Coalescing Putrefaction Split (2020)

I am going to slowly work my way into things and see if I can get going more often on this thing.  Maybe if it takes I can get to a regular posting schedule again.  One easy way to do that is to cover a short, three-song split.  This release contains one song each from Unnatural, Rotted and Fetid Zombie.

Up first is "Cadaver Euphoria" by Joliet, IL-based Unnatural.  This is as grimy and disgusting as death metal gets.  The riffs are sludgy and the vocals sound utterly decayed.  The track is fairly straightforward, without a lot of twists and turns or tempo shifts, just leading inexorably to the track's demise.  Unnatural seems to have disbanded without a proper full-length release and the man behind most of the instruments sadly passed away.  It's a shame, this band had some potential.

I swear I have heard Rotted before, but I cannot place it.  Another Illinois-based band, Rotted's track is called "Consuming Genocide" and it has a bit more of a slow, grinding early Bolt Thrower sound to the opening track with gurgling, grumbling vocals.  Eventually, the song kicks into another gear for a little bit of a faster pace.  The members of Rotted have all been in other bands, none of whom I have much experience with, if any.   

The reason I bought this split is because I try to track down as much of the Fetid Zombie stuff as I can get.  I have covered Mark Riddick's band on this site multiple times.  Riddick is the only full-time member of the band and of course provides the artwork for all of his own releases, as well as those of a lot of other bands.  Fetid Zombie still remains an underground marvel musically though.  I have no idea why death metal fans do not talk about this band more.  

This track is called "Doomed to Lifelessness" and features vocals by Chris Monroy (Fueled by Fire and Skeletal Remains) and lead guitars by James Malone (Arsis).  This is a very track from the earlier two on the split because it is a much more modern death metal sound due to the presence of Monroy and Malone.  It's a cleaner production, while still being a nod to other early 90's death metal bands like Benediction or some of the early Swedish bands like Edge of Sanity.  The lead work by Malone is a major highlight on this split and his solo is very impressive.  

Fetid Zombie's track is easily the best one on the split, but I was reasonably impressed with all three.  It's a shame neither Rotted nor Unnatural have any full-length releases.  I would be interested in seeing what they can do.  Fetid Zombie always impresses.

Fetid Zombie: Death Covenant (2019)

Readers of my Top 5 EPs of 2019 post already know how I feel about this release.  It made the #2 spot for the year, which is not terribly surprising given how I feel about this band in general.  I discovered Fetid Zombie, the unashamedly retro death metal project of renowned metal artist Mark Riddick, a couple of years ago.  There are a ton of demos, EPs and splits released by the project and I pick up every single one I see.  So when this EP (the band's only 2019 release) dropped, I had to grab it.

I do not know whether the name of the release, which references two legendary death metal bands (Death and Morbid Angel, via their third album title, Covenant) is intentional or not.  It may as well be, because a more apt description of the music than a combination of early Death (think Scream Bloody Gore) and Morbid Angel could not be made.  This is an EP of four tracks of gleefully old-school death metal.  Riddick's voice even sounds more and more like Chuck Schuldiner this time around. 

One of the most interesting aspects of each Fetid Zombie release is what guest stars appear.  Since Riddick does artwork for so many bands, he has seemingly made a lot of friends in the business who jump at the opportunity to appear on his project.  This time around, Malcolm Pugh of tech death mavens Inferi, James Malone of Arsis, and Carcass/Arch Enemy legend Michael Amott all provide solos.  And those solos are fantastic, it is almost possible to tell just who is who.

Fetid Zombie has yet to disappoint me.  This release is as good as anything else the band has ever done, while seemingly paying tribute to two giants in the genre.  More people should be listening to Fetid Zombie.

Charged Minds/Fetid Zombie/Wülfskol: Parasitic Nuklear Path (2018)

Like yesterday, we have another split.  And, like yesterday, the primary purpose in picking up said split is the presence of new material by Fetid Zombie.  Unlike yesterday, this is a three-way split, and also, I was not familiar with the other groups present.

Charged Minds is first, and they play three songs, unlike the other two groups.  All of the songs are short, with opening track "The Brutality of War" being just over three minutes.  The other two are less than two minutes long.  Charged Minds is a hardcore punk band whose songs are quick and fast-paced, but with a little bit of a pop sensibility.  They have two singers that I can identify, with a higher-pitched singer who sounds like he is still a teenager, and another vocalist with a rougher voice.  The songs are not bad, but this is not really my style.

Next is Fetid Zombie, who contribute two songs that sound a little different than anything else they have done.  The riffs driving the songs are a little more black metal flavored with more of a tremolo element to them.  Mark Riddick's collaborator on this release is Chris Monroy who has played in Fueled by Fire and Skeletal Remains.  These songs are excellent and Monroy does an amazing job with the leads and solos.  These are some of the best songs I have heard from Fetid Zombie, and that is truly saying something.

Finally, we have Wülfskol, who kind of combines the sounds of the previous two bands.  They are an unabashedly extreme metal band who also has some significant punk elements to their sound.  The production here is kind of lacking, but the songs are decent enough.  At one point in their first song, they provide vocals that sound almost like Danzig during his time with the Misfits and it fits well with their warlike riffing style.  I could see listening to an album of this.

Well, it should be obvious from the review that Fetid Zombie once again wins this split.  Wülfskol comes in second.

Fetid Zombie/Cosmic Void Ritual: Manifestations of Sacrificial Macrocosms (2018)

I have not done a split review for a while.  I love splits but I do not come across them real frequently.  Even less often are those in which I am familiar with both groups.  I have covered Fetid Zombie several times in the past, and will very likely cover them many times in the future.  I love this band.  Cosmic Void Ritual is a band whose demo I covered a year or so ago.  This is a very short split as both bands contribute just one song.

Cosmic Void Ritual is first and their song titles (particularly this one) are shockingly longer than their band name.  The band's song mostly revolve around Lovecraftian horror and their song here, "Omnipresent Tetramorph Oracles (Coliseum for the Dead Astronaut V)" is no different.  The band continues to sound like old-school death metal from Finland with Demilich and Convulse being the primary points of reference.  The composition is fairly simple with just a few riffs in the song, mostly endlessly repeating.  There is no bottom end, the song consisting of just some rudimentary drums and the guitar riff, but it feels cavernous and dark.  We are still waiting on a full-length release from Cosmic Void Ritual.

Fetid Zombie checks in with "Graven Image" and this song is terrific.  It hits the right notes to sound like the kind of song Death or Morbid Angel would have put out on their earliest releases.  The riffs, vocals and even the wailing guitar solo all sound authentic.  Fetid Zombie does a terrific job of paying respect to their influences without sounding like utter copycats and that continues to be true here. 

As is typical of split reviews, it is time to pick which band won the split.  It is perhaps not shocking that that band is Fetid Zombie here.  They usually do win their splits. 

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.

Amazon Mailday 2/15

FETID ZOMBIE: GROTESQUE CREATION (2015)
How is no one talking about this band?  Seriously, this is fucking criminal.  Mark Riddick has made a name in the underground metal scene with his amazing artwork (including the album cover shown here), but he also makes some really impressive death metal.  Sounding like a cross between early Rotting Christ and a little bit of old school death metal, Fetid Zombie's music is haunting, captivating, and surprisingly melodic.  I first found out about the band when I randomly picked up a split the band appeared on with Greek black/thrash band Swamp.  I was blown away by Fetid Zombie's work, so when I randomly came across a full-length album, I jumped at it.  And I am damn glad I did, because this album is fantastic.  Seriously, Riddick's music is just as impressive as his artwork.

MAUSOLEUM: SUMMONING OF THE DAMNED (1992)
I used to read about stuff mentioning Wild Rags Records a ton, particularly on the old Metal Inquisition blog.  It was an underground metal label in the late 1980's to late 1990's specializing in death metal and grindcore which was fairly infamous for being a bit sketchy in their business practices.  Well that and the head of the label being wanted for income tax evasion and disappearing.  Anyway, I came across a seller selling a bunch of old Wild Rags demos from the early 1990's and decided to pick something up for the hell of it.  Previously, I only had an Impetigo album from the label, so this was something kind of new.  Mausoleum is an old school death metal band and this is a quick three-song demo.  It is fairly interesting stuff while listening to it, but ultimately not particularly memorable.  There is likely a reason this band never released anything beyond two demos.  Apparently, there was talk of a reunion at one point, but that never came to fruition.

MOTORHEAD: 1916 (1991)
Would you believe that this is actually the first proper album I have ever owned by Lemmy Kilmister and company?  It is true.  Previous to this, the only thing I owned by Motorhead was a Greatest Hits compilation, which I bought some time before deciding that such compilations were kind of lame.  As much as I enjoyed it, I never really saw a need to pick up something else.  I decided to change that and picked up a reasonably cheap one that contained a song I knew I enjoyed ("I'm So Bad (Baby I Don't Care)").  I was a little surprised by the diversity of this album.  I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from Motorhead, but was shocked by some of the slower songs, in particular the heart-wrenching title track.  Of course there were the fast-paced Jack-and-coke-fueled tracks, but the variety made this a damn good album.

WATCHTOWER: CONTROL AND RESISTANCE (1989)
In the late 1980's, a lot of thrash metal bands were becoming more and more progressive and technical.  Bands like Heathen were at the forefront of this movement, but one of the best bands to tackle the style was the underrated Watchtower.  Watchtower utilized influences from genres as diverse as jazz fusion in their brand of thrash metal.  What results is a bizarre mix to say the least, yet Watchtower, in particular guitarist Ron Jarzombek, have the chops to pull it off and write some damn catchy songs to boot.  The biggest problem with a lot of technical bands these days are that the technical ability oftentimes overshadows the hooks.  Watchtower never fell into that trap.  Unfortunately, this was their last full-length.  There have been some short releases in recent years, so it is always possible we could see another Watchtower album soon.

X JAPAN: BLUE BLOOD (1989)
This is the second time I have bought this album.  The first one I bought, I made it through the first side of the cassette and the tape snapped off the reel.  I tried to fix it myself, but that did not work out so well.  So, that was it.  A lot of Japanese metal is just like the rest of Japanese pop culture, weird.  X Japan (or just X) is incredibly diverse with some speed metal tracks to go with mid-paced rockers and ballads.  The lyrics often alternate between Japanese and English.  There are a number of highlights, including the touching "Endless Rain" and the infectious "Week End".  This was a band I was just wanting to experiment with, along with other Japanese bands, such as the much more straightforward Loudness, but I am glad I took a chance on them.