Barbarous Initium Mors Review
Barbarous
Initium Mors
Creator-Destructor
2025
Oakland CA circa April 2024. That's when brutal death metal sickos Barbarous burst onto the Bay Area scene and now they are poised to spread their blood and guts gospel to the rest of an unsuspecting world with their debut LP Initium Mors. The eight-song affair was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Cody Fuentes in February/March 2025 at Rapture Studios (Spite, Wolf King, Lionheart) and completed with art by the legendary Dan Seagrave (Dismember, Hypocrisy, Morbid Angel).
What you're getting here is death metal, plain and simple. Barbarous don't mess around with crystal clear, quantified or overly compressed production here. Throughout the entirety of the album, we get a raw, reverb soaked, cavernous listening experience that actually fits the vibe of the record. There is a bit of polish, but raw and cold are the main feelings this production evokes. Barbarous clearly take influence from bands like Cannibal Corpse, Necrot, Skeletal Remains and Gatecreeper, but what sets them apart is an underlying sense of melody in more than a few guitar lines and a focus on a more plodding and mid-tempo approach instead of bludgeoning us to death with speed of light blast beats. Don't get me wrong, things get plenty speedy, (the title track for example) but it's used sparingly to enhance transitions and not be whole songs. The riffs are never too busy or undecipherable and their understanding of making this style of music groove makes it that much heavier (see “The Tomb Spawn”). The last track “Coupe De Grace” is probably my favorite song here, as it opens with riffs straight from the Ever-flowing Stream handbook and drives it’s point home in a mere two minutes and fifty-two seconds. The whole thing operates within this ethos, and it seems no song lingers for more than four and a half minutes. Brutal death metal that is devastatingly heavy and says what it needs to say and leaves you gasping for breath and tells you to get the hell out of its way when it's done. That is Barbarous here in a big, rotten nutshell. They mean business, they sound convicted, angry and should be taken seriously. Approach with caution, then revel in the blunt force trauma set to music.
~TB