Stenched – Purulence Gushing From The Coffin

As a sign that something good was going on, ‘Gorging On Mephitic Rot’, Stenched’s demo from last year, was issued on all relevant formats through respected labels such as Blood Harvest and Headsplit Records. I too was charmed by the all-consuming slow ‘n’ low Death Metal brutality of this Mexican one-man band. For whom it may not be buffoonish and primitive enough: take note.

It might not come as a total surprise that both Extremely Rotten Productions and Me Saco Un Ojo teamed up for the release of this bands’ debut full-length album, they have long been known as champions of Death Metal of the bawdiest kind. And, bawdy it definitely is. ‘Purulence Gushing From The Coffin’ is a textbook example of ultra-brutal and extremely guttural Death Metal that blends in some more gloomy passages for good measure. This amalgam, even more so than on the previously released demo, sounds like a frontal collision between good old Mortician and Disma: as heavy as they come, with some eerie melodies and both chunky and gloomy riffs.

The changes in tempo allows the music to be a bit more dynamic than the average peer from the same sort of ballgame. Take a song like ‘Wormridden Torso’ for instance, that one is not only a great example of how to incorporate the eerie melodies into a full-on doomy track, but the difference in pace is definitely a plus. Still, like many time is the case with this sort of music, a short-player works much better than a full-length album. With just under 32 minutes, ‘Purulence Gushing From The Coffin’ is not an overly long album, but the extreme one-dimensionality means that everything ends up being very similar, putting a lot of pressure on the attention span. As good as this album is, by the time we get somewhere around the midpoint of the album, attention has strayed considerably anyway…