Putrevore - Tentacles of Horror (2015)

The roiling, ominous, Putrevore has been my favorite of the many Rogga Johansson collaborations since its inception, but as with the rest, there has always been the risk of retreading the same ground too damn often, a criticism I've often seen leveled at his more long enduring bands like Paganizer or Ribspreader. With Tentacles of Horror, the duo of Rogga and guttural guru Dave Rotten attempt to channel the nihilistic punishment of Morphed from Deadbreath and the amazing Macabre Kingdom into a more varied, dynamic and I daresay 'accessible' direction with largely successful results, though I came away from it with some degree of disappointment since it lacked the suffocating and crushing capacity of its forebears.

This is largely the same neo-Incantation style, with the grungy rhythm guitars and pure wall of growl that the prior albums mastered, only a lot of the riffing structures and drums are focused more around a basic groove that occasionally treads into blasting territory. The bass has a nice distorted tone to it which sounds cool where it appears on its own, but also adds some reinforcement to the tremolo picked patterns, some of which retain that morbid appeal of predecessors. Once this album lays it all out with hammering drum tracks and Rotten's murky ravings moving simultaneously with a pure 1990-93 guitar progression, it definitely reiterates the character of Macabre Kingdom, but where that record just felt so over the top and hostile and cataclysmic, this one just seems more of a laid back affair. Some tunes like "Through the Vortex to Aeons Past" and their ilk have a slightly more overt nod to the Swedish aesthetics of bands like Dismember and Entombed, which Rogga has already beaten to death in other projects, but the majority of the material hearkens back to the first few Incantation discs, maybe some Rottrevore, or Finns like Purtenance in their earlier years.

Didn't love this one, since it seemed slightly neutered from its older siblings, despite its obvious attempts to branch out and flow into a broader songwriting realm than the duo had achieved prior. The Juanjo Castellano cover art is great, and the lyrics are on par with the first two records, glimpses at vistas of Cyclopean horror, but the music just doesn't leave me the same squashed up mass of entrails and ground bone as I was after Macabre Kingdom. That's not to say I didn't enjoy this, because at least half the songs hooked me, and overall it doesn't have many other weaknesses beyond few too familiar chord patterns that lack the atmosphere or thrill of their betters. I think listeners will find the production to this most approachable; the second album was quite caustic, especially with the mix of the beats, and yet that ended up lending it an otherworldly character strangely suited to the archaic fictional beings it summoned. Here you've got a cleaner effort which thankfully doesn't dispense that great guitar tone or Rotten's subterranean vocal effects.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (to lunge itself into times spectrals)

http://www.deathmetal.biz/putrevore/

Putrevore - Macabre Kingdom (2012)

We've been so spoiled with great old school death metal these past few years that it's felt as if there were a carnage strewn Christmas taking place at least once per week, but fuck if I'm going to complain about it. Is it trendy? Sure. Has much of it amounted to anything more than a tribute to the forebears of the early 90s? Indeed. Does Putrevore's sophomore album still kick ass? Yes, yes it does, and in a year that's brought me such gifts as the Horrendous debut and Necrovation's self-titled sophomore, I just don't know if I can bear any more of this level of awesome without imploding. And yet here it stands, a ghastly monolith, the second full-length collaboration between Dave Rotten of Avulsed, Repulse Records and Xtreem Music, and the inimical Roger Johansson of Sweden.

Yes, somewhere between recording his other thirty-eight death metal projects  this year, Rogga found the time to compose and release what might just be the best album in either of these guys' careers so far, a pummeling and enormously wretched paean to the age of Incantation and Rottrevore, smeared with a bloody reduction of churning Bolt Thrower brutality, muscular Pestilence death/thrashing grooves, a few Hellhammer or Obituary styled chord progressions (as in the bridge of "Awaiting Awakening Again") and other techniques of old. But I don't want to sell Macabre Kingdom short (if you could call such comparisons 'short'). This does not at all sound like a clone of any one particular group, it's another of those records that proudly wreathes its influences in the production capabilities of the current era, and thus it achieves a dense, abysmal grandeur that might not have been possible were it released back in the heyday of the style. Let's just admit it: the niche of crushing, atmospheric death metal was never quite so popular as it is right now, and Macabre Kingdom is hands down one of the best of the bunch, far more effective and memorable in my estimation than other, heavier hyped records like Disma's debut Towards the Megalith last year.

This is due in no small part to the Cyclopean production values on exhibition. The guitars are raw, potent and absolutely furious, both in the slower, grooving context and the floods of choppy, blasting viscera that help offset any possible sense of rigor mortis from ever infesting the listener's newly slain corpse. Whether they break out an airy, eerie squeal or a massive octave chord in a breakdown, it all translates evenly onto the album's rictus death mask. Though most of the guitars are simplistic in structure, some of the faster passages have a few flights of complex death/thrash guitar patterns that always attract the ear, or clinical, evil tremolo melodies and sinister, sluggish solos. The riffs do occasionally feel familiar, but they're nonetheless entrancing in their undiluted hostility, and the album's relative brevity (about 35 minutes) ensures that it repeatedly feels blistering and fresh. The bass is deep and ruddy; and new drummer Brynjar Helgetun, who has worked with Rogga in other projects like Ribspreader, The Grotesquery and Those Who Bring the Torture settles in nicely to the alternating matrix of blasted momentum and leaden, sparser steroid grooves.

But props really have to go out to Dave Rotten here, who takes this Craig Pillard-like inflection to great heights, resonating out over the album's underworld atmosphere far more effectively than most of the other cavern-core front men you've heard lately. The Spaniard sounds fucking monstrous. If only this guy had voiced the Balrog in the mines of Moria, Gandalf would have pissed his robes, and the Fellowship would have been fucked. Voluminous, rumbling sustain creeps into the longer intonations, and though one might mistake the actual notation as monotonous, it sends crackles up the listener's spine as if he was standing on seismic disturbance. Perhaps it isn't the deepest or lowest pitch in this particular niche, but still found myself erupting in laughter...nervous laughter. Fear.

I was already a fan of this outfit since they released Morphed from Deadbreath in 2008, but as good as that debut was, it was a mere finger-frank appetizer wrapped in bacon compared to this swollen sausage meal of blood, grime, guts and hellfire. Juanjo Castellano's cover artwork is excellent, a ghoulish fiend with huge claws upon a throne of spines and bones, almost looking as if he's watching some damned jester dance before him. Putrevore excels in just about every category here, and while admittedly not the most innovative or unique record I've heard lately, it's for sure one of the highlights of 2012. A sometimes lumbering, something bursting necrotic juggernaut siphoning off the souls of the innocent. Rrrraaarggghh...fucking die!

Verdict: Epic Win [9.5/10]

http://www.putrevore.com/

Putrevore - Morphed from Deadbreath (2008)

Putrevore is a collaboration between Dave Rotten (Avulsed, Christ Denied) of Spain and Rogga Johansson (Ribspreader, Deranged, Demiurg, Carve, and many more) of Sweden. It's only the debut album but from what I'm hearing I can only hope for many more.

The style is simple: Rotten's extremely guttural vocals over a down-tuned, crepitating variant on the retro Swedish death metal style that's been all the rage lately. And it rocks. Not only does it deliver the brutality in spades without any generic chug-blast-chug doldrums, but it's actually groovy and genuinely fucking creepy.

The album opener "Aeon Leviathan" is a good example of the faster work, with simple, somewhat repetitive riffs. The same formula applies to "Torn from Abzu" and "The Skies Vomit Sulphur" (one of my personal favorites here). "As They Return" is a groovier, slower piece that I really enjoyed. "Dark Surgery of the Ancients" walks the line between the faster and groovier material, another of my favorites. In all, the tracks are consistent and never dull.

Morphed from Deadbreath is a nice, disgusting surprise that will appeal both to the old school cravings of Rogga's other bands, as well as the more brutal sect, including just about anyone who loves old, unapologetic death metal.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.putrevore.com/