EP REVIEW: Pickled Preservation – Sequestrum

Deathgrind seems to go one of two ways: either it goes for blunt force trauma that caves your skull in and laughs at your twitching corpse, or it takes your already decaying mass and performs unspeakable experimental acts on the flesh and bone. How wonderful then, that SEQUESTRUM have laid bare their intention to be responsible for your brutal murder and defilement on their new EP Pickled Preservation.

As if the name wasn’t already a dead giveaway, Pickled Preservation is a disgusting, horrifying aural nightmare that is actually objectively very solid. Carrying all the ramshackle pace and deep fried production that’s become a mainstay of the genre, this might be the best representation of what your parents moaned about when they said metal was just noise. From the two-second shotgun blast of Guts which is literally just a four-count that precedes the song title being vomited into the aether, to the far more expansive and punishing Human Broth, this is about as nasty and unpalatable as they come.

The addition of grotesque wet, slopping noises between tracks (are they entrails or bowel movements? We don’t want to know either way) only serves to underline SEQUESTRUM‘s MO of being gross and unhinged. This is aural horror in its truest form, and no matter where you listen to this, Pickled Preservation transports you into the torture dungeon of a crazed serial killer. Whether you’re an audience or a victim is really down to personal preference.

But there’s not long to make your mind up, as these seven tracks blaze by in just under 16 minutes, and when they’re as haphazard and dangerous as Necromucouphagia or the violent closer Dis-Organ-Ized, you’ll scarcely have the mental capacity to figure it out. Respectfully, it’s probably best to sit back and let this one happen to you, then step away, think on what you’ve heard, and form your lasting opinion then.

There’s a good chance though that if you’ve come so far as to press play on Pickled Preservation, you have at least some vested interest in the deathgrind genre, and if so, you’ll likely keep on returning to this. If SEQUESTRUM is the criminally insane psycho killer behind bars, you’re their doting penpal. Each to their own.

Rating: 7/10

Pickled Preservation is set for release on January 27th via Extremely Rotten Productions.

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