Gorguts
Considered Dead [1991 LIMITED EDITION ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]
Label: MVD Audio

Fronted by lead-growler Luc Lemay, a devotee of death-metal progenitors DEATH, Gorguts originally released Considered Dead (their first album) in 1991, just as metal was about to go deep underground in response to the grunge wave. The Quebec-based band just recently called it quits, but Luc Lemay is already hard at work on a demo for his new band, Negativa.

Gorguts tackles a wide range of topics on Considered Dead. These include death, corpses, bleeding, waiting to die, being hunted to death, freezing to death and rotting to death (or rotting after death. It’s hard to tell).

Coinciding with a lack of lyrical imagination is a lack of musical variety on Considered Dead. Many of the songs depend on the same brown-note power chords and the solos aren’t exciting enough or frequent enough to stave off boredom. And the last thing a death metal band should be inspiring is boredom.

Songs like “Waste of Mortality,” however, mix up the formula by adding some melodic touches like an acoustic intro. This multiplies the impact of the brutal riffing and double-kick mania that follows, but the music borrows heavily from Slayer. On Considered Dead, Gorguts displays hints of the technical ferocity that dominates their later albums, but not enough to justify its purchase by casual fans. -Tim O’Regan