EP REVIEW: Coffin Mulch – Septic Funeral

Scottish old school Death Metallers COFFIN MULCH are back, following their 2019 demo with a new mini-album of putrid filth. Out on February 26th via Redefining Darkness Records, At War With False Noise Records and Caligari Records.

Church bells chime before a slaughtering blend of HM-2 buzzsaw riffs and crashing cymbals permeate the air with doomy stomping grooves. The bludgeoning old school morbidity is packed with atmosphere and charnel energy as the crushing instrumentals are met with spewing growls from the vocalist. Clearly this is a total worship piece to the old school greats, one executed with precision and attention to detail. The booming murkiness of the mix delivers such a rotten and solid slab of Death Metal without remorse as the mid-paced sections intersperse far more doomy ideas, choosing the pathway of crawling eeriness over battering high-speeds. There is a few notable influences here, first and foremost the tone from the Swedes on the guitars, secondly the drawn out melancholy that the Finns mastered and last of all some Asphyx and Bolt Thrower in the blend for maximum visceral hooks. Coffin Mulch are delivering a truly impeccable concoction of old school Death Metal monstrosities.

Delving deeper into the record, the melodic lead work is truly haunting as the bellowing riffs and pounding drums hit with full force betwixt a thundering boom of bass. These slower hooks are perfectly headbanger friendly while vomitous tremolo riffs and blastbeats seep like pus from them, giving off a fetid stench of dreary and unforgiving extremity. D-beats give some meaty backing to breakneck riffing, showing a demolishing blend of killer ideas progress through the short but mighty EP. Coffin Mulch may play the older (and often superior) style of Death Metal but they are not some one trick horse, this incorporates so many wonderful moments in the genres history, chews them up and spits out a fresh slab of eldritch horrors from the sonic abyss. Allow yourself to be enveloped in the reeking, grave-lurking sounds of Coffin Mulch as they spew rotten grotesqueries from the speakers.

Stomping, grinding and groovy Death Metal taking the best elements from Sweden, Finland and the UK’s heydays, who could refuse such a pulverising blend of sounds? This is a formidable force of underground brilliance that deserves the attention of all old school Death Metal maniacs.