AUTOPSY: The Headless Ritual Vinyl LP

Autopsy never got the same mainstream death metal credit as some of their peers, which is exactly why their fanbase is so ferociously loyal. They don't want the credit. They want to stay disgusting.

The Headless Ritual is the band's sixth album, released in 2013 after a seven-year hiatus, and it sounds like they spent those years fermenting in a swamp. Chris Reifert and company have always played death metal with a doomier, more grotesque sensibility than the clinical brutality of their San Francisco Bay Area contemporaries, and this record leans all the way into the rot. Slow-churning riffs, visceral production, lyrics that read like a medical horror anthology written by someone who genuinely enjoys it too much. If you want polished, go elsewhere. This is death metal the way it was always supposed to smell.

Vinyl LP. Artist origin: USA. Genre: death metal. Original release: 2013.

Fans of: Death, Dismember, Abscess, Incantation, Bolt Thrower