Album review: Spite – NEW WORLD KILLER

If you’re searching for some extra scary points this Halloween – or you’re miserable, and want something to deter the trick-or-treaters – just turn this Spite record up to 11. Even the artwork to NEW WORLD KILLER is their most terrifying yet, fleshing out the skull who played a starring role in the previous four into a renaissance painting of hellfire and suffering.

Happy Halloween to you too, Spite. For their fifth album, the Bay Area deathcore agitators have teamed up with man-of-the-hour Will Putney (Knocked Loose, Better Lovers) on production duties, perhaps explaining why, on a first listen, the chonk-tastic riffs that define NEW WORLD KILLER sound crisper than any of their previous sledgehammers.

In opener The Disaster, the rallying cry of ‘Spite!’ makes ADTR’s ‘Fight!’ at the start of 2nd Sucks sound like a Disney film in comparison. From that moment onwards, this album doesn’t raise its head above water for one single breath. Gavel is pulverising and surprisingly groovy, considering vocalist Darius Tehrani is commanding our executioner to ‘sever the fucking skull’.

Amidst that disgusting underbelly, the album does rely on well-placed riffs to truly get you out of your seat – such as the mouth-watering two-step moments during Hand Of The Reaper and the bouncy tension to Lights Out. When they don’t quite leap out at you, NEW WORLD KILLER can feel cyclical, even though Darius’ occasionally chameleonic vocal delivery helps keep the album on its toes.

Five albums in, NEW WORLD KILLER plays into Spite’s strengths: Darius’ flexibility; his brother Alex’s technicality behind the guitar. Meaty riffs don’t grow on trees, and for the way they dominate the record, Spite can take plenty of credit. With this foundation set in stone, some more daring risks – dynamically and structurally – could lift NEW WORLD KILLER, and Spite, to the next level.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Meshuggah, Paleface Swiss, Thy Art Is Murder

NEW WORLD KILLER is released on October 31 via Rise