ALBUM REVIEW: Tortured Whole – Sanguisugabogg

The old school death metal revival has been in full swing for a while, yet despite it reaching near saturation point, every so often there’s a band that makes waves in the underground sometimes before they’ve even released their debut. Enter SANGUISUGABOGG, the Ohio-based metallers conceived of while tripping in a basement with friends and designed, more than anything, for having fun and their first full length album Tortured Whole.

Unafraid of pushing the boundary of just how ridiculous death metal can be while aiming to foster a sense of acceptance is, it’s a delicate line they tread that’s made even more admirable when considering just how downright filth-encrusted their sound is. With songs about disfiguring your genitals while high, dismembering paedophiles and more over the top, gory subjects, it’s certainly not for the faint of heart. With that in mind, it’s delivered with tongue firmly in cheek and with a wink to the audience. It’s not to be taken too seriously, using the imagery of horror in such a schlocky way it would be near impossible not to be entertained – as well as grossed out – by it, which is clearly the intention. 

Opener Menstrual Envy introduces Devin Swank’s ludicrously guttural utterances that are so bile-encrusted they sound more like the emanations of a particularly noxious sewer than vocals. The song chugs its foul way through mid-tempo riffing and heavy as sin basslines, all the while with a snare ping that’s frankly ridiculous but in the best way. Follow-up Gored In The Chest is just as foul, with a sludgy riff dragged straight from the bowels of hell and the fills courtesy of drummer Cody Davidson are understated but no less impactful. His drumwork on Dragged By A Truck is no less captivating, changing tempos or patterns on a dime, all the while anchoring the debased carnage that swirls round. 

It’s not a total riff pile-on, though. Both Pornographic and Interlube are synth interludes that sound like they could come straight from a direct-to-video horror B-movie and they give the album breathing room without breaking the flow up. Pornographic moves into one of the best songs on the album, Dead As Shit which has a stomping, squealing riff for the most part, before Swank lets loose with a marginally higher exclamation of the song title during a moment driven by gnarly punk fury and that obnoxious snare ping. 

SANGUISUGABOGG are so gleefully over the top throughout, both musically and lyrically, it’s not difficult to see the appeal in their take on death metal. Nigh-on unintelligible grunts, riffs with more filth than an entire sewage system all underpinned by drum work that’s technically impressive without being flashy are paired with a love of horror and gore and a refusal to take themselves seriously. Not only that but the song-writing is downright catchy; the riff to Dead As Shit deserves special mention for a hook that’ll be stuck in your head for days after, as does Dragged By A Truck. 

Tortured Whole is an album that stands quite apart from its OSDM brethren; in a sea of same-y riffs and an oversaturated sub-genre, they’ve managed to craft something unique, catchy and most importantly, something fun that’s just so over-the-top, so obnoxious in its heaviness, it’s impossible not to enjoy. 

Rating: 8/10

Tortured Whole is set for release on March 26th via Century Media Records. 

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