Metal Underground.com

The Last Felony is a fairly new voice in the death metal realm, as “Too Many Humans” is only the band’s second full-length release in five years of existence. The wicked cool cover artwork pretty much says everything anyone needs to know about the album: a massive ball made of screaming human faces slamming into a pile of skulls as the apocalypse is going on in the background. The ten tracks of non-stop Armageddon are sure to ignite the fires of metal mayhem in any fans of modern death metal, although the nature of the music does introduce some unfortunate repetition.

Out of necessity, the songs are generally short and stick around three minutes, as there just aren’t enough style or tempo changes to warrant longer track lengths. Even though the album just barely passes half an hour in length, there is still a good deal of bleed through between the songs, and a listener would frequently be hard pressed to say for sure which track was which without checking the liner notes.

There are a few anchoring points to be found throughout the album to give a point of reference, however. Opening track “We Are Future Housing Developments For Maggots” opens up with a distorted fade in that builds up anticipation of the death metal onslaught. The title track has a brief moment of brilliance when a scream stutters and repeats in a completely unexpected way, giving just the slightest feel of industrial before heading back into battering ram mode.

“No One Would Notice If You Died” breaks out of the formula in a few spots as well, with the backing guitar work actually becoming melodic for a time. The song also ends off with a chugging, stuttering feel that keeps the heads banging without completely throwing away any semblance of melody. A frantic pace, shorter run time, and interesting use of voice-over makes “Televisionary” a song that shows the strengths of modern day death metal acts.

“Quandary” is the longest song on the album, making it to the five minute mark. It’s groovy and chugging feel has the most hardcore influence of any track on the disc, but the ending also shows off the limitations of this particular take on death metal. The song doesn’t have anywhere to go after five minutes of brutality, and just sort of fades away without any sort of definite ending.

While the album is fairly repetitive and doesn’t have anything unique going on, “Too Many Humans” is exceedingly brutal and technically proficient. Modern death metal fans will probably want to make a point of checking this one out, especially if they enjoy just a hint of “core” in their sound.