Wound Collector - Begging For Chicxulub

It has been 4 years but Belguim’s Death Metal outfit Wound Collector are back with a new album. Well, sort of. With only 4 tracks “Begging For Chicxulub” is more like an EP and a brief glimpse into where this 5 piece is headed but it definitely shows growth since their last effort back in 2020. The lineup is pretty much still the same, save for the addition of a new guitarist, and the sound is different, but more progressive. What these guys had going for them on their earlier albums was including jazzy saxophone sections and clean vocals and a bit of a mix of Deicide meets Opeth with a lot of harshness but also very melodic sections. It seems they have upped their sax game quite a bit on this new effort and made it flow more seamlessly with the music, much like a Ihsahn album. Some elements have been done away with and the sound tweaked a bit to sound more ‘old school,’ but overall the result is satisfying.

The clean vocal delivery is gone- the harsh growls and shrieks are still traded by guitarist Guy Van Campenhout and saxophonist Peter Verdonck who both have been with the band since the beginning. The addition of guitarist Poncho Garcia adds a bit more thickness to the music and opts for more of an Immolation sounding fuzziness as opposed to Deicide, especially on a track like ‘Dehumanized by the Auburn System.’ It rumbles, it crushes, and then the sax bits come in to relieve the listener, but rather than sound separate and random, it flows along with the guitars and bass (performed by Stijn Deldaele) quite well. The drums are not quite percussive thunder but clear enough and pound like a Cannibal Corpse album, especially on ‘River of Scalded Corpses.’ Wound Collector also opt for a bit of groove as well in their music, leaning on influences like Bolt Thrower when it comes to a song like ‘Progress Through Dishonor.’ While the Death Metal factors have been amped up quite a bit along with the saxophone parts, it feels that is all Wound Collector has worked on so far in trying not to create the same album twice. While some might argue the a bit of the previous album’s progressive bits have been lost in the changes, one could say that with these few tracks Wound Collector has gotten heavier and more ‘old school’ in refining their sound while also opting for making their unique sax elements more vocal and slightly abrasive, but not painful to hear. Don’t expect them to go completely random at times like Imperial Triumphant, but these is definitely potential for some epic work in the future.

3.5 / 5 STARS