Brazilian death metallers Murderess really pack a punch on their debut EP ‘Time To Kill’. In a little over thirteen minutes, the band run the full gamut of extreme metal, ranging from intensive thrash riffs crossed with a melodic death core, all the way through to a purer death sound that celebrates the genre’s less than compromising origins. The female dominated band attack from all fronts, and manage to fit a great breadth of noise into a pleasingly short assault, ensuring this release is a superb introduction to their world of brutality.
Following a slow, droning intro augmented with horror-like melodies (‘Murderess’), the EP’s best track introduces the band in great musical shape.‘Queen of Swords’ is a mid tempo workout where dirty sounding thrash metal guitar work takes a dominant role. The guitar’s deep sound has echoes of other underground thrash/death crossover works from the likes of Harvest, but most people should be able to pick up on something bigger – and more familiar – since Murderess are also channelling heavy influence from Slayer circa ‘Hell Awaits’ throughout. The production values feel similar, and the band’s raw sound very much calls back to the late 80s. Vocalist Claudia Franco’s guttural style will certainly be intense enough to fend off the death metal averse, but the marriage of cleaner guitar work on the verse with the unrelenting voice sets up a great contrast, making this a little more palatable than your average death metal band but without diluting too much of the ferocity. By the time the track reaches a climax with a guitar chopping against a rumbling rhythm, and Claudia making a repetitive retching sound, Murderess sound like a (relatively lo-fi) force of death metal that feels both nostalgic and relevant at the time of this release.
Stretching out a little more, ‘Bone Keeper’ opens with a riff that’s more of the Testament variety, but peppered with a couple of trad metal fills. Having caught the listeners’ attention, Murderess then change gears to deliver short blasts of heavily rhythmic, speed driven death metal riffing, which creates the perfect backdrop for a few vocal interjections. Switching gears again, a few bars are home to a slower, deeper chug, which guitarist Jazz Kalpora shares with a sense of force, before the three different moods come together seamlessly. Here, you’ll experience a perfect thrash/death crossover that’s relatively big on groove, but even more focused on sharing sharp edges. Eventually deciding to lurch between the slow riff and the death metal blasts, this number has a brilliantly unsettling quality that really captures the power in a very aggressive trio. For those hoping to discover something more within the trad death ballpark, ‘Fur Elize’ has things more than covered. Following a quiet and almost gothic intro where clean guitar notes are joined by ominous bass tones, a few heavy chords increase the tension and speed. Then, drummer Pedro Fraga launches into a flurry of pneumatics, and once joined by Claudia’s most ferocious vocal, Murderess channel classic Cannibal Corpse and their ilk, delivering death metal perfection. Even when the second part of the number slows (relatively speaking) to drop in some more melodic guitar work, there’s a heaviness and intensity here that’s genuinely impressive in an old school way. The heavy guitar adds a great tone to the slower moments leading up to the climax, but as before, it’ll often be the vocal that grabs the attention through its pure force. In terms of death metal, this certainly ticks a lot of boxes.
The band believes that their ability to approach death metal from a largely female perspective gives their work a very different angle. That’s not particularly obvious, unless you happen to be a dyed in the wool death metal buff who’s mainlined the genre’s more underground releases and always made them part of your staple listening. It’s certainly not obvious without the help of a lyric sheet. From more of an outsider’s point of view, however, it’s still a great death metal release, and the bulk of the riffs here are more than impressive. Even though the vocals always push for the extreme, the thrashier elements and slower moments really help to give this material a sense of balance. For genre fans, it’s definitely a debut that’s worth investigating; familiar sounding or not, it’s definitely not listening time that’s wasted.
September 2024