From the Laibachan capital of Slovenia which is Ljubljana we have a hungry and relatively new death metal horde here. ‘Eldritch Anatomy’ is the debut album from this quartet who formed in 2020 and have just a demo and couple of singles to their name before it. Referring to themselves as ‘Putrid’ its time to settle down for some rollicking old-school death metal and thankfully the group do not disappoint in that respect.
Their rather dangerous game flies out the traps with ‘Hunted’ which hardly stalks but dashes off after its victim with a pell-mell flurry of riffing, bruising drums and a suitably ravenous vocal assault. It’s pretty damn thrashy but essentially death metal and although the PR lists several bands as similar, namely Possessed, Morbid Angel & Grotesque, I would suggest that perhaps Belphegor, Witchery and recent Necrophobic would be better examples but am probably splitting hairs a little. There’s some good lead work and solos peppering the cut and thrust of material and make no mistake plenty of head-banging action proffered over the nine tracks.
Things slow to a bit more of a decrepit ooze on ‘Ghoul Presence’ but even after haunting momentarily it is obvious that it’s a taste for human flesh this undead fiend is after and it quickly bombs out the cemetery looking for prey. I like the way the track finishes with the words “motherfucking ghoul” gurgled out and a climatic guitar peel and cataclysmic drum pounding. Sometimes bands forget how to conclude a track and to be fair this would have actually been a good way to finish of the album making it more than clear it was over. With plenty of groovy segments from the guitars and galloping rhythms from the drums the carnage is quick to get a grip on, it may well seem quite an accessible listen for those looking for all out brutality but I think that is part of the enjoyment about it as well as quite honestly giving it more playability. Sure, it’s nothing you haven’t hear before and the band are not exactly breaking the mould but they do things with a zealous enthusiasm that is hard to ignore.
Having said that though, what more do you need to know? This isn’t an album to get really verbose on or one to break into component parts. Just listen, play air guitar where necessary and if you still have any, twirl your hair with wild abandonment.
(7/10 Pete Woods)
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