ANGELCORPSE Exterminate CD (1998)

Pete Helmkamp spent time in Order from Chaos before forming Angelcorpse, and that lineage matters. This is not a band that stumbled into blasphemy, they arrived with a methodology.

Exterminate, released in 1998 on Osmose Productions, is the second full-length and the one where the formula locked in completely. Angelcorpse play blackened death metal the way it was meant to work, which is to say it sounds like an industrial accident involving Morbid Angel, early Dark Funeral, and a diesel engine that has decided it hates God. Gene Palubicki's guitar work here is genuinely unhinged in the best possible way, all tremolo-picked chaos and pinched harmonics deployed like ordnance. The production is appropriately savage without being a wall of mud. If you've been burned by blackened death that's all atmosphere and no teeth, this is the antidote. The title is not metaphorical.

CD format. Released 1998, Osmose Productions. USA blackened death metal.

Fans of: Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal, Sinister, Vital Remains, Malevolent Creation, Suffocation.