apanthropy

Casket
In the Long Run We are All Dead
Neckbreaker Records
To Be Released: January 23rd, 2026

Rating: 7.5/10

“Casket embody the old-school and the old ways, there is a hostility here, an alien sense of humanity, that feels genuinely underground. There is a penchant for violent atmosphere over brutalist precision, leading to a straight-forward record that stands on its own merits and its own identifying sound, presenting and executing itself as a piece of experienced brutal German death metal that is worth seeking out.”

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1 – The Will to Comply
2 – Highest Thrones
3 – Mirrors
4 – Seeds of Desolation
5 – Hammer, Knife, Spade
6 – Skull Bunker
7 – Necrowaves
8 – Mainstream Mutilation
9 – Fundamental Rot
10 – Strangulation Culture
11 – Graveyard Stomper
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By the time the 1980s finally ended, death metal was in a full state of global actualization. Led largely by concentrated scenes in America, Scandinavia, and central Europe, the ethos and essence of this early, largely barbaric expression was past the formation state and entering one that was rigid and concrete. There are a great many who have found success operating outside the central conventions of death metal, but there are those who choose to exist firmly within the confines of the genre’s old-school methodology.

Casket formed in Germany in 1990 as a four-piece act, releasing their first demo, ‘ne Volkanne, in 1992, making the band one of the earliest in the central European death metal wave that followed the likes of, among many others, Disastrous Murmur, Pungent Stench, Krabathor, and Morgoth. Casket have remained consistently active and unswerving in their sonic delivery throughout their nearly four decades of existence, a task which is simply no easy feat without the necessary desire and passion to create and curate extreme music and expression. Where other bands would most likely see some shift in their performance line-up over the course of nearly 40 years of existence, Casket has, unwaveringly, held the same core line-up and members since their creation, with the only change in formation coming from the unfortunate passing of founding member and guitar player Michael Gleibs in 2024. The ideological and creative core of Casket is untouched and undiluted, an extremely rare feat that many, many bands simply cannot match.

The band’s fifth and newest full-length looms on the horizon, entitled, appropriately, In the Long Run We are All Dead, to be released on January 23rd through the German label Neckbreaker Records. Featuring 11 new songs at roughly 42 minutes of music, Casket vomit forth pure old-school death metal with no chasing trends and no saccharine hype. This is true death metal that is stripped of everything but its sonic and ideological core, with dry production and no frivolous genre-tourism or dilution of its brutal intensity.

‘The Will to Comply’ opens the record, and it opens with immediacy. There is no intro phrase or initial build-up, it kicks down the front door and methodically moves through the room, person-to-person, killing each where they stand. With a central riff structure that explores dissonant single-note tremolo melody, extensions off that primary mechanism feature battering chord voicings and utterly filthy palm-muted segments that fire off with fury and rancor. Septic-deep guttural vocals spill forth like intestines from an eviscerated torso, harsh, commanding, and true to the old-school aesthetic. Riff structures are intensely stern, never diverting into higher frequencies or entering meandering states of ‘look at us’-levels of ‘riffs per minute.’ Pure old-school filth.

Tracks such as ‘Seeds of Desolation’ are demonstrations of utter destruction, with a violent, palm-mute heavy opening riff that rides over top of churning double-bass. This is mosh-ready death metal with enough groove interlaced through its structure to add variation of pacing and depth of character, but not enough groove for it to become something less than death metal, which is incredibly important in terms of execution and delivery for this style of music. It is very easy to get carried away, to stray from the path, and end up with material that is overly melodic, groove-heavy, and thinly composed, which is a massive pitfall for many modern death metal acts, watering down their music and creating an artistic piece that lacks the needed intensity.

The mid-tempo butchery continues through homicidal rants such as ‘Mainstream Mutilation’ and ‘Strangulation Culture,’ the latter bearing scars of slower tempos and chunky, low-end igniting palm-muted rhythm phrases. Largely playing out in the same pacing and sonic range throughout the entire song, there is no deviation into some perceived or created ‘unknown,’ there is no intense central melody or twinkling forays into the higher reaches of the fretboard, this is skin-peeling and body disposing death metal.

The general composition of the tracks on In the Long Run We Are all Dead are very straight-forward, with a tonal palette that is selectively old-school but with modern levels of intensity and production. Tempos generally stay in the middle range, while there are plenty of blast beats and rolling double-bass, it never reaches a point of total chaos or flashy levels of beats per minute. That’s not the point here. The point is true old-school death metal that is powered by structured delivery and measured intensity through both vocal and riff. Riff structures are designed to beat down and bludgeon the listener through rhythm-intensive deliveries, lack of melodicism, and transitions whose purpose is to amplify movements from one phrase into the next.

Production on In the Long Run We Are All Dead deeply favors the intense presence and crushing tone off the guitar tracks. Showcasing this as the central sound component leads to a dense, heavily saturated mix that rumbles and growls in the lower frequencies and possesses sharp punching dynamics in the mids. Vocals are frontal with powerful presence and central mixing. Drums feature a slightly weak bass drum presence, but their positioning further highlights the deep ‘chunk’ the overall sound was going for.

In some positions, death metal is expected to justify itself through substance, not posture. Where old-school bands thrive the most in the modern scene is through severity of sound without imitation, holding true to one’s native tone through a genre that has been subjected to its fair share of trends, cosplay, and hyper-polishing. Casket embody the old-school and the old ways, there is a hostility here, an alien sense of humanity, that feels genuinely underground. There is a penchant for violent atmosphere over brutalist precision, leading to a straight-forward record that stands on its own merits and its own identifying sound, presenting and executing itself as a piece of experienced brutal German death metal that is worth seeking out.

Label: Neckbreaker Records
Band: Casket

AJK