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CONVULSIVE
The Grotesquery Ruins Of Death

Self-released (2022)
Rating: 8/10

Born out of Brazil’s fetid depths just two years ago, death metal brigade Convulsive is responsible for some of the most putrid noise I’ve heard for some time. Death metal is arguably the healthiest genre at the moment and it’s not easy for bands to get recognized, but I’ll eat my intestines if this debut heap of rotting flesh doesn’t get some praise.

Since their inception Convulsive has released two singles and a demo, so I was keen to explore the stinking layers of this nine-track platter.

Now, this is some thick, murky death metal with a truly rotten, old school sound. From the off with opener ‘Sickened Rituals Of Flesh And Pus’ there’s that horrid Autopsy-styled death rattle of grisly bass, stuffy drum and a guitar tone that just gnaws on the bone. The faster blasts are grim furnaces led by billowing, chesty vocal coughs, and at slower passages the band just drags itself through cesspools of sick.

Everything about this record is weighty, daubed in gore and fog-ridden. The opening track just sets you up before dragging you into its stomach of festering riffs and bludgeoning outbursts.

The creeping menace of ‘Nights Of Terror’ brings a doomy respite from what is essentially an album of mostly fast tracks. Even so, the thickening, pea-soup pace soon rises a majority of tracks, from ‘Island Of The Last Zombies’ to ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ to even more zombiefied zombieness with ‘Plague Of Zombies’ gnashing with clanking ferocity.

‘Incubo’ is equally nasty and frenetic – the percussion is hostile and damp, matched by the thundering bass lines. For me though the band is at it’s most potent on closer ‘Wurdulak’; a pustulous doom-drenched slog that really drags this album into the most filthy of pits. It’s a punishing, drowning way to end a debut album, and if you’re not gasping for air by the climax then you don’t get it.

Convulsive deserves to make great waves amongst the slurry of the death metal scene.

Neil Arnold

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