BLACKTHORN — The Rotten Ways of Human Misery (review)

BLACKTHORN — The Rotten Ways of Human Misery album cover Album · 1992 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"The Rotten Ways of Human Misery" is the debut full-length studio album by Mexican death metal act Blackthorn. The album was released through Avanzada Metalica in 1992. Blackthorn was a rather shortlived act and they only released the 1991 "Dawn of Immortality" demo in addition to this album before disbanding.

The music on the album is old school thrashy death metal somewhere in the vicinity of "Leprosy (1988)"-era Death and "Slowly We Rot (1989)"-era Obituary. The music is brutal and mostly mid-paced, but there are both faster/thrashy and more doomy sections too. The instrumental part of the musicianship is decent but it´s definitely the vocals that steal the show. I don´t know what they put in the water back in those days, but death metal vocalists just sounded like they meant it. John Paul Mallory is no exception and his Chuck Schuldiner meets John Tardy vocal style is very convincing and enjoyable. The music is fairly standard for the genre and the sound production is murky and not always in a good way, but those vocals really save the day.

I might be a little too generous with my rating but I enjoyed "The Rotten Ways of Human Misery" quite a bit and I think a 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is deserved.
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