UMUR
"All Tomorrow's Funerals" is a compilation album by US, California based death metal act Autopsy. The compilation was released in February 2012 through Peaceville Records and bridges the gap between the band´s 2011 comeback album "Macabre Eternal" (May 2011, Peaceville Records) and "The Headless Ritual" (June 2013, Peaceville Records), which are their fifth and sixth full-length studio albums. "All Tomorrow's Funerals" compiles all previously released material from EPs and singles, rarity tracks, and four new original compositions. The previosly released material are culled from the 1991 "Retribution for the Dead" EP, the 1992 "Fiend for Blood" EP, the 2009 "Horrific Obsession" single, and from the 2010 "The Tomb Within" EP. There´s also a rarity track which was originally released as a one-track flexi-disc and given away with Decibel Magazine no. 88, Feb. 2012., and one track from the 1992 "Peaceville Volume 4" compilation album.
There´s no demo material featured on the compilation, although both "Human Genocide" and "Mauled to Death" were originally featured on the December 1987 "1987 Demo". Here they both appear in the re-recorded versions which Autopsy opted to do and which they included on the "The Tomb Within" EP (in the case of the former) and in the case of the latter as the above mentioned give-away single-track flexi-disc with Decibel Magazine no. 88, Feb. 2012.
You get 22 tracks and a total playing time of 72:46 minutes, so there´s a lot of quantity here, but fortunately also a lot of quality. Autopsy were always a pretty unique sounding old school death metal act. Sure enough and naturally too Autopsy´s debut album "Severed Survival" (April 1989, Peaceville Records) did have a few similar traits to Death´s "Scream Bloody Gore" (May 1987, Combat Records), as Autopsy lead vocalist/drummer Chris Reifert performs on both albums. Autopsy however soon found their own more gory and doomy death metal style with hardcore punk elements and especially Reifert´s deranged growling style and organic drumming have always made them stand out.
"All Tomorrow's Funerals" is a consistent quality release with no real low points, although the material from the early releases is maybe slightly more unique considering the time of release. The sound production of the various releases which the tracks are culled from differs sligthly, but all tracks have been remastered by the band themselves, which makes "All Tomorrow's Funerals" a relatively homogene release. Upon conclusion this is of course a mandatory listen if you´re a fan of the band and old school death metal in general, although it´s honestly more of the same if you already own the major (album) releases by Autopsy. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.