Exhumed: Dissecting the Caseated Omentum (1992)

I picked up the reissue of Exhumed's second demo when I saw the band live during a co-headlining tour with desert death metallers Gatecreeper.  As I mentioned in my writeup of that show, I have not been the biggest fan of Exhumed, but they blew me away at that concert.  So, even though this was one of the band's earliest recordings and not necessarily representative of their current sound, I snatched this up.

So, I had to do some looking to figure out the meaning of the title here.  Apparently, the "omentum" is a fold of membrane connecting the stomach to other abdominal organs and caseation is a form of necrosis in which the tissue forms a firm, dry mass.  So what I have learned here is that Exhumed come from the Carcass school of grinding death metal in which they use some real medical terminology to talk about some truly disturbing stuff.

This is disgusting and raw goregrind with big, meaty riffs that sound like a meatgrinder and gurgling vocals.  It is a fairly short release, with six songs encompassing just over 18 minutes and the songs do kind of run together, but the foundation for what the band would eventually become is there.  While this is a bit different than what the band sounds like now, it is still recognizably Exhumed.

I was impressed by this demo, but it is not exactly required listening for anyone who is not either a huge Exhumed or goregrind fan.  It is competent goregrind, but there are certainly better releases in the genre and in the discography of Exhumed.