(written by Islander)
On March 6th (a Bandcamp Friday) the Rotted Life label will release a rotten and ruinous new EP by Baltimore’s Putrisect, their third EP overall and their first new music since 2018’s Cascading Inferno. The label previews it this way:
Six tracks (including a cover of Machetazo’s “Espectro”) of crushing, malevolent, death metal, rife with darkened melodies and sinister, doomy atmospherics. With it’s tank-like tremolo passages, Putrisect no doubt work off an early ’90s template carved by heavyweights such as Bolt Thrower and Incantation but come fully equipped with a sound all their own.
We have our own more detailed preview to offer, but the main attraction is a full stream of the EP which we’re offering you below.
Putrisect open their new EP with “Lindow Moss”, a song with an imposing overture in which a funeral bell dismally rings, ominous chords poisonously vibrate, and ghastly gutturals growl. The music punishingly pounds and brazenly blares, and tortured strings gnaw and squeal – a horrid monstrosity of sound that’s intercepted by outbreaks of viciously swarming tremolo’d fretwork, thunderous low frequencies, gritty strangled snarls, and hideous screams.
Having set the stage in such horrific fashion, Putrisect follow up that mostly mid-paced ghoulishness with the more up-tempo “Ritual Sacrifice”, a maniacal effusion of skittering fretwork, hammering beats, and toxic, sizzling riffage. But that song slows and oozes pustulence and emotional decay – while also inflicting traumatic head-butting blows and a miserably quivering guitar solo.
The unfolding horror show continues with “Conquistador”, the EP’s longest song. It grabs attention with the feverish gnashing of an iron-shod bass, vividly tumbling drums, savagely charging and maniacally spasming riffery, and of course further doses of those bestial growls and madhouse cries. The song creates sensations of unnerving tension and violent turmoil, of berserk frenzy and bone-busting ruthlessness (and it’s a big muscle-mover too).
Surely you know what “Trepanation” means, and with their song of that name Putrisect slice through listeners’ skulls with whirring guitars but also deliver spine-cracking chugs, quick bursts of strange wooziness, dismally lurching stomps, avalanche-strength drum progressions, and gut-gouging vocal malignancy.
“Slave to Lust”, the penultimate song, does indeed sound lustful – like the lustfulness of demons. The drumming is rampantly propulsive and the riffing is heated and convulsive, though of course the band find their moments to get listeners’ necks pumping hard (but without sacrificing the song’s aura of diabolical menace and madness), and they also end the song in morbid fashion with another lurching stomp, embellished with a miserably wailing guitar solo.
The EP closes with Putrisect’s cover of that Machetazo song “Espectro”. It might be the EP’s most monstrously heaving and knee-capping song, but might also be its most musically dismal and desolate experience. On the other hand, the band’s dynamism proves itself again through bursts of vicious frenzy, head-butting trauma, and spine-cracking drumwork – and the song also includes the EP’s only extended guitar solo, which is both bereaved and spectral.
The music is produced in a way that seems near-perfect for Putrisect’s music, finding a well-calculated balance between punishing power, foul toxicity, and piercing clarity. All the ingredients are well-defined and carefully separated, with no one element overpowering any of the others.
In a nutshell, the EP delivers a brand of death metal that’s merciless and macabre, crushing and corrosive, mutilating and muscle-moving – and every song is viscerally infectious to boot. A very strong outing, and one we’re morbidly thrilled to bring you right now:
PUTRISECT is:
Matt Powel – Vocals
Paul Culler – Guitar
Matt Mutolo – Bass
Arturo Vasquez – Guitar
Dan Harris – Drums
Putrisect was recorded at Developing Nations, Baltimore, engineered and mixed by Kevin Bernstein. It was mastered by Dan Lowndes at Resonance Sound Studio and features cover art by Maxwell Aston. It’s available now from Rotted Life on CD, cassette tape, and digital formats.
PRE-ORDER:
https://rottedlife.bandcamp.com/album/putrisect
PUTRISECT:
https://www.facebook.com/putrisect
https://www.instagram.com/putrisect