Album review – 200 Stab Wounds – Manual Manic Procedures

By DAN SOUTHALL

FOR some of us death metal never went away – for others it is in the middle of a brilliant resurgence. 200 Stab Wounds are part of the new generation of bands re-creating a sound rooted in disgusting music created in the late eightiess and early nineties, when bands constantly one-upped each other with lyrics filled with all manner of disgusting horror stories. Bursting onto the scene in 2021, their debut album Slave to the Scalpel suitably impressed the cool kids and old heads alike.

Opening slowly, “Hands of Eternity” sets the scene with a cinematic build-up that takes up the first half of the track runtime before chaos ensues, as the band blast through grind and black metal before finally settling on a crushing hardcore beatdown to wrap it all up. Next up, “Gross Abuse” is a short, sharp foot-to-the-floor number as 200 Stab Wounds shows off just what they can do on the faster end of the spectrum before introducing a deep groove on the title track. A thick bass groove at its heart gives the listener more than a few seconds to forget that this is modern death metal at its core.

Even though the album comes in under the half hour mark, the band rest a little for a couple of tracks in the middle. But as the feedback fades at the end on instrumental “Led to the Chamber/Liquified” they hit their best stride as Manual Manic Procedures builds momentum to a thrashing close. From “Flesh from Within” the band pile on all of their tricks and inject a sense of melody often missed in this style of music, to stop the ear fatigue. Adding to the melee, “Ride the Flatline” brings Jami Morgan and Code Orange in to add hardcore weight to a track that is already heavy as elephants’ nuts.

Saving the best for last, “Parracide” is when I finally realise why this album has been so enjoyable. The production isn’t super shiny but nothing is buried in the mix either. This sounds like a live-in-the studio album. Because of that, it has that something special that puts albums on the Saturday arvo beer playlist. You might not be going back to this album every week in the next six months … but for the next few beer seshes with your mate, this should be on the playlist.

Get Manual Manic Procedures on CD and vinyl