ALBUM REVIEW: Fetid – Steeping Corporeal Mess

Here I review a new festering slice of Death Metal provided by 20 Buck Spin, this time from FETID! Set for release on June 7th!

1. Reeking Within sets things in with some weird, unnerving samples of an ambient, almost Science Fiction nature. Slamming, meaty guitars and impactful drums soon dive right into cavernous grooves with mixed tempos to bring forth the drudging yet intense aggression of the piece. The meandering instrumentals are accompanied by brutish vocals that perfectly match the dystopian feel of the song. With doomy undertones and a smooth, rich conjuration of savage Death Metal, I am immediately sold on the high quality of this album. The bass and drums work well alone before blasting us with barrages of intense odiously dark riffing and blastbeats. Diverse tempo changes keep the piece exhilarating and plentifully varied. What a crushing and ferocious opening for an album, fantastic.

2. Cranial Liquescent drives us right back in with more gruesomely riveting grooves, filled with a menacing and monolithic doomy energy. The consistent drums hold back when they need to while blasting relentless at times too, giving a well rounded performance to back up the land-levelling guitar riffs, frantic shreds and snarled, tormenting vocals. The production matches the songwriting perfectly in terms of murky filth that keeps the strength of the pungently hideous Death Metal intact. The doomy sections are gorgeous, somewhat laid-back even. With that being said they add a monstrous intensity and impactful texture to the song. Once more we are given a short interval of crunching bass left to stand alone which works as a nice break amongst the convulsive violence the song provides. Wonderful.

3. Consumed Periphery fires out built in guitars and drums that menacingly chug out vitriolic and stampeding grooves alongside the sparse growls of the vocalist, giving the mid-tempo and head-stomping pace of the song an unfaltering strength as it takes us on journeys of more claustrophobically tense, maniacal extremity. Thunderous bass guitar, pounding drum kicks and spiteful guitar riffs contort into morbid soundscapes of some absolutely killer Death Metal. The fluidity of this song and the album as a whole has been thoroughly impressive with frenzied sonic warfare and drawn out sludge being interwoven brilliantly with a smooth transference between sections. This blistering piece sounds truly evil and is another excellent addition to the album.

4. Dripping Sub-tepidity opens with drawn out doomy atmospherics that briefly make an appearance before dropping into full-speed pursuits of total barbarity and grisly, pounding assaults. The intricate riffs filled with tremolo picked savagery and hammering drums hit incredibly hard and make the perfect backing force to the odious, gnarly vocals that perform alongside them. This band clearly work incredibly well on a creative level together, working in unison to conjure up a versatile, bludgeoning Death Metal machine. There is some nice use of whammy driven solo too, adding another dynamic to the already sublimely balanced song, thankfully used in a subtle manner so as not to wreck the hard-driven momentum of the rhythm. This track is certain to get all fans of Death Metal in its truest and most obliterating form headbanging. A meaty, ferocity-driven piece of totally maniacal extremity, in other words, another glorious piece of music.

5. Draped In What Was is the final assault in this five-track campaign in brutality. Aside from being the last song, it is also the longest, at over eight and a half minutes, plenty of time to get in some finalising crushing music. The piece has an unexpected start with some lively, upbeat synths which certainly caught me off-guard with their 80s era Doctor Who style effects. Slamming into some of the most doomy, cavernously tense and most drawn out riffs yet, this song immediately (well after nearly 2 minutes of introduction) belts us with ferocious yet gorgeous riffing and puncturing drum work. Meandering through more gruesome, dungeon-dwelling and rhythmic Death Metal filled with convulsive patterns and captivating structural brilliant, this final song is a well-rounded representation of all the band have to offer. Catatonically decimating drums, huge crawling guitar riffs, deep fuzzy bass lines and pestilently spewed vocal grunts. This track was an epitome containing some of the most putrid, filthy and damn intense Death Metal you will hear this year. Utterly phenomenal work.

Once again 20 Buck Spin have delivered us some stunningly unique, crushingly heavy and odiously pungent Death Metal, right from the crypts of sonic depravity. This album was huge in sound, crushingly dense and monstrously aggressive with plenty of atmospheric and doom-filled touches to keep things enticingly gruesome. -8.5/10