EP REVIEW: Greedy Gory Gluttony – Putridity

Within Italy’s world class death metal scene, PUTRIDITY are perhaps one of the most consistently impressive and monolithic. Ever since the release of their first demo, Innate Butchery Aptitude, in 2005, the band have only gone from strength to strength, cementing themselves as one of the best brutal death metal acts not just in Italy, but the world. Their latest EP, Greedy Gory Gluttony, is their first record with original music in just shy of eight years, and it shows that even after close to a decade of creative dormancy, they are still a force to be reckoned with within the wider brutal death metal scene.

Adipocere Retribution is a fantastic start to proceedings, going straight for the jugular with monstrous, rhythmic guitars, pulverising percussion and thick, sludgy gutturals all pummelling the listener into submission rather than easing them in, kicking things off with a magnificently focused and vitriolic slab of brutal death metal. Sodomizing Epileptic Chunks is a similarly frenetic affair, albeit with a leaner, more technical approach, particularly with regards to the guitar and bass lines which inject a lot of dizzying, energetic flourishes into the mix which helps to keep things interesting. Fermented Entrails is a brilliantly jarring shock of demented riffs, precise, juggernaut drumming and rumbling, throaty gutturals that once again creates a dense wall of noise with a lot of meaty sections, leaving its mark despite being only a minute and a half long.

Molten Mirrors Of The Subjugated, with its muscular groove and intricate musicianship, proves to be one of the record’s most aggressive and spirited performances, with the music on all fronts feeling far more intense and visceral even than the already ferocious tracks that have preceded this one, bringing the original material portion of the EP to a close with one of its more stunning moments. The record concludes with a great rendition of Ecstasy In Decay, originally from CANNIBAL CORPSE‘s 1999 record Bloodthirst, and does a great job of capturing the tighter elements that made the original so impactful, whilst peppering in enough of PUTRIDITY‘s own flavour, not deviating too far from the version death netal fans known and love, but adding their own stamp.

Greedy Gory Gluttony marks a fantastic reintroduction to the death metal world of arguably one of the scene’s most underrated acts. The excellent cover of Ecstasy In Decay is a nice addition, and takes the band just a little bit away from the fast and furious formula they are known for into a chunkier, slower number, without straying too far from the sort of caustic intensity that fans have come to expect from PUTRIDITY. Each of the four original tracks that feature on here are fantastic, although the thick quality of the production does prevent some of the more intricate parts of their sound from getting the listener’s full attention. Overall though, it bodes well for album number four, and with any luck that album is not far off; if it’s anywhere near as impressive as the tracks that feature here, it’s sure to be their best to date.

Rating: 8/10

Greedy Gory Gluttony is out now via Willowtip Records.

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