PUTRIFIED – Death Darkness Decay

This is so frigging great and wicked! It is also grimy and loathsome as fuck, but yeah, this six-song output by the Swedish death metal mongers known as Putrified truly does the trick for me and ticks nearly all the right and nasty boxes. Although rooted in old-school death metal it sounds and feels quite different to so much else out there, which is testament to the fact that they possess charisma and a sense of musical identity that they can rightfully call their own own, but the thing is that I have rarely come across an album that exudes so much raw, unfiltered nerve and filth. It is so ridiculously dirty in every sense of the word that I literally feel the need to take a shower every time I spin the CD. An ominous and forbidden aura underlined by concise and efficient jackhammer riffs and a rumbling rhythm section seeps out of every nook and cranny of the record, and I am utterly impressed with how consistently brooding it is throughout. Its morbid and haunting atmosphere increases along the way and everything peaks when closing track “J1​:​12 / Må D​ö​den Skona Oss Fr​å​n Livet / Consummatum Est” rears its moody head and delivers bucketloads of bone-chilling thrills. Drawing comparisons and parallels to other acts is not as easy as one might think, but there are instances where different bands such as Repugnant, Grave Miasma, Necrovation, and Dead Congregation come to mind. In other words, I find this superbly executed blow to the skull quite refreshing and inspired in a myriad of ways, and it comes across as a genuinely dark and frighteningly confident opus that lives up to its title wholeheartedly. Delightfully abhorrent stuff and the composition named “Locust Temple” is a proper dissonant feast as is the epic “The Sphere of Man.” Incidentally, this is one of the most captivating releases by Godz ov War Productions to date, which is saying something, and the digipak version looks absolutely killer!