Why Heavy Metal Fans Should Listen to Spanish Death Metal Band Avulsed

Spanish death metal band Avulsed has been playing heavy death metal with guttural style vocals since 1991. Why should heavy metal fans even pay attention to this VERY heavy Spanish death metal band from Madrid? The first reason why is because of the strong yet brutal vocals of David Sanchez Gonzalez. He also uses these low, bellowing kind of growls that can extend for several seconds.

Vocalist David Sanchez Gonzalez has one of the roughest voices in the death metal genre and he is good at it! The band’s 1998 album Cybergore is an album filled with re-mixes of the band’s earlier material. This album is unique because it combines traditional death metal with techno beats. For those of you that think Cannibal Corpse or Deicide are good bands, Avulsed take that goodness to a different level! First comes a review of their compilation album called Cybergore. And hence, this is the first reason why heavy metal fans should listen to Avulsed.

1. Frozen Beat
2. Addicted to Red Bull
3. Sweet Bakalaotomy
4. Hash Perversions
5. Powdered Fish
6. Petsuis Lobotomy
7. Gorroneality
8. Pastivoracity (Frozen Speed)
9. Beyond Monotony
10. Emixnenece in Poppurence

Here are the band members as of 2016 except the drummer:

David Sanchez Gonzalez: all vocals

Jose Maria De Miguel Orero: guitars

Juan Carlos Limon Calvo: guitars

Antonio Carlos Rodriguez Espigares: bass guitars

Note: the drummer on this album however is a different person. His name is Raul Fournier Diez.

The opening song Frozen Beat starts out with some atmospheric sounds similar to what Sepultura did to open up their album called Arise. There is also some talking in the background but it can be hard to hear with the guitar and the drums playing. After another solid song called Addicted to Red Bull, we hear the song called Sweet Bakalaotomy. This is perhaps the strongest song in the album because of the terrific riffs that are in it. Also, David shows his impressive vocal range as he holds that low growl for a really long time! There are some more weird sounds and Dave’s guttural growl lets you know that these guys are serious about playing heavy, hard-hitting death metal. Forget about listening to bands such as Deicide, Obituary or any of the other American death metal bands that formed in the 1990’s. When you hear Avulsed play, you won’t want to even bother to listen to those other bands. Hash Perversions has some faster guitar playing and weird sounds. These weird sounds may annoy some music listeners though. And the song gets repetitive with the guitar playing and the weird sounds so I’m going to have to lower the score that I give this album because of that. Unlike melodic death metal bands such as Eternal Tears of Sorrow or Shadow, Avulsed focus on traditional death metal that is VERY heavy in nature. Even though the album may not have as much melody as a melodic death metal band, Avulsed do their style very well. I also wrote earlier that David would be very proud of the vocal job Tokiko Shimamoto of the band Shadow does. It is challenging enough for a man to do death metal vocals. But when a woman is able to do that with excellence that makes it even more impressive. Powdered Fish is perhaps the most melodic song on the album because the atmospheric sounds are infused with a different style of play than the other songs.

As the second half of the album begins the next song Petsuis Lobotomy sounds like a song that Avulsed would play on their next album. The guttural growls in this song sound like many of the songs on that album. Gorroneality ha some screams in the song which detract from the quality of it. This is one of the weaker songs on the album anyway. Pastivoracity (Frozen Speed) is another one of the weaker songs on the album which has fast techno style guitar playing and weird sounds which make no sense. Beyond Monotony has some more techno style sounds a weird noise but no growling vocals from David. The last song is similar to what we would hear from this band on their next album. Overall, Cybergore provides the listener with a unique death metal CD. It has guttural growls which are a great fit for this style of music. The strongest songs in this album are Frozen Beat, Addicted to Red Bull, Sweet Bakalaotomy, and Powdered Fish. This album gets a total of 75 out of 100 points from this writer. I still recommend this album for its unique style. This album is certainly not bad but the band could have done better in making sure that some of the riffs were properly written. These guys are worth listening to because they are really talented!

Their next studio album is just as heavy with the same guttural vocals except the songwriting is stronger. The album after Cybergore would probably get at least 90 points out of 100. One example of this is the song called Compulsive Hater. It is a song about a man that grows up in a family that shows no affection towards him and he becomes resentful of his family and disrespects them. This is in spite of the fact that the man’s friends think that he is normal.

To summarize briefly why heavy metal fans should even pay attention to this Spanish heavy metal band that has been active since 1991, here are these reasons:

1. The vocals of David Sanchez Gonzalez
2. There is a song on their 1999 album that has Spanish lyrics and it is very catchy.
3. Because of their 1998 album mentioned above.