RSS Feed


SEQUESTRUM
The Epitome Of Putridity (2022)

Over the years our ears have been aurally scabbed by some of the sickest extreme metal acts ranging from Carcass, Impetigo and Pharmacist to Autopsy, The Ravenous and General Surgery, along with today’s heaps of vomit such as Pukewraith and now Sequestrum.

This Danish four-piece has leaked from some unknown orifice and left a horrid stain on my carpet. The Epitome Of Putridity demo is a manky five-track offering covered in cysts, bubbling with pus and sticky to its touch. It’s the sort of vile, festering cess-pit that nods to Carcass and the likes with its deep, chugging riffage and those slurping vocals.

Opening track ‘Symposion At The Crematorium’ is as horrifically catchy as death metal can be, where its faster segments are akin to a trash can full of severed limbs being thrown out the window. But the rest of it is just a bubbling, oozing, spouting mass of grinding guitars, maniacal drums and a bass that just squabbles like a choking Sasquatch.

However, the most disturbing aspect – apart from the cover, the lyrics, the music and the general feel – are the vocals which range from chesty coughs of puke to weird, almost obscure narratives. This is evident in the putrid offal of ‘Involucrum Osteomyelitis’, whereas on the chugging afterbirth of ‘Tache Noire’ they become the choking, burping mumbles of a killer muffled by his own soiled garments.

Where does such filth emerge from? Because this is so gore-soaked and deviant that even the sewer rats are running for cover! Those miserable solos on a track such as ‘Tache Noire’ act like swarming, epileptic flies high on the toxic corpse they’ve vomited on. The gurgling chugs and garbage can drums just add further filth and despicable rhythmic morbidity.

And that’s without the grinding ‘Pearls On Offal’; a dank, repugnant and overtly flatulent heap of gory garbage whereby the tortured words of the narrator drown in their own bile to a backdrop of Carcass-inspired, groove-based brutality. Rarely though does Sequestrum move into pacier climes, as this is very much mid-paced, rhythmic stabbing that comes with occasional bursts.

I’m unsure who out of the band sings as all four members apparently provide expressions, but when you hear greedy slurps about a “voluptuous bloated maggot colony” or an “oxidised surface of the sclera” or “forming a wholesome intraosseous abscess”, one can only scratch the surface of this itching boil, which culminates in the utterly miserable churning of ‘The Tea Of The Heart’ with its macabre density and strange, flashing thrash flurries.

As the demo finishes with a film sample from a frightened chap who exclaims “you guys are scaring me… you’re sick… I hope that you never get well”, I’m just overwhelmed by the grossness of this chunk of swamp shit. Then again, anything that features David Torturdød (Undergang, Phrenelith, Ulcerot) is going to be a nasty ride into the dregs of humanity.

Arguably the best extreme metal release of the year, The Epitome Of Putridity demo can only hint at what horrors a full-length release may spurt. But for now, savour this unsavoury, disgusting dive into the infected slurry of Sequestrum.

The Epitome Of Putridity demo is available here.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Demo Reviews
Share