A new force in Blackened Death Metal emerges from New York, blasting our faces with the 37 minutes of music found in their pulverizing debut offering.
A new force in Blackened Death Metal has emerged to lay waste to 2025. Featuring veterans Jeff Andrews (The Final Sleep, Armor Column, Hush, Ironweed) on vocals and guitars, Dan Saltzman (Illucinus, The Hunt) on bass, and Mike Van Dyne (Arsis, The Final Sleep) on drums, Troy, New York-based Fleshspoil are set to release their debut album, poetically titled The Beginning of the End. Produced, mixed and mastered by Brett Portzer at White Lake Music & Post, and displaying a darkly beautiful cover art titled “L’Umana Fragilità”, by Salvator Rosa (1656), The Beginning of the End consists of six pulverizing tracks clocking in at 37 minutes, offering us all the creative vision of Jeff Andrews and Mike Van Dyne in the most violent and grim form.
Featuring a guest guitar solo by Kyle Chapman (Aethereus, Blighted Eye) and John Judkins of Rwake on lap steel guitar, the band offers us all seven minutes of intricate sounds in Bleed Through This Life while also sounding haunting and devilish, flirting with Dissonant Death Metal at times. John Judkins also features in Skies Turn To Graves, which starts in a more melodic manner while offering even hints of Post-Metal before all explodes into another slab of brutality, with Mike kicking some serious ass on drums. Then a visceral roar by Jeff ignites the demented Fleshspoil, where their progressive vein clashes with an overdose of heaviness in the best way imaginable, not to mention how infernal the drums by Mike sound. After that, guest guitarist Petr Oplatka of Illucinus fires a sick guitar solo in Walking Dead, a more straightforward, in-your-face tune where Mike once again sounds ruthless on drums. Then a dark and sinister intro evolves into a grim fusion of Death and Doom Metal in A Frail Demise, with Jeff sounding inhumane on vocals while also firing some hellish riffs; whereas lastly, the trio offers our avid ears Born Into Despair, beginning in a gentle, melodic way and evolving into a more introspective tune that could have been a bit heavier in the end.
Highly recommended for fans of classic Death, Black, and Doom Metal, Fleshspoil deliver a haunting and aggressive soundscape during the entire The Beginning of the End, resulting in a very exciting start to the band and, therefore, pointing to a bright future ahead of them. I’m sure we’ll soon hear more from the band, which means you can start following them and stay up to date with their news and tour dates on Instagram, and show them your absolute support by grabbing a copy of the caustic The Beginning of the End from their own BandCamp, letting such an amazing trio from New York crush your spinal cord with their undisputed fusion of savagery and melody.
Best moments of the album: Bleed Through This Life, Fleshspoil and Walking Dead.
Worst moments of the album: Born Into Despair.
Released in 2025 Independent
Track listing
1. Bleed Through This Life 7:17
2. Skies Turn To Graves 6:36
3. Fleshspoil 7:12
4. Walking Dead 3:19
5. A Frail Demise 7:40
6. Born Into Despair 4:18
Band members
Jeff Andrews – vocals, guitars
Dan Saltzman – bass
Mike Van Dyne – drums
Guest musicians
Kyle Chapman – guitar solo and additional chaos on “Bleed Through This Life”
Petr Oplatka – guitar solo on “Walking Dead”
John Judkins – lap steel guitar on “Bleed Through This Life” and “Skies Turn To Graves”
THE HEADBANGING MOOSE 