Decorpsetated is a new one-man Canadian metal act by Marc Schultz which combines death and thrash metal in a fast-moving grind. Hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, since its inception in early 2023 Decorpsated has already been featured by various metal news outlets such as MHF-Mag, Metal-Rules, and MetalShockFinland. On March 31, Decorpsetated will release its debut album: “Human Words.” Decorpsetated certainly has spared no expense when it comes to dramatic edginess: The album is self-described as “peel[ing] back the layers of human selfishness. With teeth gnashed and claws drawn, this vicious account of raw humanity will leave you questioning how we still exist, as well as whether we should… oh, and it rips pretty hard, if you’re into that sort of thing.” And the artist has left the following message:
“As musicians we often end up with seemingly endless folders of unreleased music for one reason or another. You always tell yourself you’ll put together an album but you never do. So I started chipping away at a collection of my favourites with absolutely no vision of how it would turn out. Three years later I’m sitting back in my studio listening to songs I thought were about greed, war, and extinction, only to be slammed with the reality that these were in fact metaphorical manifestations of my own emotional bullshit. In that moment I knew these stories had to be shared. What if someone else is facing similar struggles and trying to interpret them through a similar lens?”
– Marc
The first thing that hit me about Human Words was the album art, which sports a full indulgence of surrealist gore: The band defines the word “decorpsetated” as [adjective]: “to have had one’s corpse violently and abruptly removed from their soul,” and the art certainly does an adequate job of describing this phenomenon.
The album art also does a pretty good job at capturing the aesthetic of the music, too: There’s a lot going on, and it’s all very gnarly and vicious. But I can occasionally hear the surrealism come through too, in the occasional particularly melodic or synth-y moment – like in track six: “Ambiguous.” You can definitely tell it’s a band in its early stages, though; Decorpsetated still overwhelmingly has that local-opener-band-you-came-to-see-because-your-friend-was-in-it feel, where you can tell what riffs they started out by jamming with to build each song.
That being said, there were a few tracks where I could start to hear a unique Decorpsetated sound start to unify and emerge. The second track, “Taser Napkin,” was my favourite: Breaking free from the collection-of-riffs death trap (or death metal trap, if you will), the song sported a coherent groove and drive that made me want to headbang through the whole thing, and the name piqued my curiosity to the point where I wished I could understand the lyrics. “Cicatrixem,” its successor, also wasn’t half bad and provided enough of an aesthetic and rhythmic context switch that I could definitely tell I was listening to a distinct song (as opposed to the continuation of a directionless jam session, as I find is often the case with newer bands).
Human Words is a fresh take on a set of well-worn death and thrash metal tropes, and Decorpsated is certainly not wanting for dramatic style and zeal. It’s impressive for a one-man debut album, and were I local to the Halifax scene, I’d definitely try to catch a live performance, should one become available: Decorpsated shows a lot of promise and I’m excited to see what becomes of the project in the coming years.
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 31st March 2023
Label: Independent
Writer: Feariel
Tracklist:
- Human Words
- Taser Napkin
- Cicatrixem
- The New You
- Undeniable
- Ambiguous
- Destructifiance
- Traitor
- To Cast a Shadow
- Predatory
