RSS Feed


MASTICATED CADAVER
Necrotic Mutation (2023)

These kind of releases are turning up all over the place. You see the green sinewy cover art, you see the sticky band logo and the equally slime-ridden track titles and you know you’re in for something filthy.

Admittedly I expected this debut demo from Canada’s Masticated Cadaver to be far heavier and, dare I say it, more putrid. As namesake track ‘Masticated Cadaver’ takes hold after a short intro, this solo project feels more like a rehearsal with its all-round rawness and tininess. Okay, the track does have some cool slower meanderings injected with a gnarly solo – in fact it’s almost doomy – but such is the lo-fi quality that I don’t get suffocated by the swampiness I was hoping for.

‘Festering Womb Of Rotting Flesh’ and ‘Necrotic Mutation’ are both trash cans of nastiness, but neither fully convince me that Masticated Cadaver is anything but a z-list hack job that anyone could do.

There is a fine line nowadays between utterly sincere yet ghoulish death metal and bands trying to sound rough for the sake of it. This release lacks meat, and for all of its suggestions of being a stinking pit of gore-soaked heaviness it just hisses and clanks with no real bite. For me, Necrotic Mutation feels and most importantly sounds like a rush job.

For those of you interested, the Necrotic Mutation demo is available here.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Demo Reviews
Share