Now this is some fucking death metal. This is a band I stumbled upon the old fashioned way. The best way to hear a new band, really. A promotional sampler disc! I first heard the band on a sampler from the New Standard Elite label. In a sea of brutal music, their snare drum sound was the absolute craziest on the entire thing. I was quite intrigued by it, and had to see what an entire album from this band would sound like.
The day I got the disc in the mail I cranked it up and lo and behold, it’s exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. That drum sound is present from the beginning all the way to the end.
I know I’ve only talked about the drums so far, but you have to hear it to believe it… there are bands who have tried to achieve this sound, this exact death-rattle style tone, and some have gotten close – but all fail in the shadow of Ecchymosis.
This drummer is so talented he almost overshadows the rest of his band, but not quite, because the guitar and vocals displayed here are pure unadulterated gore. Not the lame gore you think of with the 100000th grind band or the 20000000th Cannibal Corpse wannabe. I’m talking sounding just like gore. I can’t put it any differently than that.
Ecchymosis is part of a collective of metal musicians from Thailand and they call their collective “Siamese Brutalism.” Right away, you know someone like me is going to love this fucking shit. The members are all from different bands, which I suppose I should also check out. This appears to be a side project for all members, but I’m not sure.
Lineup:
Drums/Vocals: Polwach
Guitar/Bass: Twish
Vocals: Weerasak
Track 1 Putrified Mass Sodomy Woundflux. Holy shit. This starts out with that gurgle noise thing that starts out Disgorge (US) records. You know what I mean? Other bands do it too. So you start the CD and you think, “Okay, this is just the same old shit.”
NOPE, YOU COULDN’T BE MORE WRONG. The vocals are so low. The guitar is so fucking low and chugging away. The drummer goes APESHIT FUCKING CRAZY. This guy is my hero. No clue what the lyrics are. I don’t even care. I just want to drive a fucking race car to this shit, or sky dive or something.
Track 2 Cephalic Ingestion of Newborn Chunks. Pounding blastbeat into breakdown chuggery. It’s old school but it isn’t. It’s like this new form of music I’ve heard, but I haven’t heard. These three guys have some weird chemistry together. This song is what I’d call a chugger. A moshy style tune, but it gets really fast. You almost can’t even wrap your brain around this. I think the vocalist is puking, and I love it! Guitarist goes crazy on this song too, not just the drummer. Two short songs in, and I have fallen in love with this music.
Track 3 Perversion Through Stages of Decomposition. I’m 99.5% positive that this song is what “perversion through stages of decomposition” actually would sound like. I’m not sure what perversion through stages of decomposition is, and I’m not sure I want to know.
Track 4 Intrauterine Feasting Ecstasy. This is the first song I heard from this band. It’s everything I like in death metal wrapped up tight with a nice bow on top, like the most beautiful birthday gift one could ever receive. This Polwach guy, holy shit. He’s insane! I think this is a good time to point out that I don’t know who is doing vocals on what song. We have two vocalists listed, but I like to picture Polwach doing all the vocals, especially on this song… just because I paint this weird picture in my imagination when hearing it.
Track 5 Necrophiliac Womblick Arousal. Holy fucking shit the assault will never end and I will never find a band this crazy ever again no matter how much death metal I listen to. They’re doing mosh metal but it isn’t mosh metal. I mean it is, but it isn’t? I love the guitar on this track especially. This is so gross sounding, man. I’m not even making sense any more.
Everyone that I know is going to tell me this is “slam core” or “brutal bump and grind” and make fun of me for listening to it. Fuck them! They’re all a bunch of posers that listen to rock n roll shit and call it heavy metal! I’m now converted to the brutal, non-poser side of music – and I ain’t fuckin’ comin’ back! You might want to know what this song sounds like. It sounds like a necrophiliac being aroused by licking a womb, duh.
Sidenote: This Weerasak guy… I’d like to meet this fucker. If he’s doing most of these vocals (and not the drummer, like I dreamed) then FUCK, he’s the king.
Track 6 Semensoaked Cerebral Coitus. The song titles, fuuucccck! And this song pummels you in the fucking side of your head. It just hammers away but not in the shitty way most bands try to hammer you. This song takes your pants off and fucks you. The breakdown part here is so good. It sounds like diarrhea.
Track 7 Penile Accumulation of Scrotal Skins. The guitar here is a little bit more “riff” than the rest of the album but not for long because all of a sudden – you guessed it – this song turns into the audial equivalent of the penile accumulation of some scrotal skins. I don’t even know what the fuck that means but this guitarist Twish starts doing some squeals all over the place. This shit sounds like… shit. It sounds like the best shit you’ll ever take. Around halfway through, you look in the toilet and see that it really is the best shit ever. It sounds like that. I mean this in the absolute best way possible! Has to be heard to be believed! The drumming even starts to sound like an old toilet flushing. To me, that is a good thing, and I love this.
Track 8 Aberrant Amusement in Cadaveric Vomitplay. The title track and the embodiment of every single thing this band is about. They are about abberant fucking amusement. They are about vomitplay. They sound like cadavers got up and started playing music. This is insane. The riffing gets really good here with the tiniest tinge of Swedish black metally stuff there for about 5 seconds before it starts fucking you in the ass again. Your ass bleeds and the album is over.
This is a short album. It’s a good album if you’re crazy. I am crazy. I mean I am certified insane by the state I live in and I assume, therefore, on a federal level but it isn’t like I care to check but hey! Are you a crazy guy or girl? You’ll love this record.
(Support the band): https://ecchymosis.bandcamp.com/
(Get the album I reviewed) https://newstandardelite.bandcamp.com/album/ecchymosis-aberrant-amusement-in-cadaveric-vomitplay
