I have a penchant for going for bands hailing from our metallized South American brothers and sisters and any band named Putrid Yell has got to be someone that likes that gnarly side of death metal surely. This Chilean band has been around for over a decade releasing a couple of demos and three splits but this is the first time I’ve heard their material and what a repugnant block of horror it is.
Any of you that crave that Swedeath buzzsaw sound should be giving this band a listen as it personifies the genre more or less perfectly the moment ‘The Search’ starts the album. With a festering riff and hideous vocals the opener sets the scene brilliantly as one thing you notice about this album is the bass work which underpins the density afforded. The blasting section is chaotic and reeks of bedlam but in a good way of course as the title track follows. Sticking with the gruesome vocals the song has an unrelenting aura crafted by the drum work which reminded me of Canadian band Slaughter’s ‘Strappado’ album, though the production here is far better. I really like how the vocals have a monotonal malevolence, like hearing them in a dark cavernous sarcophagus in the bowels of some archaic decaying edifice. Plenty of you will say this album is like Dismember and it is but remembering that the Swedeath scene consisted of more than the so called ‘big four’ this album seems to pillage the crypts of what you hear or heard in the demos of many acts in that scene to create their own identity.
The much slower ‘Desire Of Death’ has doom-death enshrouding it for about a minute as the bass work has a suffocating density I really liked here. It allows the song to have a build-up flavour, steadily intensifying as an awesome drum fill and riff is let rip in grindcore style though without blasting. It is easily one of the catchiest tunes here and when the song does blast there is a chaotic subversion felt that fans of crust punk will like and let’s face it a lot of Swedeath was founded upon that genre. The guitar hook embedded in the last couple of minutes is pure Dismember worship without doubt.
Yet another chainsaw riff starts ‘Re-Animator’ with cymbal smashing signalling the start gun for the ensuing carnage that follows. It is downright vicious, wholly savage but backed up by a production that ensures clarity and bludgeoning of the highest order. ‘Forgotten Souls’ is immense too, its opening riff completely disembowels as its ferocious guttural rancidity shows no signs of mercy and backed up by the horrifying vocals that I’ve already mentioned. Isolated guitar work intermittently punctuates the opening of ‘Charred Corpse’ but switches into a much more catchy track with kick drums that seem intent on caving your thorax in until the riff break bulldozes in.
Groove filled and inherently melodic, well for this band anyway, ‘Indescribable Evil Instinct’ uses its riff to pave the way for the relentless battering onslaught that follows as another isolated riff opening starts ‘Process Through Death’. Honestly it sounds like someone drilling a huge hole in your cranium as the bass work filters in with a kick drum beat that makes the song feel like it is going to smash your fucking skull in, which it does of course when the riff break comes in. A short interlude piece titled ‘Deadly Ashes’ allows some respite as the album closes with ‘Wrenching Putrid Yell’ and where a fair amount of bands in this genre conclude their albums with slower slightly longer tunes Putrid Yell prefer to have a longer song with inexorable depravity switching tempos smoothly as the vocals belch forth their toxicity.
A pugnacious, purulent and pulverising debut album by Putrid Yell, one that old school death metal fans should be picking up on.
(9/10 Martin Harris)
Leave a Reply