The Classic Metal Album Reviews:
Title: Dreams of the Carrion Kind
Artist: Disincarnate
Label: Roadrunner Records
Release Date: 1993

Rating: 5 Skulls

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    • Reviewed by Chris Ayers:
    After playing lead on Death's Spiritual Healing and Obituary's Cause Of Death - but before his scorching contributions to Testament beginning with 1994's Low, guitarist James Murphy assembled a band of virtual unknowns to record Disincarnate's one and only album, Dreams Of The Carrion Kind, produced by Colin Richardson. The menacing, technical death metal contained therein was so far above the local scene output at the time (Deicide, Malevolent Creation, Monstrosity, Brutality, et al.) that it caused a brilliant but uncontrolled burn for an outfit that has now been all but forgotten. Held up to today's DM standards, Disincarnate are still head-and-shoulders above the guttural hordes in terms of musical progression and proficiency.

    After the moody, Sinister-like intro "De Profundis," the opener "Stench Of Paradise Burning" (also featured on Roadrunner's classic '93 comp, At Death's Door II) devastates the competition with tasteful blastbeats and Morbid Angel-styled barbed riffs. The cavernous, feral growling from main throat Bryan Cegon is augmented by Cancer's John Walker on the Deicide-al "Beyond The Flesh" and by My Dying Bride's Aaron Stainthorpe on the utterly phenomenal "Monarch Of The Sleeping Marches." Murphy's doomy breaks during "In Sufferance" are truly memorable, and both "Soul Erosion" and "Deadspawn" contain soaring, tangential solos that made his all too brief stint with Obituary so archetypal. He even pumps his wah-wah pedal in "Entranced" and tempers his attack to a sort of military march (with the help of drummer Tommy Viator) on "Confine Of Shadows." The album closes with Murphy's deft acoustic work on "Immemorial Dream," very gothy and morose like old My Dying Bride. Recently, he had been working on the long-awaited sophomore Disincarnate record with vocalist Tomas Lindberg (At The Gates, The Crown) but was sidelined due to emergency surgery to remove a brain tumor. Let's pray that his recuperation will allow him to proffer another five-star Disincarnate release in the near future.
    5 out of 5

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