Uniting members of Exhumed, Possessed, Malevolent Creation and Derketa, GRUESOME pays homage to death metal’s most celebrated founding American acts, Death. As such, their debut full-length, Savage Land, released last week via Relapse Records, is a delightfully punishing display of late-‘80s/early-‘90s Florida-styled death metal that keeps the true sound and spirit of Chuck Schuldiner and Death alive.
In commemoration of its release, GRUESOME offers up the charmingly gore torn new video for the record’s title track. A deliciously cannibalistic wonder world of blood, barbarians and blatant brutality, the visual accompaniment to Savage Land is truly… gruesome.
Expels guitarist/vocalist Matt Harvey, “The kind folks at Relapse put together a really cool clip video for the title track of the GRUESOME album. The video perfectly captures the violence and gore of the tune and takes me back to the early days of my teens when I devoured gore flicks and the first three Death albums with equal enthusiasm. This video is definitely not safe for work and not for the squeamish. Enjoy!”
Bloody Disgusting online: “The video uses footage from Umberto Lanzi’s 1980 cannibal film Eaten Alive! (Mangiati Vivi!) as well as Antonio Margheriti’s Cannibal Apocalypse, which also came out in 1980. As a result, this video is packed to the brim with gore, nudity, and violence. There’s people being torn apart, eyes gouged out, limbs being eaten, and that’s probably just grazing the surface. If you’re at work, I recommend waiting until the coast is clear before pressing play on this one!"
GRUESOME was borne out of guitarist/vocalist Matt Harvey (Exhumed) and drummer Gus Rios’ (Malevolent Creation) mutual involvement with the Death To All tours. After discarding the idea of putting together another incarnation of DTA to focus exclusively on Death’s first two albums, Harvey half-jokingly suggested writing their own songs in that vein. The idea gained traction, and the band had five songs written. Rios later recruited Possessed guitarist Daniel Gonzalez and Derketa bassist Robin Mazen to record the material in Florida. Savage Land was tracked by Rios and Gonzalez at Riversound Studios in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, mixed by Jarrett Pritchard at Mana Studios in St. Petersburg, Florida, and features a guest guitar solo on “Closed Casket” by James Murphy as well as cover art by legendary illustrator Ed Repka.
