You scan your horizons in a desperate bid to distract yourself from the violently invasive stench of sharp putrefaction. The acidic smell unrelentingly violates your olfactory senses with the strength of a military-grade crowd control gas. Around you, millions upon millions of shiny maggots congregate and feast upon the exposed hypodermic skin of all things visible, as fat, greasy-haired vermin scamper in their hundreds towards vulnerable patches of cartilage and bile. “Welcome my fellow, to Rotville! Now please remove your shoes” mutters a veiny and pink quadraplegic husk resembling the last trace of a man, his left eyeball hanging out from its socket like a dangling garden swingball. Embodying this fermenting and disintegrating manifestation on their debut full-length, Foetorem are here to lay claim to their dominion over whichever circle of the underworld features the maximum amount of stinky decomposition. Album number one, which is entitled ‘Incongruous Forms of Evergrowing Rot’ has been born, and this infantile creation has been baptised for your listening pleasure in a shallow tepid basin of freshly pureed intestines.
In preparation for this review, I recently took the opportunity to write about Foetorem’s 2025 demo tape. That release was a three-track affair, and whilst short in overall runtime, still delivered upon some drool-warranting tracks of instantaneously fun Death Doom. It saw the band get off to a flying start… or perhaps more appropriately in this case; a purplish-black mildew-smothered start. It fills me with considerable delight then, that this debut album shows that the band have not lost sight of the impressive potential that they demonstrated on the demo release.
Opening with ‘Reeks of Moldy Guts’ the band sets the scene by generating a brutal river typhoon of flowing audible diarrhoea. Swamp monster-like the band slowly surfaces with a gurgling vocal delivery and heavy-footed chugging guitar trudgery. The central moment of the track introduces a very short breakdown before the instrumentation spends the remaining two and a half minutes fiercely pummeling you across its faster tempo riffage. It’s not a bad track, but in comparison to many later moments on this album, it simply serves its role as an opening complementary faecal canapé. The following track and lead single ‘Escalating Rot’ does exactly as its title suggests. This song ramps up the anger during its initial moments before transitioning into a lulling moment of comparatively melodic distraction. This permits the ruthless closing section an opportunity to maniacally crush down upon your cranium like an industrial hydraulic press.
‘Mors Viaturis’ escalates the putrescent revelry to yet another floor of throat-removing vitriolic fun. The chugging guitars on this song have a particular sharpened edge to their tone. ‘Rebirth In Morbid Disgust’ detonates from its outset like a bursting pressurised sewage pipe. During this track’s more relentless passages the drum performance is not just precise, but also steroidally energetic. I liken the percussive timbre here to the sound of dozens of frag grenades all detonating in a sequential manner, and it is downright superb. ‘Tapestries Of Misery’ is a bass-saturated monster that eclipses arguably the heaviest material that I’ve heard from Foetorem yet. After more Doomy sustained guitars announce this bestial creature, an angular and dissonant lead guitar riff slashes at both of your ear’s tympanic membranes whilst seated atop an unmovable wall of instrumental precision. The build that takes place during the final third of the song is a moment of raw and unbridled spite. Listening to it brings me to a realisation that there is a certain charming purity within these moments when Foetorem unleashes their ridiculous capacity for barbarism.
The record arrives full circle at a satisfying conclusion on ‘Decay Of The Flesh’. With its reverb-heavy drums, cutting guitar distortion and suffocating vocals the track’s bloodied grandeur feels well-suited as the swansong closer to this highly impressive debut album. In light of the fun that I’ve been having with this group’s music as of late, it’s clear to me that Foetorem are a new band to keep an eye on. The brutality here combined with a certain eccentric bombast makes me think that this record will appeal to fans of other quality modern bands such as Replicant, Fossilization and Spectral Voice.
