metalhead gallery

Benighted - Asylum Cave
21 March 2011


01. Asylum Cave
02. Let The Blood Spill Between My Broken Teeth
03. Prey
04. Hostile
05. Fritzl
06. Unborn Infected Children
07. The Cold Remains
08. A Quiet Day
09. Shadows Descend
10. Swallow
11. Lethal Merycism
12. Drowning


The French psychopaths make their long-awaited return after three and a half years since the band's last opus of groovy, grinding brutal death. Asylum Cave is Benighted just the way we've grown to love them, magnified by a whole lot more of everything.

Benighted are forward-thinking, backward-thinking, and any other directional-thinking. This album is full of good old brutal death metal meeting numerous schizophrenic tempo-changes, plenty of different sanity-questioning vocal styles, and elements of grindcore, deathcore, and others finding their way into the insanity.

Once again Benighted have produced an album of exceptional quality that is not only groovy and brutal to the power of infinity, but have created an album that is interesting and constantly stimulating. In a genre where originality and diversity are still mostly undiscovered relics, Benighted really do deserve their credit when originality and diversity are two of the core elements of their brutal sound.

Asylum Cave may be the band's best output to date, taking all of the good parts from Icon and amplifying them even further, producing an astonishing album of both musicianship and songwriting. The second half of the album may be a little less explorative than the first, but songs like the senseless "Swallow" are still among the best of the album. Songs like "Prey" from the first half however, take Benighted above and beyond anywhere they have been before in terms of groove and exploration.

Asylum Cave is a lunatic of an album, perfectly unbalanced in the head.