When the latest release from Wichita based brutes Saprogenous, entitled Festering in Putrid Spoilage, crossed my inbox, I knew I was dealing with something heavier than your average death metal band. They describe themselves as “barbaric, knuckle dragging death metal/goregrind”. Now when giving yourself such a title, you better have the riffs to back it up. Not only does Saprogenous have the riffs, but they check off all the other requirements for a band of this nature: crude album art, perverse song titles, and a lo-fi production. Scratch that, a no-fi production!
The brand of brutal death metal Saprogenous specializes in isn’t your flavor of the day, click tracked to perfection, gauges in the ears, Hot Topic shirt wearing “brutal death metal” (i.e. Cattle Decapitation and their ten zillion clones). It’s a throwback to the earliest days of the genre, when it existed merely in the form of primitive demo tapes. If you were a tape trader around this time, think back 30 years ago when you first heard demos from Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Mortician, etc. In the back of your head, you knew damn well these bands were heavier than your typical Morbid Angel or Sepultura affair.
Festering wastes no time getting down to business with its assault of a title track. Boasting IQ dropping riffs played both ferociously fast and savagely slow, “Festering in Putrid Spoilage” really establishes the mood for the rest of the release. It grinds hard enough for the grindcore crowd, but slams even harder for the caveman death metal crowd. There are times where they deviate from the course. For example, the pseudo-thrash of “Chainsawed Fingers and Bones”, “Surgical Tomb”, and “Melted to Death” recall Illinoize legends Impetigo.
There are also moments were the gore-o-meter reaches max overload, like the mega mutant mosh of “Rotting in Nuclear Waste”. If this 40 second blitz isn’t a page straight out of the Dead Infection playbook, I don’t know what is. Complimenting the sick riffage throughout are gurgling, indecipherable guttural vocals and the aforementioned production (or lack thereof). I feel it’s the production more than the music itself that at times makes Festering cross the threshold of brutality into the realm of war metal or riffless noisegrind, which only makes this release wilder than it is already.
There is no new ground being broken by Saprogenous. The only thing being broken is your face. I applaud them for keeping this release short and (not so) sweet, so not to dilute the brute force on display. I’m willing to bet all my chips that Festering is the most brutal release I’ll review all year. Not because I’m not seeking anything heavier, but because it just doesn’t get much heavier than this.
6 out of 10
Label: Shattered Dreams Production
Genre: Brutal Death Metal
For fans of: Mortician, Dead Infection, Sanguisugabogg