Garcharot
Core of Despair

November 2008
Released: 2008, Suffer Productions
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Garcharot is an old Finnish death metal band whose history dates back to the early 90s; the time when the Finnish death metal bands were raising their ugly heads on a wider front and conquering the needed space in the underground metal scene for themselves the best they could.



Garcharot never managed to release a single album during the heyday of Finnish death metal, but at least they got a couple of demos recorded (CRADLE OF SORROW and THE ART OF DARK DESIRES that were both released in 1994), and their name was carved on the foreheads of many death metal bangers back in those golden days of Finnish death metal.



Now 14 years later, these Finnish 'death metal legends' (as they call themselves - I wouldn´t go that far though) first ever album has been unleashed via German Suffer Productions - and this sounds actually pretty darn good all in all.



Garcharot plays a face-melting, brutal and delightfully old school death metal, in which early Swedish death metal (Grave, Unleashed, Entombed, etc. - you already know this recipe, don´t you?) meets demo era Suffocation - with some hints from Deicide´s direction as well. The riffs are kinda tricky, wicked and challenging enough, the drum parts have a good amount of variation, Lasse´s death grunts reeks of evilness - and overall the whole package works really well for them. It´s still great to hear some bands doing this old school death metal style because unfortunately so many bands have forgotten the true essence and spirit of death metal nowadays - what it once used to be in the ´90s. Garcharot rips the heart out from the chest of any old school death metal fan with true determination and style - playing exactly what comes naturally from them, and just avoiding all the traps, which is a definite plus for them. As for bonuses on this CD, the demos (+ a different version of “Holy Communion…” taken from an old comp. CD) sound much rougher and harsher than the actual album tracks - having a more grindy feel, but those were the different times back then.



You wanna still know whether all this is a worthy package? Well, you get nearly 80 minutes of good and well-crafted old school death metal for only for €10/$14 (+ postages), so by all means draw your own conclusions out of that… ;o)