of our system so that we'll be able to come back next time with something new to say. I'm not interested in making the same album again and again. That works for some bands, but not for us. Right now, we're so in the mode of Anatomy Is Destiny that it would be impossible to say where we're headed next. Time will tell...”
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