Superstition: The Anatomy of Unholy Transformation (2019)

Here is another of those great death metal albums from this year that I mentioned in yesterday's post.  Superstition is a very new band who released their first demo just last year.  That demo was covered in my demo roundup from last year and was my favorite demo of the year.  This is the band's first full-length album.

Superstition's music is rife with evil atmosphere and razor-sharp riffing.  My comparison to Morbid Angel when discussing the band's demo seems to be mostly accurate, though this is Morbid Angel worship from the time when Azagthoth and company were just crossing the line from thrash metal to death metal.  So there is a bit of Possessed in there as well.  The best example of this is the creepy intro and opening riff to "Spiritual Sunderance" which calls to mind "The Exorcist".  The album is raw and evil, two qualities that are obviously highly desired in death metal.  It is not overly-produced or slick-sounding, it is just chaotic and murky. 

Superstition have delivered on the promise of their demo.  Their first album is a terrific example of old-school-sounding death metal done right.  They do enough to keep the album from becoming a collection of standard tropes while still sounding very much like death metal when it was truly dangerous.