Malevolent Creation - Malevolent Creation

Malevolent Creation - Malevolent Creation

Malevolent rarely gets the attention they deserve, as they were definitely at the forefront of the early Death Metal scene and contributed greatly.  My only guess is that it has to do with their thrashy style and just general timing: When this album debuted, bands like Deicide and Cannibal Corpse had already laid claim to the Tampa Bay/Morrisson Studios sound and NYBDM was just beginning to lay waste to the industry.

Chords -- fifths and thirds, most notably (haha!  I love this shit) -- and an intentionally sloppy, garage/live-band sound began to take hold in what (in retrospect) I can only guess was the producers' best strategy at maintaining sway in an arena increasingly owned by actual musicians.  Yet, Malevolent Creation's single-string philosophy yielded nothing in the way of aggressive progression and beat-down breaks.

It's easy to forget, but Death - Human, Obituary - Cause of Death, and Morbid Angel - Blessed are the Sick were in heavy rotation (on my friend's mom's mini-van's CD changer) at the same time as Malevolent Creation's debut album.  They were right there at the start, with that bright, light-string shit that still -- 25+ years later -- sounds like no one else.

Except Slayer and also Metallica and Megadeth.  And also Anthrax.

Whatever the case, Malevolent Creation's first couple of albums remain stalwart examples of actual Death Metal -- before it started being divided into a countless multitude of sub-genres.

© The Weirding, 2020