Bone Sickness – “Alone In The Grave” – [20 Buck Spin]

mann   6/11/2013   12-inch, A Library

The first west coast death metal guru we sought evil wisdom from was Erik of Epidemic. His Shaolin Temple was the convenience store where he worked which was adjacent to the Tressider Student Union video arcade on the Stanford Univ. campus and where we’d loiter hoping to get a chance to play Tempest against John Elway or overhear Erik bestowing upon some older head what was lame/cool in the middle of the periodic table. I can picture our guru having two words for Olympia’s Bone Sickness: “Autopsy minus the Exodus parts.” But guru, if I may, it’s not just sans doom riffs. BS strips away over-abundant intricacies and excessive production value (like maybe no post-prod whatsoever) and seriously cuts the fat when it comes to song/riff length (all 7 songs clock in under 20 mins). Not because they can’t (this is one tight quartet for sure) but because that’s all this desperate modern life will allow or deserves. This stripping also provides a self-sufficiency to the onslaught giving it that living hard with what you got in the stash thing. Like Epidemic and Autopsy this is fully west coast lineage. No contrived sludgeness or multifarious crust here: ripping pace, velociraptor-minded death metal through and through, but a lot of the time being hella good at one thing is the sick way to go. The eye-catching cover drawn by Hand of Beaver is perfect for contemplating decomposition for the rest of the month. Plays at 45. Mann the General.