Rating: 3.5

Country: Spain

Genre: Death Metal

Record Label: Ibex Moon Records

Release Date: 2009

Track
list:
1. Breaking Hymens
2.
Killing After Death
3. MaggotFilled
4. Voracious Backpacker
5.
Nullo (The Pleasure of Self-mutilation)
6. Nazino (Cannibal Hell)

7. Fair Flesh Obsession
8. Penectomia
9. Infernal Haemorrhoids
(pt.2)
10. Chestblood
11. She''s Hot Tonight (in my Oven)

Total playing time 42:07

Band Website: Avulsed

Avulsed - Nullo (The
Pleasure of Self-Mutilation)

Dave Rotten -
Vocals
Cabra - Guitar
Juancar  - Guitar
Tana  - Bass

Riky - Drums

Spain's Avulsed have been around for a long
time and despite five previous full lengths have remained pretty damn far
underground. So what gives? Metal bands usually stay underground for only
about three reasons: poor distribution (which the internet age has mostly
eliminated); willful obscurity or stylistic difficulty (some microgenres
have a severely limited appeal, i.e. funeral doom, cybergrind); mediocrity
bordering on irrelevancy (for some reason, many metal fans don't
differentiate between the two). Since
Avulsed have survived into the internet age, that
eliminates reason number one; and their style of basic, no frills death
metal eliminates the second reason; which means reason number three is
likely the reason behind their strictly underground appeal and two
decade-long obscurity.

Because Avulsed's new album Nullo
(The Pleasure of Self-Mutilation) is nothing if not
stunningly mediocre. As with each Avulsed
release, the most interesting thing about it is the art
work, and that is not a good thing. The song writing is, well, death
metal-by-the-numbers, version 2009. The production is just okay, not
especially heavy, but neither is it overly clean and clicky. Their
instrumental chops are par for the course after twenty years of death
metal. Which leaves the faux realistic artwork as the only thing that
stands out about the whole damned album, and even this is pretty tame by
today's gore-soaked standards.

The songs are all a blur of
blasting and grooves, but without a personality to make either memorable.
There's a bit of half-assed melody in a few tracks, sort of Gothenburg via
Spain on "Fair Flesh Obsession" and "Chestblood."
There's more than a little Floridian-lite brutality in
"Penectomia" and "Maggotfilled."  Even a few nods to
progressive death metal are scattered through out these eleven tracks
(with just a shitty CDr promo with no info to speak of, I'm not even sure
what the extra six tracks are from; just six more songs of poorly produced
mediocre death metal). Avulsed
isn't afraid to occasionally slow things down, but as with everything else
on Nullo, it's so generic as to be
indistinguishable from almost every other third tier (and lower!) death
metal band.

Nullo is an odd man out sort
of album in 2009. hhIt's not overtly and stupidly brutal like Disgorge or Devourment and it doesn't blast
relentlessly like Hour of
Penance or Hate
Eternal. It doesn't groove like Dismember or Obituary
and it isn't evil like Dead
Congregation or Blaspherian.
It's not self-referentially old school like Bloodbath or Death
Breath and it never reaches the heights (or depths) of
technical spectacle that is Augury and Obscura.
Nope, none of those. Avulsed
are playing death metal qua death metal, and I can't believe I'm writing
this, I don't really like it.  After listening to death metal for
twenty years, generic death metal just doesn't cut it anymore. Sure, there
is something to be said for good, sturdy death metal, but in that case
there has to at least be a few hooks; I'm not looking for pop-type
choruses, but ten songs that sound identical (only ten because
"Infernal Haemorrhage (pt 2)", the best song on here, sounds nothing
like the other ten; it's a fifty-five second piece of Incantation/Autopsy worthy
doom-infused death metal) make me ask "Why?"

Sure Avulsed have been around since nearly
the beginning, but Nullo doesn't change their
course from almost twenty years of mediocrity. I'm sure there's fans out
there that will eat this up, but not me. I stopped buying Malevolent Creation albums a decade
ago for the same reason I wouldn't listen to this record again: at some
point redundancy becomes more than a little annoying and Avulsed are long past redundant. As a
celebration of all that is generic in death metal,
Nullo is spectacular, but other than that it's
irrelevant.

January 1, 2010