Artist: Monstrosity
Country: USA
Label: Metal Blade Records
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2026
Monstrosity’s career got off to a promising start with an excellent 7″ single on Relapse Records in 1991 and, a year later, an even better debut album on Nuclear Blast Records—the undisputed Death Metal classic ‘Imperial Doom’. From there, however, things took a different turn. While the follow-up, ‘Millennium,’ is certainly on par with the first album, the band’s momentum had completely faded. ‘Millennium’ was released a full four years later, in 1996—a time when no one cared about Death Metal anymore and all sorts of other musical styles had taken over.
What certainly didn’t help matters was the band’s forced departure from Nuclear Blast Records, which had shifted its focus to other bands and trends and no longer had any interest in the band. Like Diabolic and Vader, Monstrosity ended up signing with Conquest Music, a label with fewer resources and a smaller reach. The result is that ‘Millennium’ is one of the most criminally overlooked albums in Death Metal history. To make things even worse, shortly after the album was recorded, singer (and soon-to-be Death Metal icon) George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher left the band and took his place behind the microphone at Cannibal Corpse to replace Chris Barnes, who had been kicked out a little earlier.
But a changing musical landscape, less supportive record labels, or departing vocalists have had remarkably little impact on the band, which has stoically continued to forge ahead. Monstrosity continues to deliver high-quality Death Metal; in fact, ‘In Dark Purity,’ released in 1999 as the follow-up to ‘Millennium,’ is one of the highlights of the band’s discography. Aside from a somewhat unnecessary compilation CD (Conquest Music/Hammerheart Records) and a rather lacklustre live album, Monstrosity is synonymous with blue-collar Death Metal: solid and no-nonsense. ‘Screams From Beneath The Surface’, their seventh studio album, which is fresh off the press from Metal Blade Records, is no exception to this tradition.
It had been eight years since we last heard from Monstrosity, and since then they have acquired a new guitarist and, more importantly, a new singer. Mike Hrubovcak (Imperial Crystalline Entombment, Azure Emote, ex-Vile, ex-Divine Rapture, ex-XXX Maniak) left the band in 2021 after nearly 15 years, but new powerhouse Ed Webb (ex-Massacre, ex-Diabolic) fits right in. Although each singer brings a different vocal tone to the table, the slightly technical Death Metal—with plenty of leads and dynamics—has essentially remained unchanged. It’s still just as solid and features a robust production. Compared to the other (recent) Monstrosity albums, this new release is perhaps just a bit more anonymous; although the quality hasn’t really suffered, ‘Screams From Beneath The Surface’ passes by without any real highlights or songs that stand out above the rest.
The good news, however, is that in the case of Monstrosity, you still have an album that’s better than the vast majority of what the Death Metal scene has to offer. That solid, working-class quality comes into play again: clearly a band that does its own thing, has never cared about trends, and doesn’t let setbacks get them down. This is just rock-solid Death Metal the way I like to hear it.
