I have always found that when music comes with a barrage of adverbs, that somehow, through the hyperbole, that this is merely window dressing that’s distracting you from the fact that the music sucks ass. And the same can be said for the accompanying record company flannel that accompanies this latest release from Belgium’s Putrified J. Described as ‘Brutal’ Death Metal seems a little pointless really. I know we love a sub-genre of a sub genre in metal and the more obscure a sub-genre can be, the better, but surely Death Metal is nominative determinism enough? That may well be the case, but at risk of contradicting myself as well as breaking the record for the use of sub-genre in 134 words, Putrified J are worthy wearers of the epithet of ‘BRUTAL’ Death Metal.
For those of you unaware (as I was) of PJ, they are the demonic brainchild of Jason Lambert (he of Human Barbeque (yes really) and Impure Violation (can you see the pattern here?)) as a one-man band with a rolling cast of thousands lending a hand with guitars, bass or drums over their 10-year existence. Given the icky nomenclature of Lambert’s output, there is of course a heavy bias in PJ’s lyrical output mainly fetishizing on torture, violence, body dismembering and gore. Whilst this is not my bag necessarily, you can’t help admiring this body of work coming, as it does, from one person and for that it should really be applauded. But that matters not a jot if the output itself doesn’t stack up and it really, really does. Think of Parasitic Ejaculation or Aborted with a touch of old school Cannibal Corpse from both a lyrical and musical perspective finished off with a little Maggot Colony as a side salad (of rotting entrails?).
Leaving aside the lyrical content, the music itself is top notch in its execution, the production is clean and concise all blast beats and ‘Piggy’ styled grunted vocals, it’s a short, sharp shock to the senses although it must be said that it’s nothing you haven’t heard a million times before….BUT when it eases it’s foot off the accelerator and slows things down into slow ominous chugging guitars and grinding double bass drum led cantations, ‘The Deep End Of Horror’ really finds it’s feet (or rotted stumps?). The hugely talented Lambert doesn’t exactly subjugate the genre here and you could spend 15 minutes naming all the bands that this sounds like (which I won’t) but it is all done with enough panache, passion and love for the genre, that you should be willing to forgive the obvious musical reference points and revel in this brutally short (a running time of less than 15 minutes) precision guided, death metal mayhem.
(7/10 Nick Griffiths)
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