Don’t get me wrong I love Extreme Metal, it’s the logical conclusion of Metal and for me I’ve always enjoyed that envelope pushing heaviness and shock factor, especially in Death Metal and Goregrind. I’m not all guts and gore though, it’s something people often forget, I actually really love a good old bit of Heavy Metal. That’s just the tip too, honestly in my spare time I probably listen to more Classic Rock than Extreme Metal, I know what a poser right?
Today we get gritty though with Fetid Zombie (terrible name, good band). They formed in 2007 and have pumped out a fair few releases, none of which have ever cropped up on my radar. Now this is normally a bad thing for me, I don’t mean that egotistically but honestly, I hear a lot of bands, or at least hear of them, especially when stretching back to 07. Anyway, the band have been given a leg up by Transcending Obscurity Records in recent years and now the label prepare to re-release the bands 2020 EP Transmutations.
Chrysopoeia opens in Blackened Death Doom splendour. The female vocals almost reminding me of Cradle Of Filth. Similarly, it is also full of little melodic hits, the production is overall sound and the vocals inject a more traditional Death Metal feel. The solo is also huge, very traditional Heavy Metal, now that’s something I can really dig. Conscious Rot follows, again I get a bit of a COF edge, the bells and orchestration are fantastic and honestly this is just a hell of a lot of fun, Extreme Metal written with memorability in mind. Beyond Andromeda closes off the first half of this EP, it’s one of the shorter songs, still packed with over the top Extreme Metal flare and plenty of catchiness, another banger.
Dreamless Sleep Awaits gives off a lot of classic Goth energy, I half expected Robert Smith to start singing. The female vocals are again a strong touch though and soon enough it’s yet more traditional Metal infused with Blackened Death madness, this is a band with a lot of promise. Then it’s time for Deep In The Catacombs, I don’t mind this one but it’s certainly a weaker link in the album, not quite to the standard of the rest of the EP. Closing proceedings is Breath Of Thanatos, a nice lengthy track. This is probably one of the more complex songs on the EP and sadly I think that it suffers because of that. The solo is nice but the more solid structure of prior songs is what really makes it for me. That said I honestly haven’t heard a band combining Heavy and Extreme Metal so well in a very long time and that’s a huge plus for me.
They call it an EP but basically it’s an album, one which I can see why Transcending Obscurity picked up. It has a lot of pleasing points to it, Goth Rock, Heavy Metal, Extreme Metal, Symphonic Metal it’s very genre-defying. Honestly we don’t see that enough in the Metal underground, clearly Fetid Zombie don’t care what people think and instead want to write music that means something to them, their passion comes through perfectly and is a joy to behold.
(8/10 George Caley)
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