Excoriate – … Of The Ghastly Stench

One prevalent thing that I have noticed about record labels these days I that more and more of them seem to have a target audience – More so than merely being a ‘Metal’ label, for instance (such as is the case with Nuclear Blast). These days many smaller, more specialized labels can be found, who focus on one specific subgenre and almost or completely exclusively record and release bands and albums from within this genre. One such example would be Nihilistic Holocaust, whose main focus is on underground Death Metal, the way it is supposed to be played.

The newest record that has found its way across my doors threshold from this label is called … Of The Ghastly Stench and is the fifth release from Chilean Death Metallers Excoriate – A true underground act, both in sound and in releases. All of said releases have been either Demos of Split albums, and … Of The Ghastly Stench is no exception, being a Demo Tape (as far as I can tell, the band almost exclusively sell their records as cassettes) showcasing four old-school tracks, which combined roughly hit the half-hour mark.

Now, for those of you who are expecting an exciting new release pushing the boundaries of what Death Metal can and cannot be, whether that is a more melodic approach or perhaps combined with another genre… You will not find what you are looking for.

What you instead will discover, is a throwback to what the genre was back in the late eighties, when bands such as Bolt Thrower Suffocation and Entombed reigned supreme. Excoriate magnificently encapsulates everything that made the genre great as well as showing off what muscle this musical approach had both back in the day, but even more so today.

Excoriate has a very slow, bas-fuelled approach to their music, something that I personally rarely see these days (perhaps I would if I delved more in the Doom Metal genre – But I digress). This is very evident on both the introductive track ”Teofisto”, as well as the first actual track ”Oh! Peaceful Derketa”, the coherent sound of which is a prime example of what this Chile-based quintet is capable of.

A release for fans of the old-fashioned Death Metal approach (and as such it is aptly released on Cassette), one recommended for fans of, as stated above, fans of Bolt Thrower, Sufocation and Entombed.

https://www.facebook.com/Excoriate/