(written by Islander)
The labels Rotted Life and Gurgling Gore have joined forces for the first time in a collaborative release of a debut album named Abyssurge by the Ukrainian band Strup, with a street date of February 20th. They describe the band as “a death grind assault unit blending the surgical brutality of death metal with the speed, chaos, and ferocity of grindcore”.
That description is true, but doesn’t completely capture all the musical ingredients of Abyssurge. Most prominently, Strup’s music is also hideously foul and abysmal as well as maniacally furious and brutally bludgeoning.
But you’ll soon see this for yourselves, because today we’re premiering a full stream of this Kyiv band’s debut — preceded (of course) by our own more detailed thoughts about what you’re about to encounter.
The opening track “Absorbing Vacuum” doesn’t welcome listeners with a warm embrace. Someone yells in terror or pain. An uncomfortably abrasive guitar miserably moans, and its feedback oozes flesh-eating sonic pestilence. The rhythm section methodically pound and slug, and then vigorously batter as the riffing starts to insidiously squirm. Horrid grunts emerge and then flare into screams.
In retrospect you can see that opener as a slow and sickening build toward one of Strup’s main throughlines, which becomes quite apparent in the second track, “Pseudorot“. That one launches a savage assault of thundering and chopping drums, viciously churning riffage (still ruinously abrasive), a freakishly squealing lead guitar, and a tandem of monstrous roars and paint-pealing screams.
But Strup leaven that musical maelstrom of madness with decelerated descents into sonic putrefaction in which the ghastly guitars slowly whine — just a brief immersion into toxic foulness before the drums start blazing in a blast-beat frenzy and the lead guitar explodes in even greater manifestations of insanity than before.
The hideous dynamism of “Pseudorot” effectively represents the album’s title: It rabidly surges, and it drives toward an awful abyss. The other songs create similar combinations of rampant mayhem and sickening sluggishness, abundantly augmented by further episodes of inhuman crypt-dwelling vocal horror.
Here and there, Strup also administer thuggish beatings as a song evolves — groovy and highly headbangable beatings, to be sure — and sometimes they infiltrate slashing punk chords or blaring musical fanfares in the midst of their blizzard-like fretwork swarms and other screeching string tortures.
Likewise, the drumming is in constant flux, working in double-bass thunder and snare strikes that feel like an ax hacking through necks, but also ruthlessly stomping and flying into battering furies.
At the end of “Disexist” it sounds like flies busily feeding on rotten flesh. “Putrid Atom” hits like a nuclear-powered jackhammer and also methodically pile-drives listeners deep into the ground. Sonic pus oozes in “Fractal Decay“, but carnivorous hornets also go mad there, and the bass hungrily gnaws on something you’d rather not see.
The whole affair wraps up in a compact 21 minutes, long enough to give you a strong taste of Strup’s ferocity and foulness but not long enough to overstay its welcome. But again, it’s not a warm welcome but a nasty one. They’ll leave your home broken up and coated in noxious fluids. Enjoy! Sláva Ukrayíni!
Rotted Life will release Abyssurge on CD and LP vinyl, while Gurgling Gore will release it on cassette tape. They recommend it for fans of Caustic Wound, Nashgul, Looking for An Answer, and Terrorizer.
PRE-ORDER:
https://rottedlife.bandcamp.com/album/abyssurge
https://www.gurglinggore.com/