EP REVIEW: Dogs Always Bite Harder Than Their Master – Benighted

French death metallers BENIGHTED have had a prolific and consistently high quality catalogue of albums to date, the latest being Necrobreed released in February 2017. Their latest release, Dogs Always Bite Harder Than Their Master, is an impressive EP boasting three new tracks, a cover, and a selection of live recordings from earlier this year, standing as another fine collection of brutality to celebrate their twentieth anniversary.

The first four songs on this release are new studio recordings opening with Teeth and Hatred, and its exactly what you would expect from something new from BENIGHTED. Utterly relentless blast beats, riffs and breakdowns all seamlessly thrown together with Julien Truchan’s multi faceted vocals which add more layers of sickness to an already malicious mix.

Martyr is another full speed blast, while the title track seems more restrained in comparison to their usual fare. The studio recordings part of this release comes to an end with a cover of the classic title track from AT THE GATES offering Slaughter Of The Soul.  There have been many bands try and cover material from the Swede’s classic 1995 album, and no one has ever come close to replicating the magic of the original. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, BENIGHTED have taken the one track no one could do justice to and given it their own sound, producing a blistering track that sounds just like one of their own.

The remaining six tracks are live recordings taken from a show in Lyon, France, this May. What makes these live tracks more special than the bonus tracks typically tacked onto the end of an album is that there are a number of high profile guests joining BENIGHTED and offering vocals alongside Truchan.

Opening with Reptilian it showcases the tightness of the band in a live setting and with great production values it offers a lot more than most live death metal releases and highlights that the vocals you hear on the album are pretty much what you hear live. The two most notable guests are SHININGS’s Niklas Kvarforth, featuring on Spit and Sven de Caluwe from ABORTED on Unborn Infected Children but each guest offers something different to the savagery going on around them.

As usual with BENIGHTED, with Dogs Always Bite Harder Than Their Master the listener is subjected to another 34 minutes of savagery, and just as one barrage of impossibly brutal noise finishes, it is replaced by something which seems more extreme than the last. To have kept this level of quality and be as prolific as they have been throughout their career is testament to the talent that these musicians have. In their scene there are very few that can live with them, and you can’t see that changing anytime soon if they carry on in this vein of form.

Rating: 9/10

Dogs Always Bite Harder Than Their Master is out now via Season Of Mist. 

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