Under The Shadow Of Death
(Iron Bonehead Productions)
10:47min
Raw and rancid unholy noises from the grave are what 2009 founded Danish trio PUSTULATION throw on us on their first 7” EP which marks the successor to the well received 2010 demo “Orgy Of The Dead” and split album with LIGFAERD last year. Two songs plus outro is what you’ll get, accompanied by a fittingly primitive black / white artwork whereas musically the Danes do touch up rather on the beginnings of Death Metal than celebrating the über-copied 90s heydays of the genre bringing Swedish acts MORBID, OBSCURITY, MERCILESS, early GROTESQUE or NIHILIST demos to my mind as well as such short sharp shocks MORBID ANGEL did with ‘Hellspawn’, ‘Demon Seed’ on “Abominations Of Desolation”. While lacking the technical quality of the latter PUSTULATION instead concentrate on a punkish, stoic drive while adding a melodic flavor during the reverberating solo in ‘A Curse From The Black Void’ resulting in very catchy and comprehensible tunes with an ancient, obscure atmosphere that should also appeal to many Black Metal listeners out there. The vocals are choppily bellowed snarls and sound nicely possessed and bestial whereas the production is pretty basic yet transparent enough to make this a pretty enjoyable EP. I like the fact that PUSTULATION dare to step into a musical territory that chronologically lies before what today is commonly sold as old school Death Metal (yeah, call it “Proto Death” you smart asses, haha!) and thus comes across utterly rotten yet refreshing. Good songwriting and the right choices in terms of inspirations seldomly fail, so the bottom end is: this EP is clear win! Listen to a track here and order it at www.ironbonehead.de. PS: Please note the playing time above is just a rough guess, did not listen to this with a stopwatch.
Stefan Franke