There are several different kinds of heavy. There are the East Coast breakdowns of Suffocation heavy. Then there is the crushing sludgy Crowbar heavy. There is the rumbling ballistics of Bolt Thrower heavy. And then there is Holland's Houwitser.

Like its military equivalent, Houwitser has one goal: total deformation of the landscape. For the large pounding guns, it was the landscape of Central Europe, for this death metal outfit it is your ears. Consisting of two Sinister members (drummer Aad and bassist Michel), the Sinister influence is readily apparent, but after hearing both releases, I would have to say that Houwitser is by far the better band. They are heavier, deadlier and more, well, sinister than Sinister. Those familiar with Sinister material will easily recognize some of the twisting song structures and whirling guitar work. However, here it is performed with a deafening guitar tone that reeks of early Carcass mixed with the bottom end of Skinless. It is possibly the deepest, lowest, most toned down guitar production I have heard. In my car, I had a hard time listening to it for more than a few minutes with the volume up - it's that fucking good. This is not headphone metal; this stuff needs to be played in a car with nothing but an amp in the trunk (a little revenge for all that rap blaring from cheap little cars). Now that would seriously ruin some windows.

The music itself (when you can discern actual notes) is a pretty good mix of the three bands I've already mentioned, with a definite emphasis on speed and blasting that with the oppressive production, propagate a wall of solid noise similar the Carcass' Symphonies of Sickness. The inclusion of several samples of gruesome descriptions of various pathological crimes certainly endears the Carcass comparison, except they are far more real, not so scientific as the English masters (a good parallelism for the music also). When they do slow down a little (not too often), it is sheer unadulterated heaviness, and the breakdowns are absolutely sick. While not the chugging, bouncing breakdowns so prevalent in death metal (which I love incidentally), they are menacing, dark and full of hate, and 10 times as crushing as their stateside counterparts. The crushing riff on the opener "Slaughter Confession," had me ready to kill. Generally all the songs contain the same structure of blastbeats; but not the high-end twiddly stuff. All the speed is still bowel shatteringly low. No fancy technical self-fulfilling guitar wankery, no showy emotional solos, just fucking heavy death metal. This blur of speed is occasionally broken down by time-stopping moments of deliberate sonic evisceration; as heard on "Nailing the Torso" and "Score of Corpses." Vocally, the ultra low growl of Stan just adds to the whole subterranean sound of the album. While not overly original, "Rage Inside the Womb," is so overpowering, the intensity of the sound just overwhelms you and beats you into submission, making you forget all the In Flames albums you own.

Recent excellent releases (Deranged and Anata) have shown that brutal death metal can be technical and polished even if they're hauled from the Stone Age. Houwister are knuckle-dragging behemoths, proud of their brutal lineage and have grabbed European death metal by the throat and lugged it kicking and screaming back into its dark past. An album that Creative Killings should have been, Rage Inside the Womb is a 155mm shell exploding in your head.


[ Discography ] 

---

Label: Osmose | Item Code: OP CD 122 | Country: Holland | Year: 2002 | Genre: Death Metal

This item is currently out of stock - this page is for archival purposes only!

Houwitser - Rage Inside the Womb Reviews - read/add | Total Reviews ( 0 )
Houwitser - Rage Inside the Womb Songs / Track Listing

* Check for more information on Google! *