apanthropy

Barbarous
Initium Mors
Creator-Destructor Records
Released: 8/1/2025

Rating: 90/100

“Barbarous have produced an excellent debut record that encapsulates both old-school and new-school ideology. Much like other west-coast bands, such as Sketetal Remains and Warp Chamber, Barbarous capture the unrelenting savagery and unremitting energy that makes death metal such a great genre.”

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1- Injection of the Exhumed
2 – By Lead or Steel
3 – Tools of the Trade
4 – Initium Mors
5 – The Tomb Spawn
6 – Conscious Decomposition
7 – Anointing the Sick
8 – Coup de grâce
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Death is only the beginning.

It is infrequent that a debut album from a death metal band comes into realization, and it wipes the floor with their scene contemporaries. In a genre that is heavily saturated, genuine talent and energy are hard to find in the sonic quagmire. From Oakland, California comes Barbarous, delivering their first record, entitled Initium Mors, delivered through Creator-Destructor Records. This debut effort is a feat of crushing intensity, acid-stripping the corpse of old-school death metal and taking the bones to create a new grotesque fetish.

The current death metal scene is heavily saturated with endless interpretations or variations to the conventional musical formula. Elements are often freely added without regard for the true core and depth of the style. Overly melodic death metal has a tendency to lack the predatory aggression you would see from bands that play in a more dissonant, tight, and violently fast manner. Introducing ideas from outside the genre usually doesn’t incorporate very well. There are exceptions to these concepts, but they are uncommon and infrequent. A band that puts its head down and forms an audio battering ram by magnifying the defining characteristics of the genre have an easy opportunity to stand out, based almost entirely on the purity of their craft. Barbarous channel pure, raw, primal old-school energy and amplify it through a lens of modern technicality and superior production properties.

‘Injection of the Exhumed’ opens with a cavernous guttural roar, whipping up a fury of brutal riff craft in its wake. Machine-gun drumming and rapid double-bass work launch the song forward like a sabot round fired from a tank. Breaks and transitions abound, navigating the song through a firestorm of rapidly altering compositional ideas are sequences of well-detailed guitar lines. A slower breakdown segment and peppered leads and flourishes accent the song.

Channeling the martial barrage of old-school Malevolent Creation is ‘By Lead or Steel,’ a scorching exclamation of whirlwind speed offset by slower, brutal methodology. The double-stacked vocals during the chorus add violent immersion to an already violent content. There is a bit of soloing to accent the track leading into the final section that adds a layer of detail to the frontal assault.

The title track is an exhibition in melodic sensibilities that enhance the riffs rather than water them down or sweeten them up. It’s a subtle sense of melodicism that contrasts the blind rage in other tracks such as ‘Conscious Decomposition’ and ‘Anointing the Sick,’ both of which are nasty, straightforward, tight expositions of brutal sound.

The production is top notch, clean but dynamically huge. Guitars are pushed to the front and their constant churning barrage is given full highlight. Vocals are well-placed, not as direct as the guitars but not low in the mix. The cavernous guttural expulsion is delivered with, what sounds like, a slight touch of reverb. Leads blaze bright, as they should. The drums sound amazing, with great snare body and delightfully power bass drum presence. The bass adds a vicious recoil to some of the heavily accented downbeats. Whoever produced this record deserves a raise.

Barbarous have produced an excellent debut record that encapsulates both old-school and new-school ideology. Much like other west-coast bands, such as Skeletal Remains and Warp Chamber, Barbarous capture the unrelenting savagery and unremitting energy that makes death metal such a great genre. A very impressive first effort that’s compact at eight songs running about a half an hour in length, so it makes for great repeated listening.

Death is only the beginning.

Label: Creator-Destructor Records
Band: Barbarous

AJK