(written by Islander)

This makes our sixth premiere of music from the Atlanta-area death metal band Occulsed since the start of 2021. In those past features we’ve described their music as “a filthy discharge of clobbering and eviscerating madness.” We’ve called it “grotesque,” “putrid,” “abysmal,” and “abhorrent.” We’ve highlighted the band’s talent “for creating electrifying visions of horror and disease, of madness and mayhem, and of blood-freezing intrusions from spectral realms.”

We’ve also asserted that the music is “is both predatory and hopeless, noxious and deranged, horrifyingly imperious and seemingly gleeful in its deviant revels,” but “so well-constructed and maliciously well-realized that it becomes addictive (as well as foul).”

Now we get a chance to try to cook up further ways of describing just how punishing and paranormal the music of Occulsed really is. They have a new album named Antegnosis coming our way in September via Everlasting Spew Records, and we have a song from it coming your way right now. Continue reading »

In what other genre of music but death metal could adjectives like “grotesque”, “putrid”, “abysmal”, and “abhorrent” be used as compliments? None come to mind. But of course even in the realm of death metal those adjectives are complimentary only when the music has other qualities that make it viscerally exciting and memorable. Simply wallowing in a choking vat of formless excrement and vomit does not alone become pleasurable, even for people whose tastes run hard to the more disgusting offshoots of old school death.

Which brings us back to Occulsed, and the second song we’re ghoulishly happy to premiere from their debut album Crepitation of Phlegethon in the run-up to its September 17 release by Everlasting Spew Records. The music of Occulsed merits all those adjectives above, but it’s also so well-constructed and maliciously well-realized that it becomes addictive (as well as foul). Continue reading »