Lik – Misanthropic Breed

Lik

‘Misanthropic Breed’

Metal Blade Records

Death Metal

FFO: Bloodbath, Entombed, Dismember, Entrails, Baest, Daemonicus

In the modern era, death metal is often ten a penny. A band gets together; heavy guitars, blast beating drums and growled vocals coupled with the foulest lyrics that the group can come up breeds an air of familiar genericism and boredom. Therefore, it takes something rather special to stand out from the crowd and that is what occurred with Lik.  The last few years have been exceptionally fruitful for the Stockholm band, delivering their sophomore album ‘Carnage’ in 2018 and quickly striking with the ‘Sthlm Death Metal’ EP in 2019. Hot on its heels, 2020 has Lik delivering their third album ‘Misanthropic Breed’.

                With a chainsaw in hand, Lik tear down the door as ‘Misanthropic Breed’ wastes no time in kicking things off. This is not an album that needs an elongated intro track, balls to that, the pummelling rhythms and driving guitars tear open the space time continuum back to the early 90’s and deliver an album that is so old-school it has no idea what the internet, memes and gifs are. Lik wear their influences on their sleeves, digging to 30 years below the surface this album has all the appeal of Dismember, Entrails and early Evocation. Any fan of Entombed would adore this, ‘Misanthropic Breed’ picks up where ‘Wolverine Blues’ left off and is infinitely better than the generic average death metal that Entombed A.D. peddle these days. However, this is not an album that is buried deep in nostalgia, tracks such as ‘Corrosive Survival’, ‘Female Fatal to the Flesh’ and ‘Faces of Death’ show that Lik are keeping one foot in the modern world, giving old-school death metal a contemporary finish that fans of Bloodbath, Baest and Daemonicus will find irresistible.

                Simply put, ‘Misanthropic Breed’ is one of the best death metal albums you will hear all year and any fan of that old-school Scandinavian sound should check out this album; not only will it not disappoint, you will find it almost impossible to take off rotation.

Adam McCann