(written by Islander)
After the next paragraph we’re going to refer to this band as OxE, not because it’s too difficult to copy/paste their full name but because reading it repeatedly might cause your eyes to transmit a message to a part of your brain that might then cause you to swallow your tongue, which would be entertaining to see but because we couldn’t see that… OxE it is.
The band’s full name is Onchocerciasis Esophagogastroduodenoscopy. They are located in Quebec City, though the three members hail from different countries (The Popu is German, Alice Simard is Canadian, Jesse Agiomamitis is Australian). To date they’ve discharged a demo, a pair of EPs, and a debut album named The Rotted Plinth of Sachiel.
Now they’re back with a second album, mysteriously and menacingly titled Fugue Gnawed from the Scabbed God Cerebrum. It’s set for release on April 3rd by Stillbirth Records and Gore House Productions, and today we help pave the way with our premiere of the album’s second single, “Gutted & Corpsed“.
L-R – The Popu (Guitar, Drums, Bass) | Alice Simard (Guitar, Drums) | Jesse Agiomamitis (Vocals)
By way of introduction to the album we’ll share these excerpts from press materials we’ve received:
Fugue Gnawed from the Scabbed God Cerebrum marks OxE’s most ambitious and experimental release to date. Musically, the album is a labyrinth of dissonant brutality, warped synths, and organic instrumentation subjected to “various levels of sonic destruction” to create an alien, otherworldly soundscape. German multi‑instrumentalist The Popu cites Nithing, Agonal Hymns, and Dripping’s Disintegration of Thought Patterns During A Synthetic Mind Traveling Bliss as major influences on the LP’s sonic identity.
Lyrically, the album follows a cryptic narrative centered around a cosmic “godslayer” on a universe‑shattering rampage, an allegory for inner turmoil, mental illness, and existential collapse. “Start‑to‑finish, the album is dissonant, punishing, and disorienting. The character and his actions mirror the overall feeling of the album: cold, calculated, and violent,” adds Jesse.
Jesse describes the song you’re about to hear, “Gutted & Corpsed“, as one that’s “relatively straightforward compared to what people can expect elsewhere on the LP”. But “straightforward” is most definitely a relative term in the case of this track.
Victims of brutal death metal will recognize the trauma inflicted by the song’s opening, a combination of furiously rattling snare-drums, sewer-gurgling riffage, and equally grotesque sewer-dwelling vocals, but even there the band also discharge shrill and weirdly squirming frequencies and shotgun blasts, as well as slamming hammer blows and bursts of viciously darting and insanely screaming fretwork.
But the song shifts, opening a portal to an even more macabre cavalcade of screeching and bizarrely contorting tonalities (some of which are ejected from a contorting throat), accompanied by sudden and equally crazed percussive contortions and thudding bass-level throbs. Ghosts might be wailing and screaming, and there’s a guitar solo in the mix too, but it too has lost its mind.
Near the end, when the drumming has become heavily medicated and slumbers, the music changes even more dramatically. Something like a flute enticingly whispers, and something like an oboe woozily wanders against a backdrop of gentling shimmering strings — a little caress to help you begin unscrambling your brain.
ROLES:
Jesse Agiomamitis: Vocals, Lyrics
Alice Simard: Composition, Guitars, Lead Guitars, Drum programming
The Popu: Additional Songwriting, Mixing and Mastering, Guitars, Bass, Orchestration and Sound Design, additional lyrics, additional vocals
As noted earlier, Fugue Gnawed From the Scabbed God Cerebrum will be released on April 3rd by Gore House Productions and Stillbirth Records (on CD, cassette tape, and digital formats), and they recommend it for fans of Deathspell Omega, Defeated Sanity, Ulcerate, Disentomb, and Sanguinary Consummation. The startling cover art is the work of Mei Maro.
For more info and to pre-order, visit the locations linked below. We’re also including a stream of the album’s first single, “Hurt Beyond Healing“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://orcd.co/scabbed-god-cerebrum
https://stillbirthrecords.bandcamp.com/album/fugue-gnawed-from-the-scabbed-god-cerebrum-2
OXE:
https://www.facebook.com/onchoofficial
https://www.instagram.com/onchocerciasis_official