Archives: Reviews

1 - Shrieks of the Mutilated 2 - Dead, cut up, and ready to fuck 3 - Orgy in Dog's Blood 4 - Feasting from the Womb 5 - Keep my Grave open 6 - Assembled in Blasphemy 7 - Perverted before God 8 - Hallucinations of a deranged Mind 9 - Ageless Existence 10 - Annointing the Worms

In almost 15 years I passed listening to Death Metal, I never found this complete perfection. THE RAVENOUS is not just a Death Metal band, it personifies every aspect that makes this music unique, every single piece creating a picture which incarnates the essence itself of filth, ferocity and perversion. The sound is exhumed directly from the band who created Death Metal: AUTOPSY. Straight from the bowels of inferno, THE RAVENEOUS brought me back a few years when AUTOPSY was king, with their perfect, filthy sound, their undistinguishable class in writing guitar arrangements, a fucking brilliant zombie cover artwork, two of the most original and influential vocals of all time, Killjoy and Chris Reifert (fuck, they only need some backings by Stevo and you got the trinity of the Horror Death Gods), and perverse, doom parts which are the sound of decomposition and putrefaction. Men, I don’t know how to explain it with bare words but this CD is pure art, it is exactly the paragon of perfection every Death Metal band should strive to follow, the sound, the vibe, the feeling is so great I almost cried in rapture when I heard it for the first time. Absolte classic masterpiece at the levels of Reign in Blood, Severed Survival, Horror of the Zombies, Altars of Madness, Symphonies of Sickness… The words “AUTOPSY resurrected”

are not a boast, Not at all. The work behind this CD is unbelievable,

monolithic, absolutely terrific: no fucking exaggerations, the

best album I have heard since AUTOPSY was buried for the first

time (but then, being AUTOPSY the definition itself of Death,

could they really be considered dead forever? In other words,

can Death die? Leave these questions to H.P.Lovecraft, and get

this Cd instead of reading these rants). What really makes the

big spot in this Cd is not the appearance of Killjoy of NECROPHAGIA

or Danny Lilker (ANTHRAX/NUCLEAR ASSAULT/BRUTAL TRUTH etc etc)

but the core of the band, Danny Coralles, Chirs Reifert (father

of Death Metal) Clint Bower, in other words, the original AUTOPSY…

Now the music isn’t the carbon copy of the band, a bit more horrorific

in the Necrophagia style, and with what is possibly the best Death

Metal artwork of all time by the big (fat) tatto artist Paul Booth,

this Cd was unbelievable when I first got the raw mix through

black market means a few months before the actual release. Like

I said, it’s not thoroughly an AUTOPSY self ripoffs although they

maintain every atom of their original filthy energy, Death Metal

spurting from every rotting orifice, wound and guitar twist. The

music is death Metal of the best sort in ages, thick, accurate,

perfectly woven between doom laden decomposing atmospheres that

sucks air from your lungs, to messy sublime accelerations that

deviate in chaos and brain fucking melodies, lyrics are the typical

AUTOPSY/NUCLEAR DEATH like bad taste, you know, dogs, rust, piss,

carvings and stuff, These guys must be mad, in some way absolutely

insane, they really recreate soundscapes like none is able to

do today, not even the bigger names, in a moment when the magic

comes and goes, when the scene is so controversial, an album like

this is beyond words, really seems to be from other times, other

worlds. I know I won’t have the ability to describe song by song

this Cd, but believe me, it’s the best thing happened to Death

metal in a very long time. Top prizes go to “Ageless Existence”

and “Keep my Grave” open, but every track is a masterpiece

by itself really.

It.

Smells.

Like.

Death.

Logo by Mark Riddick (you know who the man is)

Right one year after “Puaka Balava” PURULENT SPREMCANAL come back with another disc, this time as a 4 piece (the bass and guitar duties are not anymore on the only back of Marunic, as the new guy got the bass job). In just one year they also have a completely different feel. The songs are shorter but span a broader sonic field, the music is just more complete and the samplings just don’t fall abruptly between the songs but just fit brilliantly melding into the music. New intensity, more guttural grind speed ups and more intense arrangements brought this band to high levels. Pity it’s a bit short, as only 30 minutes for theoretically 2 releases, but the Sperman part is made up of averagely 20 seconds insane tracks so it’s just a sort of appendage. The darkish mood constant is still here although its just wrap the new sound instead of bringing it down into the bowels of death. Also great the brilliant splatter cover artwork, with that vaguely 50’s/60’s comic style which was also on the previous CD, depicting a man grinding itself in a meatgrinder. Something in this arteork reminds me of my school science books.

There’s something so dark, slow and muddy in this CD that could vaguely be connected to the CARNAGE “Dark Recollections” in sheer mood. All resemblances stop with the mere sound however as this is no Death Metal at all. Talking back about the sound it is so grubby and sticky it almost seem some delay effect has been spattered all over the disc, kinda DEAD INFECTION in a marmalade barrel, rarely they accelerate to more classic goregrind and then they never reach totally blazing accelerations, as if they somewhat trunacte all chances to free their bloody perversion before it climaxes. The vocals are inhumanly guttural and follow the doomy flow of the rest of the music with a definite goregrind feel. Almost all of the tracks have some porn/beating/horror intro of some sort which is definitely enjoyable and help get into the grim reality of this music. There is also some sort of videogame jingle among some songs such as “Dying With Vaginal Bleeding”, puking samples and old horror music.