Italian multi-instrumentalist and creative force Gabriele Gramaglia, aka G.G. has his hands in many projects, including mastering a handful of releases as well, as his new project Cosmic Putrefaction offers a debut album that is a sonically dense assault. The opening eerie piece “The Perpetual Orbit” starts with a desolation that would typify a doom death like track, the song is shrouded in melancholy and practically comes across as a lengthy intro piece as the deathliness offers a slow stodgy tempo before being followed by “The Acrimonious Darkness”. A total change materialises with a gnarly riffing structure and semi blasted speed, as a sludgy blanket of bass riddled infestation infects the whole song and the album as a whole. Like the opener the song plunges into a cavernously slow phase laced with drum fill that amplifies that density hugely.

“The Unheard Prophecy” launches from the outset, with blast beat drumming that appears in waves of bombardment as the song harnesses a grisly death metal foundation similar to the likes of Immolation, or Incantation. Vocals performed here by Brendan Sloan (Convulsing) and XN (Hadit)are as deep as they come, their tonal barbarity works superbly with the overriding dense and claustrophobic aura as “The Ancient Demagogue” ably demonstrates. The oppressive nature of the songs is what I particularly like, being asphyxiating, cloying, guttural and pulverising especially when the songs slow right down, like the first part of the two part “The Outermost Threat”. The funereal like pace slithers and crawls sinisterly before the insurgent speed is injected at its close that links into the second part where the song plunges into an atmospherically charged opening, cinematic to some degree, there is that ethos of menace, backed up by effects and keyboards that endures for most of the song until the last minute where a torturous section filters in.

“The Ruinous Downfall” returns the album back to familiar gutter trawling, this time producing an unhurried double kick invasion initially before a crust like riff batters in and sends the speed skywards with chaotic blasting, leaving only “The Dismal Black Nothingness” to close this disembowelling release. That sludgy riffing style appears in full miasmic terror here, where the pace drops into a funereal guise again, with intermittent bursts of power via the drumming. There is something unholy diabolical about this album and whilst there are dozens of acts playing this style there is a conviction and palpable ferocity one can feel on all the tracks.

8/10 (Martin Harris)

https://www.facebook.com/Cosmic-Putrefaction-331030417723505

https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/at-the-threshold-of-the-greatest-chasm