INGESTED - STINKING CESSPOOL OF LIQUEFIED HUMAN REMNANTS EP

IT IS WHAT IT IS

Ingested have been peddling their fetid brand of death metal of 15 years and to hail this milestone the Englishmen have exhumed and re-mastered a rare debut EP from 2006. They have, of course, since refined their sound to some degree over the the years but these five tracks go back to simpler times.

There isn't much in the way of subtlety. The romantic sleeve art and title hint that this is not Top 40 material and any presumptions of that sort would be right: this is quarter of an hour of unambiguous, squalid, disembowelling death metal / death core.

Firstly, the drumming - pneumatic and precise - is extraordinary with hyperactive double kick base, fills and blast beats that pound and motorise relentlessly and figure highly in the mix. The guitars are low-end chunked slams and bludgeon - a sound that had gained traction by the mid-late 2000s and there are elements of Cannibal Corpse and deathcore. The vocals remain fixed in a guttural gargle with occasional warthog squeals - and though this could easily be your granny's shopping list being maniacally burped out, thematically this is familiar ground of gore infatuation - again an aesthetic that revivalists were keen on at the time of the original release.

Needless to say there is not a smidgeon of melody, just pulverising. Followers of the genre, will have heard this before and the imagery and content, too, has now almost become a trope. The clear, machine-like production sound does, however, capture the band at an early, energetic phase and probably didn't give a pussy, infected jot about any of the above.