The Black Dahlia Murder

Verminous

METAL BLADE

Crossover brutes perfect their fearsome formula.

One of the few extreme metal bands to successfully straddle the divide between underground esteem and mainstream recognition, the Black Dahlia Murder have been refining their own, subtly unique sound for a long time, and Verminous is a self-evident milestone.

The band’s razor-sharp blend of At The Gates-style melodic death and white-knuckle, pitchblack melodrama has never sounded more potent than it does on the opening title track. Death metal can sound like incomprehensible claptrap to the untrained ear, but TBDM are bona fide songwriters, and everything here comes densely packed with hooks, despite often sounding like a swarm of slavering caco-daemons clawing at your terrified face.

As with the band’s previous career peaks Nocturnal (2007) and Ritual (2011), the Michigan diehards’ ninth full-length record is cohesive, diverse and swollen with hidden depths, and both Godlessly and Dawn Of Rats have ‘future anthem’ scrawled all over them. In blood, presumably. ■■■■■■■■■■