Arghhh, my eyes! Just look at that awful cover art. A grim scene, made even more horrible due to the fact it’s so badly digitally rendered that it just looks unbelievably bad. Had it not have been for the portrayal of an unfortunate bunch of naked (naturally!) girls who’re all being impaled or tortured in some shape or form, it probably could’ve been a screen shot from video game released in the early to mid-nineties. Why do so many bands of this ilk allow this sort of thing as artwork? Surely this raises more than a few questions of quality control?! Why not just get a bunch of Barbie dolls, strip them naked, cover them in ketchup and stick pins in their faces? My initial reaction to the ‘artwork’ would be the same, as would most other folks in my opinion. As it goes, the artwork was created by Phlegeton, vocalist of Wormed, Human Mincer et al, and I’ve seen examples of his other pieces of art and they’re a lot better than this mess, so I’ll put the blame solely on the band for this abomination – not a great start!
Anyhow, there is a lot I could go into here which I’ll leave out for sanity’s sake – particularly with the lyrics, this review could turn into some war and peace like tome on the rights and wrongs of specific things, so instead I will stick to the music from now on. Personally, I took this to review because I’m a fan of death metal, brutal death metal and even partial to the odd slice of slam death once in a while, and knowing Comatose Music’s ability to pick up some interesting bands in the past, I figured this would be up my street. As it goes, it’s actually a pretty good death metal album. This is Necrotic Disgorgement’s second album, their first in the best part of 9 years. As a band they have quite the heritage as they started out as Regurgitation, a band who made a name for themselves in the scene with their “Tales of Necrophilia” album back in the late 90s, before dissolving in the early 00’s, reforming as Necrotic Disgorgement shortly afterwards. Anyhow, in my eyes this is a step up from their 2004 debut album “Suffocated in Shrinkwrap”, picking up a lot more technicality and melodiousness into their merciless blast-beat ridden extremity.
As is the way with the style, there is a few samples and gnarly spoken word parts (much like the intro “Intronitiation” which features nothing but a recording of a guy telling some unwitting kidnap victim exactly what he’s going to do to her – as I say, gnarly), but it’s nothing unbearable. Musically, it is brutal US styled death metal summoning the spirit of Suffocation and taking their blueprint to the nth degree, with lots of breakdowns, deeply growled vocals and low tuned guitar carnage chugging pus and spewing gore left, right and centre. The guitar work is actually pretty impressive at times, particularly when the lead work comes into play, squealing one moment before ripping into a long melodious section which comes out of leftfield when held in comparison to the bludgeoning vibe of the lion’s share of their riffage. Pick squeals are aplenty, and torturous riffs are in abundance throughout, but the surprisingly melodious parts add an enjoyable fresh streak to their sound. The vocals steer clear of the gurgling/pig squeals, which I was particularly pleased about as I’ve never been a fan of that style – new vocalist Jimmy instead has a good, full bodied harshness about his pipes, barking in the good old fashioned sub-woofer styled as you would expect, acting as a percussive addition to the blasting callousness. In fact, I’d go as far as saying the addition of two new members to their line-up has revitalised the band’s sound, pulling them out of the cesspool that is the brutal death metal scene to allow them to stand above their contemporaries.
Overall, if you can get past the piss-poor artwork, and the obligatory gore, rape and necrophilia infested OTT lyrics there is some decent death metal to be found here. If you love it BROOTAL, but also have an ear for melody – this is one to keep an eye out for.
(7/10 Lars Christiansen)
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