STENCH OF DISMEMBERMENT (Ita): “Cannibalistic Urge” MCd 2005 Permeated

1 - Rotting Bowels Ingurgitation 2 - Indulgence Denied 3 - Festering Vaginal Discharge 4 - Bind, Torture & Kill 5 - Sexual Organs Removal

I have been folowing Penis Leech for some time now: they’ve been one of the very few bands who survived the huge melodic “death” metal revival that plagued my country from about 1993 to 1998. And let’s be honest, even Natron have been sucking dicks (musically speaking) ever since the “Hung Drawn and Quartered” album. Penis Leech‘s 2000 demo was already a good proof of American Death Metal, but here we have something yet different, more advanced, distorted. I have no idea when exactly they changed the name to Stench of Dismemberment but it was fun to get this promo from Permeated and recognizing the members. “Cannibalistic Urge” is a mini Cd of just above 15 minutes (could have been a demo tape some years ago), but it’s so claustrophobic and heavy yopu end up thinking it lasted twice that time. Co-produced between the band and Permeated, it is once more graced by “Joel of Pyameia“‘s excuisite, balanced layout work. The cover artwork is totally brilliant, hypnotic, disquieting… Basically the anatomy is not very precise, the spraying of blood that spills from the hands of the carnivorous baby are definitely unrealistic, and the flesh corpses hanging from the meathook have proportions totally not believable. Yet it’s that weird, obscure, twisted . almost infantile appearance that makes it even more creepy. It looks like a mix of cover art from old Italian horror comics or movie posters and some delirium of a elemntary school kid. Blood everywhere here, yes!! No lyrics, I’m disappointed!

So now you know my feelings about the artwork… well, the music scrictly follows its path. The sound is murky and obscure the way I really like, it reminds me of the impression I got from Devourment‘s “Impaled” demo (well maybe a bit better sounding, and with slightly less schizoid drumming); you get some sort of slightly “retro” sound which totally suits the carnage underneath. Riffs are fast, the double bass a real machine gun and with a totally “wooden” snare drum sound a la old Pungent Stench that I really love, it kinda breaks the total density of the songs. Maybe this drummer can use his arms a bit more but I think it’s Ok. Vocals are an unintelligible gargling, a constant grating that you recognize as vocals just by the modulation, obviously totally untillegibile. It is obvious that I like all the things above eh. I especially like the fact that the slow parts are NOT the same old slam-dance mosh, always backed up by a super fast double bass tickling. I think I can conclude saying that this MCd sounds a bit like a combination of various elements from a darker version of Disavowed, Devourment without hyperblasts and Enmity with decent sound and all would be good comparisons I believe. Totally great release, can’t wait for the full length!