HATRED INHERIT: Hatred Inherit
Release year: 2019
Label: none
According to the promo sheet, German Hatred Inherit’s style is “modernized old school death metal”. Now, promo sheets are often filled with the most incredulous crap that’s just pure nonsense and has nothing to do with the music – but for once, it actually hits the proverbial nail on the proverbial head. Hatred Inherit truly sound like old school gone new school.
So what does that mean? Well, first of all, Hatred Inherit’s style seems to be rooted in the classic, brutal US style of death metal. So, imagine one of the newer albums by a classic old school US group, especially one of those who’ve never been satisfied with just doing album after album sounding the same, but who still stuck to death metal.
A particular, specific reference would be Morbid Angel anno 2000-2003, eg. Gateways To Annihilation and Heretic. Before things got bad. There are more than a few moments when the German quartet bring to mind this era of Trey Azagthoth & Co.; there’s a similar spirit in some of the riffs, the tempos are a similar mixture of fast blasting and rhythmic mid-speed sections, and the song structures are a mix of straightforwardness and a slight technical, twisted bent, not quite unlike Morbid Angel of the mentioned era. In particular, it is the guitar tone that reminds one strongly of early noughties Morbid Angel. Just check a song like Isolate, if that starting riff doesn’t remind you of something from aforementioned albums, you must be off your wits.
And, here’s the good part: Hatred Inherit sound better than the mighty Morbid Angel did on especially the lacklustre Heretic.
But, to be sure, Hatred Inherit aren’t just another copycat band mimicking a specific group or a narrow subset of the death metal genre. Whilst their style isn’t the apex of originality, and the influence from brutal USDM is more than obvious, they blend their influences together into a mix that sounds sufficiently different from other acts. And there’s really nothing wrong with that, to display your influences openly but attempt to create something new from their recipe(s).
The result as presented on this debut album is quite satisfactory. The biggest flaw of the album is that none of the songs stand out, they all blend together without any memorable peaks, but apart from that, I’ve no major complaints about the album. Classic old school USDM in a modern take, with a few pretty sweet riffs, good guttural vocals, good sound and good playing… I’ve always got time for that!
3.5/5
Only Death Is Real 