Artist: Fleshcrawl
Country: Germany
Label: Reigning Phoenix Records
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2026
From the very first moment I heard Fleshcrawl, which was in 2000, with the band’s ‘As Blood Rains From The Sky… We Walk The Path Of Endless Fire’-album, I was an instant fan. I loved the gritty production and Sven Gross’ dry roar, but more particularly I simply fell in love with the Swedish sounding, buzzsawing guitar sound in combination with the pounding rhythms of Bastian Herzog. As time progressed I simultaneously worked myself backwards into their discography and grew along with the records that would follow-up their, for me, monumental 2000-record. Although I do regard Fleshcrawl as one of the most consistent Death Metal bands of all time, there’s people who prefer their more primitive earlier work and those who like their slightly more Swedish sounding record that came afterwards. But, regardless of their preference, Fleshcrawl always remained a band that was loved by everyone.
At least, that seemed the case until their 2007 released ‘Structures Of Death’ album. It took the band twelve years to come up with that record’s follow-up and much has happened in the meantime. Not only did they “miss” the whole old school Death Metal craziness that exploded between 2008 and 2012, the band also completely lost their momentum. To me it is unknown that whether or not that was the reason that Fleshcrawl released their “comeback album” on the much smaller Apostasy Records – whereas they were first tied to Metal Blade Records. Logically, ‘Into The Catacombs Of Flesh’ was received slightly less enthusiastic as compared to their heydays in the late 90s and 00s. Not only because some people lost contact with the band, but also because of the reach in terms of distribution and promotion of Apostasy Records was much less than Metal Blade’s.
But, ‘Into The Catacombs Of Flesh’ was a very solid return. Even if I wasn’t able to connect to it entirely, or at least not in the way I did with the albums in the 00s, I surely enjoyed the album for what it was. I attribute the difference in reception between the earlier albums and the comeback record mainly to the age gap between when I listened to both albums. But however good ‘Into The Catacombs Of Flesh’ was, once again the band would take a long time to return. This time, it was perhaps much less a case of a deliberate hiatus. Not long after the release of ‘Into The Catacombs Of Flesh’, Sven Gross lost his battle with cancer. Although he wasn’t the original singer, his voice had become inseparable from the band and their path to recognition and popularity.
Personally I thought the band would call it a day, but apparently they didn’t. I am not exactly aware of the when and the how, but Sven was replaced by a Russian singer, Borisz Sarafutgyinov. I can’t deny that I was somewhat sceptical about this, not only because I’d grown to love Sven Gross’s vocals and had become so used to them, but also because Bastian Herzog was the only remaining member from the Fleshcrawl I’d first got to know. But all that scepticism proves unnecessary upon hearing ‘Epitome Of Carnage’, the band’s tenth full-length album since their formation in 1987 (although the band didn’t change their name to Fleshcrawl until 1991). Anyone who’s been a fan of the band before will be delighted with this new album too. Apart from Sarafutgyinov’s slightly different vocal style, which is actually quite close to Gross’s, nothing has really changed. The powerful Swedish guitar sound remains their trademark, and Herzog’s fairly simple yet highly effective drumming dispels any doubts.
Fleshcrawl still stands for a no-nonsense brand of Death Metal for which there seems to be very little room in the current Death Metal scene. On the one hand, there are the ‘evil’ Death Metal bands, and on the other, the groups more rooted in mid-tempo grooves. Over the past few months, we’ve already reviewed a number of bands from the old school, bands that shun trends or any inclination to overhaul their musical formula and seek out complexity. In that respect, Fleshcrawl certainly fits in with the likes of Monstrosity, Jungle Rot and Vomitory. News value: 5, performance: 8, entertainment value: 10.
