Band:	Gotsu Totsu Kotsu
Album:	黄泉ガヘリ (Back From The Underworld)
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	December 2023

01. 百戦錬磨 (Battle-Hardened)
02. 乱逆ノ燈 (Signal Of The Counterattack)
03. 積年ノ闘イ (Long-Standing Warfare)
04. 血気ハヤラバ (When My Blood Boils)
05. 悪ノ霊魂 (Malevolent Souls)
06. 彷徨ウ首 (Severed Head On The Prowl)
07. 埋伏ノ毒 (Sleeper Cell)
08. 破邪ノ眼光 (Glares To Crush Evil)
09. 疫神 (God Of Plagues)
10. 黄泉ガヘリ (Back From The Underworld)

Some bands make both their strengths and their drawbacks very loud.

Death metal is a pretty widespread genre so it's pretty easy to find a bajillion bands that have the exact same sound. At the same time it's pretty easy to have most of your sound be very widespread but not quite all of it, thus being able to add your own particular spin to it. Gotsu Totsu Kotsu is a band that has been around for quite a while, more than two decades at this point, and even if the gist of their sound isn't that far off from the usual serving of thrashy death metal, they also fell in the wayside of death metal quite a bit, receiving attention and praise from a small subset of the metal crowd, and thus evolving in their own little niche that sounds separated from what one would expect out of death metal, even if the vast majority of their sound is less surprising.

It was pretty easy to see what both their drawbacks and their strengths were back when I discovered them with 2016's 兵ドモガ夢ノ跡 (Where Warriors Once Dreamed a Dream), an album that in retrospect remains their strongest. They're not exactly subtle about what makes their sound theirs. In a way this is as much a review of 黄泉ガヘリ (Back From the Underworld) in particular and of Gotsu Totsu Kotsu as a whole because even if variation between albums exists, with some albums sounding tighter than others, the core characteristics of their sound stay pretty unchanged. And as much as I wish I went on to review an album of theirs I like more than this, now is an opportunity to kinda assess that my enjoyment of the band also got more complicated as I got more experience. I am more grateful for how they stick out and less willing to overlook their flaws.

Alright, without beating around the bush, when Gotsu Totsu Kotsu are awesome, they are really awesome. They can really dial the intensity to 11 when they really want to, with the riffing and soloing sometimes having a specifically quirky intensity to it, and the slap bass is still my absolute favorite thing about them. When the throttle is pushed, nothing can get to their level. Sadly, there's also the limitation of their albums almost always being one hour long and lacking in variation. The moments when the throttle isn't pushed can sound too monotonous for their own good, especially in such large quantity. The drums themselves can be overbearing when the blasting is continuous, but the worst offender are the vocals, which have an admittedly cool grunted tone to them but whose one-note nature really doesn't work for an entire long album. Add to that how the production may not always help the instruments gel together and you get something that, for a band I once thought were amazing, got me shook when I figured out how early in the album I was hoping it would be over already.

And I think what's specifically making me feel this about 黄泉ガヘリ (Back From the Underworld) rather than any of the albums in their past is exemplified perfectly in the way it starts. 背水之陣 (The Final Stand) starts with slap bass. 兵ドモガ夢ノ跡 (Where Warriors Once Dreamed A Dream) starts with an orchestral track, but right after it the first proper song starts with slap bass. 黄泉ガヘリ (Back From the Underworld) starts with some really cool riffing, but it took quite a while for me to confirm after revisiting the older albums that slap bass is indeed present on 黄泉ガヘリ (Back From the Underworld). While the other albums pushed forward what made Gotsu Totsu Kotsu stand out, 黄泉ガヘリ (Back From the Underworld) gets dragged down too much by its drawbacks to be as enjoyable.