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DEGRAVED
Whispered Morbidity EP

Gurgling Gore (2023)
Rating: 8/10

In 2020 this gang of Seattle, Washington-based ghouls thrilled me with their demo Exhumed Remnants. It’s good to have the freaky combo back with this debut EP, and as you’d expect with any release from the Gurgling Gore label this is another densely morbid construction built upon harrowing, cavernous vocal oozing and thick, gluey riffs that churn like coagulated rivers of gloom.

Degraved is one of those bands which remain utterly macabre and grizzly at whatever pace it chooses to take. Opener ‘Crematortured’ is evidence of such macabre meandering as we get dragged into those filthy, fetid and labouring dynamics before the percussion suddenly picks up the pace and we are blended by blades of chilly gloominess.

There is nothing complicated or pretty about Degraved. They know the tools they use are not only trusted but crusted in the blood and bone shards of hapless victims because Whispered Morbidity literally pummels the listener into a muddy pulp.

‘Compulsory Bloodletting’ is grim, frothing and needs fumigating as a stark yet blazing riff manically swirls beneath the heavily watered soil, and ‘Reduced To Bone And Ash’ is about as apt a title as you’ll find; the guitars again boast that vile trudging that sucks you deep into its silted coils and then we are hammered again by another mid-tempo act of drudgery. Meanwhile, the final throes of the title track labour in arduous and macabre fashion, slowly suffocating you like some swampy anaconda.

The foul percussion here literally makes it sound as if the drummer is fighting his way out of a stuffy coffin but to no avail. In fact, everything here drags you into a cavernous pit and keeps you down due to the constant shovels of bloodied clay. This is most certainly not a case of whispered morbidity but instead gnawing, dragging and suffocating morbidity.

Neil Arnold

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