WOUND COLLECTOR – Begging For Chicxulub

RELEASE YEAR: 2024

BAND URL: https://www.woundcollector.com/

For my second perfect score review this year (yet concerning last year) I’ve chosen the Belgian progressive death metal quintet uniquely named Wound Collector and their 1st EP after 2 full lengths, Begging For Chicxulub²⁰²⁴ independently released last June 15th. What makes this outfit compelling is how they seamlessly combine death metal riffs with jazzy structures which they support and even strengthen by a layer of saxophone. Or is it that they build jazzy structures with saxophone and then lay death metal stylings on top? Actually, both are true.

The best description of music usually comes from the artists themselves who call it epic saxophonized death metal and hold that Wound Collector “employs a full time saxophone on top of their heavy, bulldozing death metal with lyrics concerning forgotten and neglected parts of history”, courtesy of its single founder (2015) Peter Verdonck (saxophone, vocals), whom Guy Van “GVC” Campenhout (2016-guitars, vocals), bassist Kurt Hermans (2016-2020) and drummer Ben Van Peteghem (2016-2018) joined of whom (Verdonck, Van Campenhout are the only constants) before the creation of the debut album, Eternal Bloodcult²⁰¹⁸ released by Profane Records. Eternal Bloodcult²⁰¹⁸, which I could get familiar with courtesy of Bandcamp, featured some elements absent from the subject of this review, such as clean vocals and doom death melodeclamation and was a lot more progressive and melodic, even avantgarde in places and so was the follow-up, Depravity²⁰²⁰ (on Rotten To The Core Records) except it was heavier and rougher, but also more avantgarde and more clean singing as well as using acoustics and doom, it was seriously weird without losing its catchiness and brilliance, which, in comparison with Begging For Chicxulub, is to say that they have changed, tightening it up significantly.

After those two, in my view, perfect, even revolutionary albums, Wound Collector (can’t use the acronym to avoid connotations with a toilet, water closet) could have gone even more progressive and avantgarde and more melodic, but they’ve chosen to tone down the progression and avantgarde, throw out the acoustics and melodeclamations as well as any slow transitions while limiting the melody to only saxophone while emphasizing the death metal while infusing it with almost danceable grooves. As a result, the songwriting is tighter, hooks more noticeable and material lends itself to repeated exposure whereby one discovers more ear candy. I am convinced to call it death jazz metal because of how utterly essential the saxophone is, when normally it would seem incongruent, even distracting. The way these guys, that is, Verdonck, Van Campenhout, Nico Veroeven (2018-drums), Stijn Deldaele (2020-bass) and Alfonso “Poncho” García Valdéz (202-lead guitars) have melted together in the wound collecting matrimony is a wonder to behold, creating music that is (and I’m not afraid of either reference) comparable to Cynic’s Focus¹⁹⁹³ or Pestilence’s Spheres¹⁹⁹³, except it is slightly less catchy and more brutal than the former and less sprawling and weird than the latter. And, most importantly, they can pack so much detail into tracks of which none exceeds 3:41 minute length while still allowing repetition of hooks, that I, again, wonder how come I never heard of Wound Collector before this EP, while thankful to our chief editor, Andrea, for suggesting it for review.

Due to the extremely tight and engaging songwriting it is not just hard but impossible to pick favorites out of these 4 compositions. Do I favor the opener “River Of Scalded Corpses” for its clear aforementioned 1993 classics influence and early Deicidal rough guitars, combining the melodic with the extreme, or perhaps I fancy “Progress Through Dishonor” to do the honors, with its Candirian grooves and Immolationary guitar squeals, or, I’m almost certain now, even stronger Immolating title track with almost melodic death metal flair? Actually, for all that difficulty, because music is my passion almost equal to my spiritual fervor, I still managed to pick a favorite in “Dehumanized By The Auburn System” because of the way it combines technical Obscuraic death metal, Sadist style riffs and Death’s both Human¹⁹⁹¹ melodies with latter Death a’la “Bite The Pain” in one highly palatable dish.

By the authority bestowed upon me as an Eternal Terror journalist, I hereby recommend all Wound Collector work for anyone seeking innovative solutions in the progressive technical death metal genre while proclaiming the Belgians the artists the caliber of Cynic, Death, Obscura or Sadist, so if you like any of these, do you even need my recommendation?