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KONTUSION
Kontusion EP

Self-released (2022)
Rating: 8/10

Like a lot of death metal releases over the last decade or so, the debut EP from this American duo hits you like a strong gust of foul wind. Imagine spending a freezing cold night in a damp castle and suddenly some idiot opens the front door. Well, that’s the draughty blast of dank, rank evil known as Kontusion.

Death metal as a genre is flourishing at the moment, which is amazing considering the glut of fetid bands doing the rounds. But they all seem to have a place in that vast yet murky cess-pit.

This four-song affair is a hideous, billowing rush. The sound this twosome creates is gnashing and hammering, complete with cavernous vocal vomits and a general malignant sound which gives the impression of being crafted in Hell’s dingy basement.

It’s certainly worth noting that drummer Chris Moore has been in Repulsion since 2014, while Mark Bronzino (vocals, guitar and bass) has been in numerous bands too, including Iron Reagan.

The EP blasts off with the hailing fury of ‘Unrelenting Pain’, an apt title for such a crude and punishing furnace of a track. Again, there’s that wind-tunnel effect of every instrument, including voice, howling. This horrendous mesh barely refrains from beating the crap out of you, and even when the pace slows it’s like being dragged into a cellar and tortured.

While bands such as Cerebral Rot, Worm and Wharflurch create weird soundscapes evoking images of steaming pus pools, boggy creeks and algae-ridden sickness, Kontusion creates its own dismal mauling by simply blasting hard, scornful rhythms.

‘Rotting With Sickness’ is another hyper scrap metal barrage spewing rust, dust, soot and silt from its caked gills. Again, a slower passage in the final moments brings hideous drudgery and doomy distortion, simply preparing for the harrowing storm of ‘Blood Church’ with further frenzied pulverising. Meanwhile, final cut ‘Charred Remains’ lives up to its title, a sick, scorching furnace of black scolding flames and dismal vocal echoes which erupt from some unfathomable source.

Kontusion is a dark and distant entity, not quite cosmic or ethereal, but an organic, earthbound heap of pulsating, pustular vileness with iron teeth gurgling bowels and an embrace that finishes you off long before the final clanks of mayhem have resounded.

Neil Arnold

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