Info
- Band(s): Pustilence
- Label(s): Memento Mori
- Release Format(s): CD
- Release Year: 2023
- Review Date: April 6, 2023
- Author(s): Ben Schultz
Remember if you can, or imagine for some of you, that it is early December of the year 1991. And you have lived through one of the best years that this new-ish genre, Death Metal, has ever had to offer. No, I understand there is no way you heard everything but there has been a lot. And a lot more that you found from that came out this legendary year in years to come. For there was Death with one of many classics, ‘Human’ and Cannibal Corpse with their killer second album ‘Butchered at Birth.’ You also had Morbid Angel with ‘Blessed Are the Sick’ and Gorgut’s ‘Considered Dead’ blowing people’s minds. Not to forget classic albums from Immolation, Entombed, Dismember, Suffocation, Asphyx, Morgoth and sooo many more. Now imagine a band who could encapsulate that whole year and all those bands into their sound, all of it, all at once.
Well, imagine no more, dear reader, for Pustilence is here to crush us all with their stellar debut full-length album, ‘Beliefs of Dead Stargazers and Soothsayers’. But let’s pause here for a little bit and find out who we are talking about before we discuss their brand new opus. Pustilence came onto the Old School Death Metal scene much, much later than 1991. Twenty-seven years later to be exact. This young group of gents from Brisbane, Australia came onto the scene in 2018 but really burst forth in 2020, with their stellar EP ‘The Birth of the Beginning Before the Inception of the End’. To quote my fellow VM-Underground contributor Ricardo; “Nothing wrong with this Ep, that is for sure!” and I couldn’t agree more. But let’s get back to the past and the present all at once, with that new album of their’s that I mentioned earlier.
‘Beliefs of Dead Stargazers and Soothsayers’ is the epitome of what 1991 Death Metal was all rolled into one vicious and delicious morsel of goodness. The sound that Pustilence puts forth on this slab of goodness is like the Death Metal from those “good old” days. Where the same band could have an identity that didn’t mean every song sounds exactly the same and with the same tempo. Things rage, lurch, run and crawl all while sounding like the same band. All the while still being able to pay homage to their inspirations. At times it seems like there are multiple inspirations sparking ideas at the same time even but Pustilence blend it all into a triumphant, homogeneous idea that makes you throw horns in the air and bang your head. Personally I feel like this album made me feel like a kid all over again, all while equally making me feel extremely old. With the way my body feels after listening to ‘Beliefs of Dead Stargazers and Soothsayers’, I feel that old feeling in my neck and back, or maybe I was just rocking out that damn hard.
I’m the end Pustilence’s ‘Beliefs of Dead Stargazers and Soothsayers’ sounds like your favorite Death Metal band from back in the early 1990’s but then again it doesn’t. Yet, oddly, it still does. There is that comfort and love from a known while there is also the excitement of something new and interesting. This is Old School Death Metal from new school people that doesn’t sound contrived or like a blatant ripoff of another band. This is the type of classic debut full-length debut album that would fit right in with the rest of 1991. For Pustilence sound like all those bands, all at once while sounding new and exciting and it is absolutely fucking glorious.
Pustilence
Related Articles
Reviews
Memento Mori
- Country: Spain
- Style: Death Metal
- Links: Homepage, Facebook, Youtube
