Fetid Zombie: Carrion Christ (2011)

I have become a huge fan of Fetid Zombie over the last year or so.  The one-man (with session musicians) death metal band is the brainchild of Mark Riddick, a well-known artist who has provided artwork for a huge number of metal albums, t-shirts and much more.  He even did a Justin Bieber t-shirt, but we won't hold that against him.  Riddick and his brother Mike previously had a band called Excrescent who was also quite good, but Fetid Zombie consistently blows that project out of the water.

This is one of the earlier full-length Fetid Zombie albums, the band's third in fact, and was a bit harder to find.  I ended up ordering it from a distro out of Malaysia (who didn't even charge shipping).  Fetid Zombie does not release many full-length albums, just six to date, but does do an amazing number of splits with other bands.  It is not unusual for the band to release two or three splits a year (last year Riddick had two and an EP). 

The music here is fast-paced old-school, gritty and grimy death metal, though not with ultra-low riffs and tons of distortion.  This has much more in common with the time period when death metal was just rising out of thrash metal.  It has much more in common with groups like Hellhammer, early Death and Possessed than Incantation or Immolation.  That is typically the Fetid Zombie formula, though they do change things up occasionally depending on who guest stars on the album.  For instance, Don of Dead from Nunslaughter appears on the title track, which is a punk-esque death metal romp in the vein of Nunslaughter.  Mark's brother Mike, who is currently in a number of other bands, adds additional guitar and bass to "The Great Pestilence". 

The guitar and galloping bass riffs are terrific and really suck in the listener and the frequent lead solos add infectious melodies to the songs.  The leads occasionally border on a black metal-ish tremolo style.  The vocals are often delivered in a sepulchral growl and spout out some of the most over-the-top evil and blasphemous lyrics imaginable.  This is an album that is not to be taken ultra seriously.  It is clear that Riddick is just having an absolute blast with it and that comes across well.  It is a hell of a fun listen too.

I have accumulated quite a large collection of Fetid Zombie releases in the last year.  The band has quickly become a favorite of mine.  More people should be aware of Fetid Zombie.  This albums is just one reason why.