In 2001 Death Metal had been in steady decline for many years. The genre once gloriously notorious for stillbirthing some of the vilest filth imaginable had been watered down by harmlessness and mediocrity.
It was exactly at this time that MURDER SQUAD breathed much-needed foul air into a scene so desperately lacking dirt and danger.
Spawned by members of some of the most revered Swedish Death Metal bands (ENTOMBED, DISMEMBER, MERCILESS etc.) and driven by their shared passion for intoxication and, above all, American Death Metal band AUTOPSY, the four Swedes would go on to vomit forth two full-lengths and one EP before withdrawing into the nasty hole they crawled out from.
Right off the bat, while the first riffs blare out of the speakers, MURDER SQUAD make it unmistakably clear that they don’t give a damn about originality or sophistication. Sonically almost entirely influenced by AUTOPSY – which had been split-up for six years at the time the album was released – and their depraved legacy, MURDER SQUAD are instead devoted to paying tribute to San Francisco’s most foul and deranged. Unsurprisingly, given the Swedes history and experience, they pull it off very convincingly. Although, their vey fittingly titled full-length zealously and unabashedly worships at the altar of AUTOPSY, the Swedish weirdos do so without lacking style.
