Ghoulunatics

It’s pretty cool that five studio discs into their career, Quebec’s Ghoulunatics have finally decided to just go for it and release an album sung entirely in their native French tongue. Man, it’s death metal (kind of), who’s even going to notice? I didn’t until I started looking at the lyric sheet. With Cryogenie, this very unique band have honed their death’n’roll sound a bit, creating something that is basically groove or stoner rock half the time, with near-death metal vocals and a bass-heavy, extreme metal production sound. Sure to alienate many and please a select few, I dig everything about this band. The aforementioned production even sounds great — although too demo-quality at times, it’s also a great marriage of raw energy and beefed-up monstrosity. The guitar work is great, with these two guys having no shortage of cool, lively ideas — the opening riff to the title track is solid metal gold. With no real peers except modern day Entombed, and even that’s a stretch, the Ghoulunatics are doing a great job at carving out their own niche. The songs will get your head moving, no doubt; while they may become monotonous by the album’s mid-point, there’s still an undeniable energy to the whole disc that is impossible to not enjoy.