In 1994 FUNERUS startet out as a project of Jill McEntee (bass, and yes, the nowadays wife of INCANTATION’s John) and Brad Heiple (guitar / vocals) to summon the ancient Death Metal spirit of acts like GRAVE, NIHILIST and all the other Swedish underground legends of the early 90s. After recording a rehearsal demo entitled “In The Trees” in ’94 the band broke up due to the ordinary line-up problems, but managed to get together again in 2000. In order to not waste time again FUNERUS completed their line-up with Kyle Severn on drums and Jill’s husband on guitar, did some gigs (e.g. supported INCANTATION in Australia) and finished the material I have the pleasure to review now. “Festering Earth” is a great piece of damn heavy old school Death Metal with a dry, bassy, unpolished sound that fits excellent to this type of music. The nine songs offered here unite the driving speed and grooving heaviness one loves about Scandinavian old school Death and in addition to that also implement sinister Doom passages one might know from INCANTATION, too. No weak songs, no pseudo-retro shit, just traditional Death Metal done by fans for fans! You don’t have to talk about originality or new ideas here, FUNERUS are as old school as can be and I guess that’s exactly what they want to be… Visit www.funerus.com, check out an MP3 of their demo track ‘In The Trees’, which reappears on this album in better sounding form and buy this cool CD!