Bokluk – Taphonomy (Memento Mori)
Sunday, 13th April 2014
Bokluk hail from Spain, though you might be more inclined to guess from Sweden. Don’t worry; it’s not simply another case of Entombed worship (not sure how many more of those subpar efforts any of us deserve at this point), as the only thing that’s completely borrowed from Stockholm is a bit of that ravenous buzzsaw crunch. Thankfully, Bokluk have been non-discriminate in regards to nationality in their worship of the old school death metal round table. One can even find some Autopsy, Replusion, and (early) Carcass worked in here amid the Swede-work.
Taphonomy functions best when dishing out delightfully intoxicating riffs. Thankfully, this happens at least once in every track (minus the as-per-normal pointless intro track “Psyche”), even the all too short “Excrement” features a spiraling riff that will make you stand at attention. The opening to “Creed of Excruciation” and the slow groove of “Neoteny Disclosure” and “Nomenclature 22Q13” (whatever that means) round out some of the standout riffs but are not the end all be all. Boklok’s sense for well-placed groove makes sure that things never feel stale. The rest might rely on a combination of blasting and dirging, but this is old school death metal right?
Bokluk hasn’t quite hit it out of the park with Taphonomy but that doesn’t take away from it being a quite digestible old school treat. One of the finer points is that of its production. Taphonomy sounds like classic death metal but never obnoxiously so. Likewise, it’s pretty thick in the guitars and just sounds heavy (something that almost always works with these types of albums as long as it’s not overdone). All in all, Bokluk is one of the more solid and well-rounded old school metal albums to come our recently that avoids sounding too Swedish. Kudos on that!
