Little known fact: All the best Swedish death metal comes from Denmark. Okay, maybe that’s not entirely accurate, but it makes for a helluva lede. Maceration hail from Hamletville and they’ve made it their business to mine Sweden’s Stockholm sound for all its worth, focusing on HM-2 pedal abuse and Entombed and Dismember worship. On their first few albums, they had the good fortune to recruit Dan “the Fucking MAN” Swanö to handle vocals (using an alias on their debut). Here on third outing Serpent Devourment, Mr. Swanö decamps and leaves vocal duties to Jan Bergmann Jepsen, but otherwise, the approach is the same: bulldoze the listener with buzzing riffs and pummel them with d-beaty death. There are worse battle plans since Swedeath is an enduring style that continues to yield satisfying results when done properly. Can Maceration get their material to the perfect level of moldy moistness?

Seconds into the opening title track you know this will be a riff-forward beast war with big Entombed / Dismember energy, traces of Bolt Thrower, and even a few choice nasty bits from uber-caveman US deathers, Massacre. Large, in-charge riffs stomp everything in their path, sending the weak to hurtle the dead. The tempos shift from thrash-blasting to heavy tank assault grinding and back again to shake the Jimmies, and over the top of the relentless axe fusillades, Jepsen bellows brutally in Kam Lee-esque style without a hint of subtly. This is the wet rub recipe Maceration marinates you in and though you’ve heard it countless times, it’s done here with enough conviction to give it the illusion of semi-freshness. “The Den of Misery” is thrashy, aggressive Swedeath by the numbers but it hits hard with big riffs and chonky doom downshifts. “The Corrosive Heart Fell Below” may sound like a lost Nevermore track, but it’s a standout moment of abject crushitude with HUGE grooves and heavy as fook riff action. This one is especially beefy, requiring not one, but TWO pairs of oversized cargo shorts to contain its ponderous girth.

As with any album of this particular ilk, there will be unavoidable highs and lows, but to their credit, Maceration keep the quality fairly consistent over Serpent Devourment’s sprawl, and even the “lesser” cuts bring a howitzer to the bake sale. You could sink a certain reader’s mega-yacht with the mammoth heft of “Where Leeches Thrive” and I fully support such efforts.¹ “In Rot Unleashed” has a nerve-jangling lead riff that sets the pain receptors on edge and makes you want to remain violent. The least gobsmacking like “When Torment Befell My Pain” and “Revolt the Tyrant Dream,” but they aren’t a waste of time or skip-bait. At a trim 39-plus minutes, the album rolls roughshod and retires before you get overly fatigued. Dan Swanö’s mix and master bring the guitars way forward and make sure you feel their weight the whole time. This is a smart play as the riffs are the band’s bread and saliva butter.

Jakob Schultz and Robert Tengs come to kill with a body bag full of abrasive, chewy riffs and fat grooves. Some of these remind me of Black Royal and their ginormous axe work. Of course, their playing will remind you of the acts that did this style first, and there’s no avoiding that, but they bring enough of their own identity to the music and turn your brain into buttered porridge in the process. I especially enjoy the hammering chugs they lapse into at key moments to shape the battlefield. Jan Bergmann Jepsen does a good job replacing a living legend like Mr. Swanö. Sometimes he sounds like L.G. Petrov, at others Johan Hegg, and the rest of the time he’s all about that Neanderthal Kam Lee approach. He’s brutal for the sake of brutality and that’s good enough for me.

Maceration deliver a no-frills but satisfying slab of gym-ready death on Serpent Devourment and what it lacks in originality it partially makes up for with vicious rage and furious anger. This is high-octane, lo-brow death metal with one foot on the gas and the other in the Grave. That’s a deathstyle deserving of a loud blast session. Now let’s make some snake sushi!

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Emanzipation Productions
Websites: facebook.com/maceration | instagram.com/macerationdenmark
Releases Worldwide: January 31st, 2025

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