Saprobiontic have released "Apex Predators", the second song from Of Fire and Bloodshed, which Black Lion Records put out on 23 October on CD, vinyl and digital.
It is their third album and the first in five years. The Dresden band came out of an EP in 2015, made Science of War in 2017 and Apocalyptic Retribution in 2021, and have spent the gap since doing what German death metal bands at this level do, which is play and wait for the next record to be ready rather than announce one.
Chris, who sings and plays guitar, describes the song in the register the genre uses with itself: "old-school-oriented riffs combined with mid-tempo blast beats and tons of groove", and then, in capitals, "thirsty for the blood of rotting bodies". Underneath the theatre there is a specific claim, which is that this one is mid tempo rather than fast, and that the groove is the thing carrying it.
Black Lion have been building a roster of this kind of band for a decade, and a third album with vinyl behind it is the point at which a death metal band stops being a local concern.