Description
Anatomia’s classic debut full length for the first time back on 12″ in 20 years! Ltd. Ed. 100 copies, black, 12×12 insert, hypesticker. Now shipping worldwide. Made in Canada.
20 years of “Dissected Humanity.” It goes by in the blink of an eye. I remember a friend of mine recommending that I check out this new Japanese band named Anatomia, who had just released their debut album on Necroharmonic Records. I soon picked up “Dissected Humanity” on CD, the only format on which it was available at the time. It took some time to wrap my mind around what was going on here; “Dissected Humanity” channels a deeply disturbing vision of doom-ridden death metal that echoes Autopsy’s “Mental Funeral” style but is far from a mere clone.
Dripping with eerily morbid riffs, it has a specific, visceral texture that sends the listener on a gory journey of depravity. The album presents an array of deeply engaging tracks; to call out a few, ‘Drowned in Sewage’ kicks off with a rollicking, groove-laden opening before spiraling into chugging riffs that will make Obituary fans froth at the mouth. You have the ripping, punky ‘Suicides’ that comes and goes in under two minutes, and leads into the massive centerpiece ‘Deceased,’ a lumbering track that descends into a crushing, horrifically formless back half. There are no weak points, and with frequent passages that border on funeral doom, listening to “Dissected Humanity” feels like an enormous weight pushing you down, the celestial sphere placed upon the shoulders of Atlas in eternal punishment. As if to hammer the point home, “Dissected Humanity” is capped off by a cover of Autopsy’s ‘Stillborn,’ but it’s important to remember that Anatomia is headed by Takashi Tanaka, a scene veteran whose involvement in pioneering Japanese death metal dates back to at least 1988. Thus the Autopsy cover included on “Dissected Humanity” is closer to an homage to a contemporary band rather than honouring a predecessor.
So here we are, 20 years later; Anatomia have since dropped three more albums and almost two dozen splits, and their legacy has only grown. Despite numerous well-deserved reissues over the years, “Dissected Humanity” has not seen a vinyl release since Nuclear War Now! Productions’ 2010 issue, making co-conspirators Futhark Records and Nespithe Records’ new edition long overdue. Featuring the original cover by Eiichi Ito, whose distinct images of body horror have graced all of Anatomia’s albums to date, it is set to be the definitive issue of this landmark Japanese classic. (Fred Lancelot, March 2025)