Repuked - Dawn Of Reintoxication

Sweden’s Repuked has been rather quiet for a while, not releasing a full length for almost 7 years. But, now they are back in 2020 with more grim, laughable perversity. For new listeners their sound is rooted in the Dismember and Grave style with raw, mid paced tones mixed with Vader tinged thrash and even a little Napalm Death grind. The result is some overall enjoyable death metal that can be soaked up like a bleached acid, providing one can get past some of the laughable titles such as ‘Shitfister’ and ‘Vodka Til The Grave’. While poking fun at a genre that sometimes takes itself too seriously, the music here feels right at home with late 90s death metal of some of the more brutal albums of that decade, such as “Butchered At Birth”. Tracks like ‘Livers Bleed’ and ‘Shitfister’ are slow, sludge driven grimness that ooze of Dismember worship and yet plenty of groove is injected with the music that one cannot help but bang their head. Others like ‘Kick Fuck’ are fast, thrashier, and feel more in the vein of early Deicide despite the rather humorous chorus.

Other tracks like ‘Global Burning’ cover ears like lava going down a hill and sound almost more like doom than traditional death metal. The vocals are more guttural, which work to great effect, and there is certainly an Incantation vibe going with the distortion and raw, crushing tone of the drums. The title track interlude serves as a nice break from the heaviness, but even the funeral organ style seems a bit random and like a Rob Zombie filler piece that is interesting, but rather forgettable. After this point though the album tends to shift back towards Dismember styled riffing and drumming without much variation in between. It isn’t until the crusher of a nine minute epic with ‘Morbid Obsessions’ that listeners get something a little different, even though two minutes of the track is just ambience and static. Still, Repuked do a great job of merging the fast and slower parts together for an enjoyable ride that doesn’t feel like a one pace track compared to some of the earlier pieces.

“Dawn Of Reintoxication” is kind of an anomaly. The music is so dark, evil, and everything a old school doom laden death metal fan could love, and then the tracks are completely the opposite with their absurd titles and lyrics along with the samples added in here and there. As a result, it hard to come away from the album with a direct feeling, like going to a funeral but the eulogy is so bad or hilarious that you really want to laugh but know you shouldn’t. Still, for those who don’t care about the lyrical content of death metal and just want to enjoy crunching guitar and guttural snarls, then Repuked is certainly worth a listen. They don’t really do anything new since their 2013 release but stay true to what they do best.

3.5 / 5 STARS 

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1. Livers Bleed
2. Fucking Your Fucking Corpse
3. Shitfister
4. Kick Fuck
5. Retribution From Behind
6. Global Burning
7. Dawn Of Reintoxication
8. Vodka Til The Grave
9. Repulsive Erected And Anally Infected
10. Sewer Rain
11. Excursion Through Perversity
12. Morbid Obsessions