Authentic Scandi-death that sounds like it was created by bored disenfranchised teens in the early nineties. Actually, is the product of middle-aged musicians keen to recapture the music that first inspired them in their youth. Initially the musical refugee for Opeth Svengali Mikael Åkerfeldt, for the last decade the torch has been held by Jonas Renkse and Anders Nystrom of Katatonia, aided by indomitable Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost. In fact, his stint as chief growler in Bloodbath has in turn heralded the return of rough vocals within his day job. 

“Survival of the Sickest” is deeply reverential about the musical form that it adopts but it is certainly not poe-faced. Bloodbath have deduced that Death Metal is at its very best when it has its tongue shoved in its (decaying) cheek and what made it so attractive to the disaffected masses was the way that it piled on the gore without any thought of what the boundaries of good taste were. This is a simplistic, puerile love letter to the music that inspired them.