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SHRINE OF MAGGOTS
Spiritual Feces

Rat Covenant (2024)
Rating: 7/10

When I saw the band name I expected one of those Portland or Pennsylvanian grisly death metal acts, so imagine my surprise when this mysterious one-man project from Germany revealed itself as something akin to blackened punk metal musically but with a hardcore / sludgy vocal bark.

Spiritual Feces is an album that’s far catchier than I imagined it to be too, even if the vocals do tend to grate. The creator is the same guy responsible for black / doom / death act Untier and black metal band Gräuelso, and some of those traits do veer into this seven track release.

Opener ‘Temple Of The Worm’ has a rotten punk kick; it’s high energy raw galloping led by throaty scrapes and hard drums. Imagine a vicious fusing of Toxic Holocaust, Motörhead, Venom and a hastier Midnight. There’s some killer introductory solo work on ‘High On Death’ which drags us into the furious blackened whirlpool of rough punk and oily metal.

This is volatile stuff threaded by a sturdy, rasping black metal spine but without ever reaching into the murky depths of the genre. Instead, Shrine Of Maggots mixes things up. For example, ‘All Will Fall’ begins like classic Slayer but then takes on a foreboding mid-tempo trudging that’s semi-Celtic Frost mixed with rupturing storm clouds.

‘Shit-stained Sky’ is a totally furious cut injected with some discordant streaks and abrasive angles, while the title track begins with such sinister scowls and cackles before feverishly scurrying like a rat up a drain pipe. The black thrash always remains present (‘I Detest This Life’), and yet there’s an ability to work round the more straightforward dashes by implementing occasional unorthodox flashes and oozes as closer ‘Witchfinder’s Genital’ attests.

Scathing throughout, Spiritual Feces is first and foremost a black metal album but one with numerous jagged and thorny branches stemming from it. Not particularly odd or grotesque, Shrine Of Maggots remains a project that suggests a strong future because once you’re hooked in its folds there is no escaping the web of spite.

Neil Arnold

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