FATES OF DEATH are a three-piece Death Metal band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Utilizing a stripped-down approach to their songwriting, FATES OF DEATH bludgeon the listener with combinations of riffs, groove and moderate tempos in a similar approach conducted by current-era MASTER, ASPHYX, and modern CARCASS. “Stuck For Slaughter” is ten tracks clocking in at just under thirty-five minutes, available through Grave Embrace Records. ‘Sinister’ opens “Stuck For Slaughter”, with a barreling opening riff that morphs into a melodic break, leading into vocals that come off with a distinct phlegmy throat-based approach to their execution. Pounding drums, heavy on double bass, drive the track forward. ‘Rubber Pencils’ opens on a slightly slower note, with a crawling primary riff and tom-heavy drumming. Buzzsaw bass rattles about in the background, as flourishes from the drums adds critical detail to the scaled-down brutality. The chorus of the track is compromised of a descending fifth chord run with thundering vocals made wider through a touch of reverb. ‘Demoralized’ and its intro riff build tension early on before exploding into a barrage of double-bass and passages of heavy groove, driven primarily by variations in the drumming patterns. There is a great amount of detail packed into the guitar lines, including bursts of trills slipped into the structures to add critical variation to the riff structure. Phlegmy vocals soak the mix in morbid ambience. ‘As He Eats Your Soul’ keeps the formula bubbling, serving as another track that opens on a strong intro riff before sonically morphing into a hard-charging barrage of vocal patterns and thunderous drumming. There is an element of groove to the track that the earlier ones lacked, adding additional variation to the full album playback. ‘Shadows Can’t Tell The Truth’ and ‘Eternal Death’ are both solid ragers that call to modern CARCASS, a surgically precise melodicism incorporated into a grinding Death Metal structure. ‘Shadows Can’t Tell The Truth’ boasts a powerful solo towards the closing third of the song. ‘Suicide Or Die’ slows things down quite a bit, with a verse riff that is pure groove, one that could almost pass as an old school PANTERA riff. The more refrained verse structure, coupled with delay-drenched leads welcomes in some additional variation to the album and keeps things from getting stale. Moving back into uptempo territory, ‘Contradiction’ lays waste with lighting fast single-note riffing and huge sounding sliding fifth chords. ‘Fates Of Death’ and ‘For Those Who Suffer’ continue to stay true to the formula established across “Stuck For Slaughter”, heavy groove elements, powerful transitions and riffs that aggressively drive the tracks forward. For a three-piece band, FATES OF DEATH produce an honest work; stripped down frontal Death Metal with a modern touch. The production is crisp and clean, with spatial tonality, buzzsaw bass, clean sounding drums and a mid-heavy guitar tone. There are no additional ‘smoke and mirrors’ to the production, no electronic tracks, no filler or dressing, it’s just pure Metal. If you’re wanting groove, tempered melodicism and prominent riff work, FATES OF DEATH and “Stuck For Slaughter” is worth a spin. Modern Death Metal without the trappings and inconsistencies, there is no ‘try-hard’ approach to the music here, it feels genuinely organic and it’s a rager worthy of any modern Death Metal fan’s attention. For more information on FATES OF DEATH, see www.facebook.com/fatesofdeath. For additional information on Grave Embrace Records, check out www.graveembracerecords.com