Retching tries necromancy.
Remaining fairly mysterious, the project by Latex (drums/bass) and Mondo (guitar/vocals) is collaborating with Transcending Obscurity Records to promote their debut album, Charming the Decomposed.
With artwork by Slimeweaver (Corpserot, Cryptorium, Disembodiment…), it’s clear from the outset that the band isn’t going to be subtle and will remain rooted in its Old School roots drawn from the American scene, particularly its pioneers. The most avid listeners will also appreciate the few samples, such as Moonlight Perversions, which gives us a taste of the carnage that follows with Gorging on Ecstasy, which hits hard and really makes us understand what the duo is made of. As the band predicted, the riffs are stupid and nasty but also dissonant before moving on to Premature Decapitation, which gives us a breather with a sample before unleashing its brutality at full power, but also at full speed before opting for a more jerky approach with Shower Curtain Silhouette, which first knocks us out with a catchy rhythm before letting the growls resurface, like a horror movie. The relentless riffs give us only a few seconds before Foaming takes over with a wave of pure efficiency at a fairly steady pace led by wild blasts, but which is stopped by a new sample before returning to violence on Vulgar Celluloid Trophy. Again, nothing too complicated, a heavy and initially quite slow rhythm coupled with a few more virulent moments that pass fairly quickly, followed by Septic Entombment, which adopts more or less the same approach and makes me want to push the band to play live, just to see the audience’s neurons disintegrate one by one. The growls diversify towards the end, then we move on to Fetid Abattoir, which starts off fairly gently, tempers itself with a sample, then resumes its march with simple riffs and a few harmonics, before fading away to let Mortuary of Desire trample us one last time with its usual brutal mix of fat riffs, explosive drums, thick screams, and rhythm changes.
Far from being a copycat, Retching picks bloody bits and pieces wherever it wants to make Charming the Decomposed a kind of revival of Old School Death Metal with catchy riffs. Nothing is wasted, everything is recycled!
90/100