Brazilian act Anarkhon are like a bastard child of US legends Cannibal Corpse and Dutch veterans Sinister, if your asking me. I'm not getting the easy way out with this review, believe me, but this sounds like these guys worship those two bands.

'Into the Autopsy' is the band's second full-length album. What I hear on it is 'The Bleeding' up to 'Gallery of Suicide' (1994-1998) Cannibal Corpse and Sinister from same era mixed. It cannot be too bad, right? Sadly, Anarkhon's guitar sounds way too fluffy; The guitars do not not bite or rip at all. Chord progressions sound soft, when they should torture listeners' vertebrate organs of hearing. The band can also get weirdly harmonic at times, e.g. on 'B.D.S.M.'s starting part, which is like a sex act, as it at first starts quite, erm... pulsating, harmonic way, but get rougher towards the end. This is heard later on, too.

Around the album there are some good riffs to be heard for sure, but also quite a big amount of forgettable strings stretching. Or so I thought, because many riffs that at first felt boring turned into hypnotic and mesmerizing. 'Pieces of Flesh and Blood' is a perfect example of this, because it felt mostly very boring with some catchier parts, but I had to take another stance towards the song after a few spins. Mind you, this didn't happen with every riff or song, so there is quite an amount of throw-away material (e.g. 'Killing, Deforming and Skinning', mess-of-a-song 'Stab in the Head', 'Silent Suffering').

Some songs do not simply stand out, and some are too similar to each other. Or they just sound too much like the influencing acts' material, but mostly worse. One song that stands out is 'Convent Possession' (fine title, if you ask me), which has a dark atmosphere and is more Sinister-style song. Vibrating riffs instantly remind of Cannibal Corpse, like happens on 'Return to Cum' (the song title of the year?!). The songs are rather short, which is okay by me, because with this arsenal they're better off faster. By the way, the longest one 'Damned Worms' starts with an intro of a guy screaming in suffering for one bloody minute. Many a song is made of mid-paced/fast (also blasting) tempo alternation. The guitar solos are very melodic, but are heard only on under half of the songs.

The vocals are gutturally growled with some added nasty "shrieks". There's not much variation in them. They are powerful enough, and therefore availing in their task. The lyrics are rather sick at times. They aren't well-written English, but meanings come clear while reading the words. The closer is sung in Portuguese. Some semi-classic lines can be found here, such as "possessed nuns attack the priests in the sacristy, urinating in the face, one of them kills suffocating him with the own vagina" and "first I put a cockroach in your vagina, it walks for their bowels and it scratches your uterus, then I put a rat in tour ass to lacerate your colon"!

The production is somewhat muddy on low frequencies, as the bass guitar and the drums together sound like jumble. However, it's the ballsless guitar tones, that drag down the whole thing, more like. The artwork is a bit too colourful, if also very inviting. And typical.

With this second strike, Anarkhon leaves a rather disorderly feeling. With some okay songs, this album is lifted up from junk, but still it does not crush, rip or molest its listeners. But, the band have their own kind of bits here, one being that pulsating style that is heard quite a lot.

P.S. Anarkhon seem to have a lot of stuff available for downloading on their website, so try it!

Rating: 5- (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
11/04/2014 19:55