Yeah I took one look at band name and title and thought bunch of bloody kids trying to be controversial with rude words and all that. Not the case at all though, you wouldn’t get a starry eyed bunch of young ones turning down the chance to go out on the road with the mighty Asphyx as they didn’t agree with the tour terms and conditions now would you? This lot have been around not one but several blocks quite a few times and have plenty of credentials between them. I’m just gonna be lazy and use copy and paste and lay them down for you here; “Shelby Lermo (Vastum), Aesop Dekker (Worm Ouroboros, Ludicra, Agalloch), Marissa Martinez-Hoadley (Cretin, Repulsion) and Erika Osterhout (Necrosic, Scolex, Trepanation).” Frothing at the mouth at the proposition, wondering if it sounds like Agalloch at all (answer no)? This is a bunch of veteran musicians going very old school on our asses and playing grizzly and ghastly death metal just the way momma used to bake it. Let’s just go and take a sniff and see just how they seasoned it.
Death the brutal way comes at us via just 5 main slabs of gore and an eerie shit the bed sounding intro to take us in. It’s classed as a mini LP and gets rolling with an Autopsy of riffs with Crepuscular Crescend splitting the Carcass right down the middle and pulling the entrails out and waving them in our faces. Vocals are gruff and growly in the extreme, gurgling away and hitting very low ranges. It’s certainly not all about speed but goes from full on zombie attack to slow cadaverous shuffle and a mid-paced broken limbed stumble all in the one song. That’s pretty much how things should be done and the restraint and use of tempo works perfectly especially with some slow juddering break downs that hit like splintered bones. By ‘Bestial Destiny’ I give up trying to work out exactly who is doing what here, individual performances don’t appear necessary but it’s obvious more than one person is having a crack and gargle at the vocals and this one has a nice beefy ballast about it and bowls along at a fair old whack rolling over everything in its path and cracking skulls along the way. There’s even a sudden solo looming up from all the bowel shaking bottom end which caught me out the 1st time around.
Chalice Of Pus has to be the best and most rancid title heard in a long while and starts with a scream like a massive boil has just been burst and filled said receptacle up with gooey discharge. With plenty of groove at heart and even a slowed down atmospherically charged creepy interlude and flailing solo this is developed like fine ochre over time and drunk down with bloodthirsty zeal. The crawling sections are particularly horrifying and like the blind dead there is no escaping this slothful evisceration. You should have a good idea of what to expect now and I’m beginning to run out of metaphors from the slab as we speed through Fatal Immortality like the Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue and bolt down the hatches in hope of surviving the last rude worded title this takes its moniker from.
This is solid enough stuff and if you are a bona-fide dead head this should go to the top of your chopping list. For me it was the right sorta length as any more to it and it would have been in danger of getting like a stale corpse and crumbling in front of my ears. Is it dead? I fucking doubt it!
(7/10 Pete Woods)
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