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CRIMSON BUTCHERY
Stalker

Iron Fortress (2025)
Rating: 7/10

It’s now a hat-trick of albums in as many years for the Irish twosome of Shane “Red” Corcoran (vocals) and John Roche (guitar). Crimson Butchery surf the tumultuous wave that was originally formed by the likes of Cannibal Corpse, Cryptopsy and Brutality.

Stalker is essentially a 90s death metal vibe. The album is chock-a-block with riffs and some dazzling moments of intricacy with songs like ‘Bludgeoned To The Grave’ and ‘Cranium Devourment’ which live up to their titles. Some of these structures are so tight and toned that I’d compare them to something Dying Fetus might compose.

Lean, technically accomplished pummeling and grotesquely staccato’d, Stalker offers no loose change. Instead, it’s muscular frame results in a frantic yet tidy selection of sweeps and leads which whizz through your brain like a drill. ‘Lab Rat’ boasts a Cannibal Corpse construction, lined with a pulverising groove that sends you for a dizzy spin.

The key here is Crimson Butchery keeps everything compact and to the point, never bemusing the audience, but instead grinding with that Cryptopsy execution whereby riffs twist and turn like great seismic coils. ‘Trauma Masturbation’ features a tinge of Cattle Decapitation and is another unrelenting onslaught built upon a mesh of bruising riffs.

The technicality within such a brain-mashing framework has to be admired, and even with some 90s flickering, Stalker is very much a modern day death metal opus for those who care not for morbidity but instead love to have their membranes tangled.

Neil Arnold

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