Illdisposed – In Chambers Of Sonic Disgust

Written by on 30-06-2024 at 14:13.

This Danish death metal machine Illdisposed has been thundering across the globe since 1991. It’s also the year I started following them. The gentlemen gathered around supreme grunter Bo Summer have already worn out many record companies, but the gentlemen have released more than six albums from the stable of the German Massacre Records. In Chambers Of Sonic Disgust, is number seven released via this label. Honesty commands me to write, and this is of course my own opinion, that their best albums, 1-800 Vindication and Burn Me Wicked, were released in 2004 and 2006 respectively, but enough small talk.

In all these years the gentlemen of Illdisposed have always been providing a solid piece of abrasive, swampy death metal with a melodic edge. The whole thing certainly cannot be called complex and difficult, nor can this be said of the textual framework. The reflections of howler Summer come in fairly simple terms. Why make it difficult when it can be easy, is often the motto. And they are right.

Maybe a little side-note: usually the band doesn’t disappear for this long. After all, the previous album Reveal Your Soul For The Dead dates back to 2019. However, there is a good explanation for this and it lies not only in the COVID-19 events but especially in the cancer diagnosis of guitarist Rasmus Henriksen. Let us all hope that the good man will be declared cured. This also means that guitar player Holst is back in the ranks. All the misery and pain of the hardship of recent years have been given a place in the music, but you can also see it in their band photos.

Perhaps an air raid siren is the ideal signal to wake everyone up and make it clear that you will be in for quite a bit of pain and misery when listening to this record. In any case, it is clear from the first bars that these Danes’ new album simply continues the thread that the gentlemen have been spinning themselves for years. It grooves like the best, the filth is there as always and the low grunts of Mr. Summer (who seems to have lost a few pounds) are still of a particularly high level. Walking is best done in pairs and preferably with someone you like, otherwise it will just be a swampy affair. If it happens that some guy or other bastard comes bouncing with you, put in your earphones and listen to the guitar parts of Messrs. Holst and Batten in I Walk Among The Living. After doing that you can simply tell that guy that he can go fuck himself.

Compared to previous material, I mean the band’s musical material from the past ten years, it seems that more room has been given to swampy melodies. I can only applaud that. It puts this release in my top three of the band’s discography next to the forementioned albums. Lay Low is such an instant stomper, a song on which Summer’s parts thoroughly tear things through the muck and shit of life, while Schmidt plays with a lot of death metal breakdowns in the subsequent The Ill-Disposed. Everything then comes together in songs like Flying Free, Start Living Again or I Suffer.

Something that is clear and has been cast in stone for years and probably decades, is the fact that these Danes of Illdisposed will not change. You just pick out their music, their sound, from all the mediocrity of others. The gentlemen have been at the forefront of grooving death metal with a melodic slant for years and with this release, In Chambers Of Sonic Disgust, they simply stick to their grounds. They will never budge from that spot!

Score:

90/100

Label:

Massacre Records, 2024

Tracklisting:

  1. Spitting Your Pain
  2. I Walk Among The Living
  3. Lay Low
  4. The Ill-Disposed
  5. Flying Free
  6. Start Living Again
  7. For Us
  8. I Suffer
  9. And Of My Hate
  10. All Electric
  11. Pain Suffer Me

Line-up:

  • Bo Summer – Vocals
  • Jakob Batten – Guitar
  • Ken Holst – Guitar
  • Onkel K Jensen – Bass guitar
  • Rasmus Schmidt – Drums

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