Sanguisugabogg - Pornographic Seizures EP (2019)

I'm probably a bit guilty of riding the whole 'caveman riff' death metal wave circa Maggot Stomp and a few other labels as much as the next guy. Like so many throwback sounds, I appreciated how the gents in all these bands were tracing death metal back to its source and then sort of reconfiguring it into some alternate universe sound which didn't sound terribly different than what I already had, but still entertained. Here we've got rudimentary slam or groove/death metal plastered with just enough of the machismo and brutality to get the pit stirring but without too much of the technical bluster or studio polish, and Ohio's starlings Sanguisugabogg are arguably one of the bands to best to capitalize on the style, leading to larger label deals and a lot of notoriety across the US scene and beyond.

Part of this is because of the band's absurd name and logo, which they themselves have so often joked about on their amusing yet down-to-Earth social media presence, which they also manage a lot more personally than some other bands on the same level. There's a bit of 'class clown' to their whole schtick, but they have the muscle and groove to back it all up, and this debut release, the first I actually picked up from Sanguisugabogg, is dope for what it offers. Bro-core distilled into death metal, with grooving and organic drums, loaded up with some interesting fills, and then plastered in these epic, crunching rhythm guitars which make it impossible to remain still. I'm not promising you that the actual riffs are always catchy, but Cameron Boggs is clearly adventuring a little bit more than you'd expect, with a few winding patterns that he alternates into the usual double-bass driven tremolo evil of vintage late 80s death. The bass is also pretty ruddy and dense in the traditions of grind and death and it adds some bombast to the already knuckle-dragging neolithic brutality inherent to the songs.

Devin Swank takes it over the top though with his stark, evil gutturals, splayed out with just the right amount of reverb to make them sound appropriately ominous, even when he ups the pitch just a bit for a deep snarl. That's where so much of this EP's 'don't give a fuck' attitude manifests, and the band can just stand aloft the pit of flailing meathead bodies and dominate for 11 minutes. There's nothing really novel about what this band has put out there...maybe some more fills than you'd expect, a couple riffs that go into more depth than you hear coming, but all of these techniques were writ large across thousands of seminal and underground death metal/brutal death metal acts in the 90s. It's like a dash of Finnish guttural slime to top off some street level New York butchery via a dumbed-down Suffocation with Mortician overtures and cheesy Cannibal Corpse-style lyrics. Sanguisabogg just recycles this aesthetic into its own grim, humorous personality and for my money, tunes like "Turkish Blood Orgy" and "Succulent Dedecent" rank among their best. A fun introduction.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://sanguisugabogg.com/