I can’t believe that this album is finally done! Texas based SEVERANCE must be one of the laziest bands in the whole Death Metal scene ; -). They started out (still very dedicated, haha) way back in 1989, released their first rehearsal demo (“Procreation”) in 1990, followed by a real studio demo (“Afterbirth Of Infamy”) one year later and the “Abysmal Ascent” 7″ on Drowned Productions (nowadays Repulse Records) in 1992. At the time we had a bigger feature on them in our classic debut issue, and really had high hopes in this friendly bunch. But then somehow the misery started and there was the first period of silence… for about four long years! In 1996 they finally returned to the scene with a self-financed, killer MCD entitled “Salvation Denied”. Everything looked extremely promising again, but SEVERANCE disappeared once more from the face of the earth and it took them another 6 years (!!) to finally come up with a follow-up – their first full length album, “What Lies Ahead…”. But you know what? The result is definitely worth the long wait as SEVERANCE didn’t change a bit – they even sound more intense than ever before, but that’s completely fine with me! They still stick to the rather typical (not meant in a negative sense of course), totally ripping US Death Metal, with lots of variation in speed, enriched by several breaks, shredding riffs and low grunted guttural vocals – all in all always heavy as fuck! They used to get compared to bands like MORBID ANGEL, MONSTROSITY and the likes when they started out and basically will probably still appeal to the same fan base. But SEVERANCE have evolved into their own unique sound over the years, which is far more brutal than ever before, so you shouldn’t really hesitate for a second, but get yourself a copy of this album. The US version even features the four songs off the band’s MCD as a bonus, so in case you missed out on that years ago, you better pick that up. I just hope that SEVERANCE won’t take a decade now to release their next album…