Undead: The time has come… To Rise From the Grave

“Head Splattered in Seven Ways,” to wit, details a nonsensical gunfight between two dudes. All the hallmarks of death-metal are present—vocals so violent you can practically hear the larynx rip, massive riffs crashing in waves, cymbals dancing over tidal blast beats. As Jones demands answers from his victim, he repeats, “Tell me the truth,” the band gives way to a chorus so barbed you'll be humming the second he coughs it up, even if it's all death metal song you have have i ever heard

Or there's “Necrobionics,” the first of these two songs about the growing army of zombies. The band is as nimble as it is aggressive, with upright guitarists Jared Welch and Kyle Beam packing a symphony of melodrama into their solid riffs. Jones looms over it all like a pop star gargoyle, screeching “Heaps of death/ Corpse en masse.” He sells this ridiculous hook by treating each syllable like the opposite side of a melodic see-saw, a trick he might have learned from Rihanna.Umbrella” or any number of arena-sized anthems. Either way, it sticks and it's possible to imagine an audience not dressed only in black shouting it back to Undeath.

This accessibility is greater than hooks. Beam is an intuitively crafty songwriter, tapping into simple linguistic tools — alliteration, internal rhyme, rhythmic variety — to hook these morbid stories before they even reach the chorus. You understand the narrative, even if you don't understand every word. The band also incorporates their own little memorabilia into these pieces. Bassist Tommy Wall (along with Welch, new to Undeath for this LP) opens the record with a charming line that sounds a lot like the beginning of “Breeders”Cannonball.” The riff on “The Funeral Within,” driven to devilish pace by drummer Matt Browning, is almost as memorable as Jones' chorus, a four-rhyme rollercoaster about mortal sin and rotting skin. Undeath is here for us to have and offer a good time.

It's fair to wonder why Undeath – who do little that hasn't been done in decades in death metal, regardless of the rawness and conviction with which they do it – warrant either a major label deal or the kind of consensus they enjoy. , present is still included. At least in part, the Undeath simply have the good fortune of bad timing. Their silly, raucous graveyard fantasies serve as welcome pressure relief valves for these difficult days. The Undeath play games with death, something that so many of us spend so much of our lives worrying about. “The tissue from the brain was dead but now it's alive,” Jones barks during “Enhancing the Dead,” the second of these two songs about an army of weaponized zombies. So is this The time has come… To rise from the grave it can make you feel—a little less worried about dying and a little more alive, at least for those 36 happy minutes.