ALBUM REVIEW: The Rotted Plinth Of Sachiel – Onchocerciasis Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

Have you ever been sat at home on a quiet evening and thought; “you know what would be really good right now? A migraine”? Well, if the answer to that is yes, then the boys in ONCHOCERCIASIS ESOPHAGOGASTRODUODENOSCOPY have got you covered. In this, their twenty-five minute, nine-track offering that is akin to standing in a bucket of water and attaching yourself to a car battery, The Rotted Plinth of Sachiel is a full-on assault on your senses that is sure to test the endurance of even the most seasoned veteran of fringe, extreme metal sub-genres.

Partly inspired by the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, The Rotted Plinth of Sachiel is the very definition of a challenging listen. It is intense in every sense of the word. After listening to the album front-to-back, you come out the other side feeling like you’ve been subjected to a Guantanamo Bay-style torture session. It’s an incredibly brutal experience in which you’re not just bearing witness to the brutality; you’re the target.

The snare sample used on the album puts the infamous St Anger snare to shame. The brass/steel snare sample with its loud, metallic sustain pops up fairly regularly in the more extreme death metal sub-genres, so that in itself it’s nothing out of the ordinary, but the way in which ONCHOCERCIASIS ESOPHAGOGASTRODUODENOSCOPY use it serves to further the intensity of the album. Programmed with no velocity variations, the snare sits right at the front of the mix and feels like having two machine guns fire off 200 rounds simultaneously within an inch of each of your ears.

Any attempt to convey what this album is by comparing it to other bands will ultimately be futile. There is no comparison to be made that will get close to giving you an idea of what awaits you on The Rotted Plinth of Sachiel. The closest you can possibly get through words is to lay out a hypothetical experience that might come close to the feeling you get when sitting through the album’s nine tracks. So here goes: Listening to The Rotted Plinth of Sachiel is like cloning Mike Tyson twenty times, getting in a boxing ring strewn with broken glass while barefoot, and letting them beat you to death while the boxing gym burns to the ground around you in a 600-degree inferno.

Have ONCHOCERCIASIS ESOPHAGOGASTRODUODENOSCOPY created an album that will appeal to everyone? Absolutely not. In truth, most people will probably downright hate it. It’s abrasive, intense, and uncomfortable from start to finish. However, it is absolutely worthy of a listen. The Rotted Plinth of Sachiel is akin to a disturbing, underground horror movie that pushes the limits on what you can sit through comfortably without tapping out. It sits on the very boundary of how grotesquely unlistenable music can get and straddles the line brilliantly. A simple ‘mark out of ten’ score doesn’t seem to reflect quite what this particular album is; how can it be judged against more melodic music when The Rotted Plinth of Sachiel stands as the very antithesis of melodic tradition. At its core, this is an exercise in discomfort; give it a go and who knows, you might even come back for more.

Rating: 5/10

The Rotted Plinth Of Sachiel is out now via Stillbirth Records. 

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