DEMO REVIEW: Purulency – Transcendent Unveiling Of Dimensions

If you like putrid Death Metal in the vein of Finland’s 90s underground scene, PURULENCY have you covered with their rotting ways to misery in the form of a debut demo. Out now via Pulverised Records and Caligari Records.

Menacing guitars and cavernous bass lines ride a sepulchral spew of drums as vocal morbidity bubbles to the top. Instantly the resemblance to Finnish icons Abhorrence, Funebre and many like them springs to mind, a sound I personally find underrepresented in today’s Death Metal world. The malodorous mixture of spectral spew and haunting atmospherics is visceral and grotesque. Every abhorrent note lingers with this flickering candle-like eeriness that reeks of eldritch crypts. Filling the air with fetid dread, each moment is crushing and intense with that fuzzy, raw and dark feeling that will make you feel like you are back in the glory days. The Luxi Lahtinen artwork accentuates this gloriously. I love it when Death Metal feels so morbid and graven that you instantly fall into the rotten pits of some burial mound to rise with necromantic rites as the songs convulse further horrors into life.

Those chunky riffs spit out hunks of flesh with each bar as the primal drums hammer more violence forth so splendidly. Cacophonous vocals upheave internal tissue across the mix and the whole thing comes together in a seething pungent concoction. Often, in a world ruled by overdoing everything as obnoxiously as possible, it is best to strip things back to the roots and play that primordial Death Metal that lurks and slithers with a maliciously gruesome atmosphere. Some really strong material that I hope is indicative of more, because this demo totally rules and simply got me salivating for more (as a good demo tape should). Until the swampy tendrils of its dying moments enclose around your already lifeless corpse; you will be banging your head to the filthy anthems of Purulency.

A supremely strong cut of true Death Metal delights from the underground. Punishing, putrid and pulverising ’til the very end. This is a short release but one packed with nothing but perfectly macabre mayhem from start to end. A rancid regurgitation of the past that honours an obscure moment in the genres history magnificently.