Extremity – “Coffin Birth” [Album Review]

Hey kids – want to hear some death metal? Well, you’re in luck. Following their Extremely Fucking Dead debut that was 6 years in the making, Extremity have returned with Coffin Birth, an unyielding piledriver of straight, total death. It’s not uncommon to draw parallels between disparate styles with a view to painting the most accurate view of an artist’s work, but in the case of Extremity, their Facebook page lists everything from biography to location and even awards as ‘death metal’, so that’s that.

Perfectly realised in every sense, Coffin Birth is a passionately performed example of raw-as-balls old school necroscopy. Grimy, rough, loud, potent and completely devoid of pity, this record opens with exactly 52 seconds of organ and screaming before personifying the method of execution commonly referred to as ‘blunt force trauma’.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing clever here; “Umbilicus” has plenty of tempo shifts, recalling Grave Miasma and Possessed in places. The dry, unsaturated guitars have a good blob of Morbid Angel on the go, but rather than chalk up references, Coffin Birth exalts all the best bits of death metal and delivers them to your door, fat free. There’s the briefest of let-ups in the intro of “For Want Of A Nail” before the band get back to the business of swirling their fatal neck-snapping riffs around your brain.

Begin with the song “Occision”, then listen to the entirety of Coffin Birth.

The solos are melodically ideal for the context in which they find themselves, and only the most ardent brutality purist wouldn’t find this a genuinely heavy record. You’d have to be pretty anti-metal not to bang your head even a little to “Like Father Like Son”, and only a chart R&B producer would shun a guitar sound as soil-burdened as this. A genuinely confident, powerful, thought-out example of death worship, and one that’s unquestionably worthy of your time.

Coffin Birth Track Listing:

01. Coffin Birth / A Million Witches
02. Where Evil Dwells
03. Grave Mistake
04. Umbilicus
05. For Want of a Nail
06. Occision
07. Like Father Like Son
08. Misbegotten / Coffin Death

Run Time: 40:06
Release Date: July 20, 2018
Record Label: 20 Buck Spin