(written by Islander)
Human beings have been beset by nightmares for as long as our species has been able to speak or write about them, and undoubtedly before then too. Blessed by intelligence (relatively speaking) and the ability to communicate, and plagued by the fear of inescapable death, we stumble through life hand-in-hand with frightening dreams.
Among the oldest and most persistent of horrors is the fear of being buried alive — in coffins, tombs, or beneath a weight of freshly turned earth, deprived of oxygen, unable to move, and with naught but worms or the natural liquification of flesh eagerly awaiting the heart’s final beat.
Visions of hideous death have (of course) also walked hand-in-hand with Death Metal from its earliest day, and some bands have wholly devoted themselves to rendering musical visions of human pain and putrefaction, conjuring ruination, putridity, and stench through notes, beats, and voices.
The Danish band Foetorem are one of the newest exponents of death metal oppressiveness, rot, and foulness — their name itself translates to “stench of decay” — and they’re so powerfully good at it that Everlasting Spew Records has joined forces with them for the release in March of their debut album Incongruous Forms Of Evergrowing Rot. To help spread the word, today we’re premiering the album’s first single, “Escalating Rot“.
photo by by Alice Mingotti
Yes, there’s a lot of rot in these titles, and the music is rotten to the core as well — but be mindful of this new song’s name: what Foetorem generate here is escalating rot. Without prelude or warning they assault listeners with furious percussion and abrasive tremolo’d riffing that wildly roils and writhes, coupled with ghastly guttural growls, berserk howls, and bowel-loosening bass lines.
The music sounds maniacally unhinged, throbbing with the crazed energies of feeding frenzies, but the music also dismally drags and seems to ooze congealing fluids. Delving into ingredients of doom, the band trace a slowly slithering and sorrowfully stricken melody in the midst of monstrous stomping trauma, but they also dial up the energy again so as to inflict electrifying bursts of jackhammering savagery, vicious fretwork swarms, and hideous vocal malignancy.
The song demonstrates that death/doom oppressiveness can takes many forms, and most prominently in this one it conjures the hopelessness of being trapped by the kind of mindless violence from which there’s no escape.
LINE-UP:
Claus – Guitar & Vocals
Daniel – Guitar & Vocals
Ric – Bass
Geistaz – Drums
Incongruous Forms Of Evergrowing Rot was recorded, mixed, and produced by Daniel Farre and Claus Andersen, and it was mastered by Dan Lowndes at Resonance Sound Studio. The strikingly ghastly cover art is the work of N. Zuki at Belial NecroArts, and the logo was crafted by Giancarlo Melgar. Album layout by Alice Mingotti and Giorgio Spevo.
Everlasting Spew will release Foetorem’s debut album on March 27th — on CD, cassette tape, and digital formats — and a vinyl edition should be ready by the summer of this year. Pre-orders will begin today at the locations linked below. Everlasting Spew astutely recommends it for fans of Spectral Voice, Krypts, Mortiferum, and Hooded Menace.
PRE-ORDER:
https://everlastingspew.bandcamp.com/album/incongruous-forms-of-evergrowing-rot
https://www.everlastingspew.com
FOETOREM:
https://www.facebook.com/foetorem