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PUTRIDARIUM
Necrología Del Sadismo: Excerpts From A Deranged Mind

Headsplit / Night Terrors (2024)
Rating: 7/10

As if someone has drained a remote swamp of sediment, algae and gunk and unloaded it on my doorstep, mongers of gloom Putridarium come knocking with their long awaited debut full-length album. If you’ve followed these German ratbags you’ll know that previous to this the combo has issued three vile demos, a gruesome compilation and been involved in two hideous split projects with Ancient Death and Trollcave respectively.

Necrología Del Sadismo: Excerpts From A Deranged Mind is 40 minutes of what epitomises today’s death metal scene: boggy yet blustery riffs, burped vocals, passages of enveloping gloom and the usual sleaze-ridden song titles such as ‘Raped, Hacked & Fucked’, ‘Maggots Reign’, ‘Wretched Carcass’ and ‘Necrophilic Impetus’.

Putridarium continues its foul mix of rampant death flurries and doom sludge all wrapped up in a dayglo sleeve that would make Necrophagia’s Killjoy proud, God rest his soul. However, this is also the sort of album that makes me wonder if the death metal genre has reached its expiry date, because even with those repulsive slogs there remains an air of predictability.

Throw Putridarium in a soup containing the likes of Morbific, Sanctuarium, Stenched and Cryptworm and you’ve got yourself a gooey but generic downpour of gut gravy, although I’m more than happy to wallow in it. That’s not to say that any of these bands sound the same, it’s just that the whole swampy bellowing seems to have reached breaking point. Even so, Necrología Del Sadismo…, like previous Putridarium releases, is that rather no frills bog of bludgeoning slop. But maybe I expected more considering the silted and sooty quality of the demo tapes.

‘Torture Persecution’ does hit a level of sludgy, slimy grossness after its initial bluster – the vocals drag alongside the lumbering riff – but for all of its macabre yawning and perverse mid-tempo slogging, it’s predictable fare. However, the combo does provide some interesting abrasive kicks on ‘Stripped To The Bones’, before the melancholic instrumental ‘L’Ultima Processione’ ends the album.

In-between, it’s all very much muck and mulch as ‘Maggots Reign’ and ‘Necrophilic Impetus’ follow well trodden paths of dense flurrying coated in congealed blobs of morbidity. Riffs constantly churn like a cauldron of stirred innards, while drums and bass thud like rotten corpses stumbling back into their earthy holes as ‘Beheaded Screams’ oozes and slithers with bleak, squirming aplomb.

Still as soggy as a mouldy lettuce, Putridarium burrows further into the death metal dung heap. Not interested in variation, they exist as writhing maggots oblivious to time and with one interest – eating your ears with their moans of decay.

Neil Arnold

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