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LIQUIFIED
Chapters Of Cruelty EP

Self-released (2025)
Rating: 7/10

You can add the city of Nottingham to the burgeoning UK death metal scene now because festering combo Liquified have just issued their debut EP. Seventeen minutes in length, Chapters Of Cruelty features five tracks – ‘Skinned And Binned’, ‘Cranium Cocktail’, ‘Abhorrent Ascension’, ‘Septic Tank Sarcophagus’ and ‘Skeletal Sludge’ – which are all rather standard goofy gore hymns drenched in slime and silt.

‘Skinned And Binned’ begins with a hooky riff raked straight from a compost heap. The drums thud hard, the vocals drizzle the whole fetid lump in a coagulated phlegm and then the meat n’ potatoes kick of pace ensues. It’s heavy stuff even if the drums sound a bit mechanical, but a melancholic solo introduces itself at the rear end like a tapeworm spiralling from the orifice.

This is very much chunk-blowing death metal that fuses a Cannibal Corpse catchy charm and modern day cesspit sucking filth, although expect all manner of influences within the drudgery. ‘Cranium Cocktail’ provides a tech-death zaniness by way of some hectic percussion and manic riffs, although the slower breakdown allows the chunky, robust grooves to flow again.

However, instrumental ‘Abhorrent Ascension’ is the band at their most melodic; a solo soars with a hint of majesty and the cut even boasts a blackened vibe towards the end. So, while Liquified exist mostly in the formulaic death metal vein there’s certainly potential here to suggest they may rapidly grow out of the bread and butter grunts and into something more experimental.

It’s the mix of pace and mid-tempo bludgeoning which benefits the sound most, hence the reason that ‘Septic Tank Sarcophagus’ is such an enticing track due to the fleshy, measured grooves which also come to the fore with closer ‘Skeletal Sludge’ where there’s a hint of death grind in its style. There are streaks of Broken Hope in this EP too, so anyone with a passion for death metal throughout its gnarly gore-soaked spectrum may want to snap this one up.

Neil Arnold

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