In the week when Rotpit makes their revolting return to the death metal sweepstakes, I also signed up to cover the debut by the unheralded one-man Mexican death metal project Stenched. All my enthusiasm was focused on a particular hole in the ground full of decay so thusly, I approached Purulence Gushing From the Coffin not expecting much. That’s until the bucket of week-old pig organs got dumped over my head by the abhorrent sounds Stenched brought to the corpse buffet. This is one extremely unpleasant and toxic cesspool full of the most horrible poo-goo the mind can imagine, and with zero sanitation protocols in place, even a few minutes with this scum-muck might make you feel like you’ve contracted a loathsome disease. In fact, you should count on it. But does rancid and offensive equal good in the death metal metrics employed by AMG Industries? Let’s sup the cess together.
Mere seconds into opener “Morbid Mass of Repulsive Purlence,” your initial instinct will be to recoil in terror. The sound features fearsome pustules of early Carcass and Disma, and there’s a heavy dose of Demilich floating in the managed waste too. This makes for a rank and fetid soundscape through which founder and sole occupant “Adrian” drags us kicking and screaming. Riffs slither moistly with great menace and Adrian’s vocals emanate from somewhere south of the sub-sub-basement near the sewer vent. If music ever felt mucilaginous, this does. But beyond sounding hideous, the song grabs hold of you with biting suckers and refuses to let go. It’s a freakishly compelling sound and once it gets hooks in, you’re truly fucked. When it’s over and you disentangle yourself from the tentacles of some unknown horror, you get slimed by “Mucus, Phlegm and Bile.” Yes, that’s the title and yes, it accurately conveys what’s coming for you. It’s like something off Carcass’ Reek of Putrefaction taken a few weeks past maximum decomposition and it’s fooking gnarly. I love it and am sickened by my love of it.
Purulence Gushing From The Coffin by Stenched
The album gets better and better as it pulls you deeper into the gunk and gloop. “Suppurating Cranial Cavity” is at a whole other level, harnessing a world-breaking mid-tempo plod that pulverizes everything and everyone you ever loved As Adrian wretches and vomits his guts over the bloody spectacle. The riffs are oily and noxious and leave scum trails everywhere. This may well be my Death Metal Song o’ the Year and I can’t get enough of this foul-tasting stuff. But wait, there’s more! The riffs on “Death Manical Obsession” are aces and turn an already effective tune into a raving flesh golem. Mr. Stenched does well to balance creeping doom with OSDM tropes and Swedeath d-beats in a way that keeps things unpredictable and fresh. “Eye Socket Pus Emanation” does this bait-and-switch especially well as it cycles through tempos and kicks your face completely apart in the process. At just under 32 minutes, Stenched pack a lot of sickness into a short symphony window and the writing keeps the individual tracks moving and gore-grooving. The production is full of murk, with Adrian’s guttural croaks and godawful noises buried in the mix, rising like some eldritch abomination through the blood and mud. The guitar tone is satisfyingly wet and punctures the brain stem in all the ways I love.
I can’t say enough about how well Adrian assembled this panoply of pestilence. His riffage is great and always grimy and scab-encrusted. You can almost picture the leads slithering under locked doors to get at you. His ability to jump tempos from funeral doom-esque to punky thrash and mid-tempo crushing is admirable and every time a song threatens to grow tedious, he makes something happen to hold interest. His vocals are often not much more than deep, indecipherable spoken words but they work very well and his little vomit accents are spun gold. He’s clearly a student of all things death and he uses every genre trick and trope to get his compositions across the finish line. It’s his writing that shines the brightest, as this style could easily end up sounding too one-note and muddy, but it never does here.
Purulence Gushing From the Coffin is Plato’s ideal form of a death metal album, and Steel is with that old toga-wearing bastard on this one. It combines everything I love dearly about Incantation, Carcass, Demilich, and Chthe’ilist into one savory mouthful, and brother, it is toothsome! This shit makes Rotpit seem entirely hygienic by comparison, and that’s no easy feat. Did I mention this album smells like feet? Olde, rotting hobo feet. Now smell the agony of dem feet and get fully Stenched.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Me Saco Un Ojo
Website: instagram.com/stenchedmetal
Releases Worldwide: November 26th, 2024
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