Stillbirth- Survival Protocol (Album Review)

Stillbirth has been offering up their own blend of brutal death metal/slam for the better part of two decades, and chances are good that even if you haven’t spent as much time with their music you’ve seen some of their distinct album artwork.  There’s always been a fun/tongue in cheek aspect to their music and art alongside the brutality, but Stillbirth has also been experimenting with elements outside of death metal and injecting additional character to their material for some time.  This year’s Survival Protocol is no different, as it not only embraces a bit more technicality and melody but pulls in everything from surf rock to flamenco.  It’s a quick and heavy hitting effort at thirty-six minutes, but there’s a lot packed into that timespan and Stillbirth has once again showcased their ability to transform their writing even nine albums in.

While you’ll hear cleaner melodies and quirkier instrumentation at various points of Survival Protocol, make no mistake that this is first and foremost a heavy hitting album.  Opener “Existence Erased” comes in with a sci-fi sounding intro before the instrumentals start bludgeoning you with chugs and blasting.  Even at this earlier stage of the album Stillbirth isn’t as derivative of brutal death metal/slam as you’d expect, as the way the first few minutes go back and forth reminds me of a cross between Cattle Decapitation and Archspire but wrapped in a slam exterior.  There’s definitely a lot more tech death leaning moments this time around, but you also have the jump to other genres that appear and then vanish quickly.  “Existence Erased” shows the first instance of this when the attack abruptly stops and clean guitar that has more of a flamenco style takes over for a brief period, leading right back into the chugs.  Not every song uses this type of experimentation, as “Apex Predator” and “The Survival Protocol” are a bit more straight-up brutal death with some technical slants, but you’ll notice when Stillbirth does decide to shake things up.  My favorite example of this is “Baptized in Blood”, which has an almost surf rock or flamenco feel with blasts injected in between for the first thirty seconds or so, and the bluesy guitar that opens and closes “Kill to Rule” also works well.  The drumming is also worth mentioning, as there are some quirky sections on “Throne of Bones” and a few other tracks that shake up the formula.  Even with some of these curveballs some of the sections did come and go without fully grabbing me over repeat listens, but the amount that does easily justifies Survival Protocol as an album you should spend some quality time with.

Lukas Swiaczny has been with the group since the very beginning, and his vocals have only gotten more varied and intense over the years.  One of the main things you’ll notice while listening to Survival Protocol is how many different pitches there are, as you’ve got powerful growls and screams alongside the extreme gutturals and frog vocals that define a lot of slam.  Swiaczny does remind me a lot of Travis Ryan from Cattle Decapitation at times, and while it’s not a complete one for one that does add to the appeal of the material.  Alongside the bursts of blast beats during the intro of “Baptized in Blood”, you’ll also hear quick growls in between the guitar melodies that really make that song pop.  There are a lot of little details to the vocals that make them a bit more memorable than the standard one-dimensional brutality that is so common in this type of death metal, and that continues to work in Stillbirth’s favor.

When you’re this many albums in, it’s not uncommon for bands to have fallen into a bit of a pattern so it’s nice to hear that Stillbirth is continuing to shake things up both on the metal and experimental side of the house.  There are a few shaky transitions and not every song stands out to the same degree, but the album delivers plenty of brutal and legitimately fun death metal that listeners can get plenty of mileage out of.  If they also want to continue with the “brutal death metal surf rock” combo, I’m all for it!  Survival Protocol is available from Reigning Phoenix Music.

-Review by Chris Dahlberg