Blood Harvest Records, Sewer Rot Records, Rotted Life Records and Black Hole Productions recently unleashed a putrid 4-way split of rotten Death Metal torment from the underground.
BLOOD SPORE open the split with booming bass atop cymbal crashes and beats that snap us into an otherworldly sense of discomfort that is foreboding yet ethereal. Doomy guitars and filthy vocals spew into life with a crawling and odious groove of malice, conjuring a foul atmosphere of sheer horror. The contorting riffs and slower drums create a fetid and visceral sound that is captured with a dense and tight production, allowing the forceful punch of the song to hit with utter ferocity. With a length over 9 minutes, Blood Spore have a huge arsenal of fearsome ideas to maintain interest with this brilliantly warping piece of diabolical Death Metal. A barbaric and malignant first track that hopefully sets the bar for quality, as this is a truly grotesque and marvellous opening.
COAGULATE fester forth with more cavernous riffing and downright punishing drums to open a spectral portal into the depths of their sonic artillery. With incredibly guttural vocals to join the formidable instrumentals, it appears this song will follow gloriously from the inhuman opener, granting us a gloriously gruesome yet technical piece that utilises highly skilled musicianship in a way that still feels suitably rancid rather than showy. The bass cuts nicely through the guitars and drums giving the track a very full-bodied sound as the riffs lurch atop bouncy fills to underline a deeply brooding vocal assault. The blackened touches give an even more potent edge to the song while the striking dissonance does not stray too far from the brutality we started with. Pure rotten excellence.
SOUL DEVOURMENT bring in the familiar grinding of HM-2 fuelled chainsaw riffs atop a cascade of whiplash drumming while vitriolic snarls spew from the vocalist. This band clearly wanted to dive right into the action before pulling things back to a morbid groove then forging onward with total aggression. Without a doubt this is some savage Death Metal with a Swedish influence that is quite different to the other 3 bands sonically, but is equally strong and valuable to the split. While this song is considerably shorter, it has just as much ferocity in the pungent riffs, dominant drum assault and ripping vocals, just in a more compact format. Total violence and chaos that brings some diversity of tempo to the cauldron of murky music.
GUTVOID continue the more blast-beat driven filth with immensely rich guitar and bass tones dripping a mouldy ichor atop absolutely incredible drum work. The impressive musicianship is easy to spot, as the atmospheric song twists and turns in unexpected directions through spectral lead work, dripping atop monstrous riffs and some of the tightest skin-pounding you will hear in some time. The vocals are just as formidable with a relatively varied and sparse growling filing neatly into the mix alongside the vicious instruments and complementing them extremely well. There is a definite cosmic quality to this song that allows the record to be sent off into the abyss in one final bout of grandiose Death Metal.
A triumphant quadrilogy of punishing, cacophonous and otherworldly Death Metal excellence. Each of the bands brings something really killer to the table while fitting gorgeously into the overall feel of the split, while offering something different. Clearly there is no weak link here, just pure charnel horror.
Discover more from NATTSKOG
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.