Malevolent Creation: Stillborn (1993)

Ah, the days when Roadrunner Records actually had legitimate metal bands on their roster.  The early '90's saw Roadrunner as one of the leading labels in releasing death metal bands.  And Malevolent Creation was one of many.  Malevolent Creation was always one of my favorite band names, but I have not really gotten into much of their music.  Not really sure why that is. 

I decided recently to check out one of the band's earlier releases to see if I could see why they are revered in the death metal scene.  This is the band's third release, and it does not have very good reviews on the Metal Archives, so I may have missed the boat here, but if this is a bad early Malevolent Creation album, then I definitely need to hear the good ones.

I love this album.  The riffs are rabid and hard-hitting and the vocals have an incredibly aggressive bark that is captivating.  There are some damn impressive riffs here that stand out from a lot of the other bands in the Florida death metal scene and the solos absolutely slay.  The vocals are not the typical early death metal fare, bearing more resemblance to brutal thrash metal than death metal. 

The only real issues with this album are fairly minor.  The production is a little murky, but that is not unusual for death metal of this time period.  And the album tends to sound a little too much the same at times.  There are not a lot of melodic moments, with Malevolent Creation preferring to just bludgeon the listener.  But again, these are minor complaints.

This is just the third album I have picked up by Malevolent Creation, and I think I need to check out more.  Next stop will be the first two albums I think.