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CRYPTIC BROOD
Necrotic Flesh Bacteria

War Anthem / Lycanthropic Chants (2024)
Rating: 8/10

A great little piece of trashy artwork accompanies the third full-length studio album from Wolfsburg, Germany based Cryptic Brood. As expected, Necrotic Flesh Bacteria is another weird and wonderful journey into the twisted minds of a trio who fuses slabs of slime-coated doom and rotten death metal.

The track titles say it all – ‘Acid Fumes’, ‘Oozing Pox’, ‘Viscid Fluid’, ‘Reeking Pitted Innards’ – although such gunk n’ gore seems the standard in today’s deathly metal market. A song like ‘Digging Through Skin’ epitomises the sound of Cryptic Brood; a plethora of dehydrated slime run in tandem with furious, cascading death thrash riffs circa Pestilence or Asphyx.

The opening chords of ‘Acid Fumes’ bubble like a fetid vat stewing bones before a scuzzy punk crossover kick ensues, while ‘Oozing Pox’ begins like some rank slab of doom before reaching grindcore levels with its algae-coated bass and chesty vocals.

Whichever gear they shift too, Cryptic Brood ensures that the gear stick will be coated in a toxic, indelible film. ‘Hallucinogen Poison’ begins like a strange marrying of Black Sabbath and Cream, ‘Realm Of Rot’ is a congealed globular mass of traipsing doom and repulsive hardcore, and the title track follows suit but with extra layers of angular bass and swampy jarring.

I just couldn’t help but play this album alongside Florida’s Wharflurch as Cryptic Brood concocts similar patterns of psychedelic psychosis. The likes of the foul leakage of ‘Viscid Fluid’ and the unhygienic slogcore of ‘The Pile Of Flesh Is Served’ are all soundtracks to septic tanks of sewer slurry and intestinal slop. It’s no wonder that these mutants have spent time on street corners with fellow sleaze bags Anatomia, Night Hag and Graveyard Ghoul because Necrotic Flesh Bacteria is another festering sandwich of auditory offal.

Neil Arnold

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