Jungle Rot: Genocidal Imperium

JUNGLE ROT are a band who’ve been around a lot longer than you’d expect. In the past decade, they’ve released a string of lean death metal albums and built a reputation as reliable purveyors of violence. They’ve been on a creative roll since 2013’s Terror Regime and could easily be mistaken for being a comparatively new band. It’s a surprise then to find out they’ve actually been going since the mid-nineties.

From the way frontman Dave Matrise tells us from his home in Wisconsin, the band’s early years were a heady mix of youthful excitement and bitter frustration. On the one hand, Dave is a lifelong metalhead and was delighted to be playing in a band, but on the other, he was having to scrape a living on a constant circuit of toilet venues. It was a full decade after they formed that the current incarnation of JUNGLE ROT began to form. Coalescing around a central trio of Dave, bassist James Genenz and guitarist Geoff Bub, the band continued to toil away in the underground until they finally started gaining recognition.

But it wasn’t until 2013 that things started to come together. “Terror Regime was when we really started finding ourselves. We went with better producers, got better mixes and it really opened our eyes.” It’s taken them a long time to figure out their identity, but it was worth it. Eleventh album A Call To Arms is a testament to that.

“A Call To Arms is on the surface, about war, but it’s actually about us in the band staying together for so many years. Fighting to make it and putting in the work,” Dave says. “I think back to like 1985, going to record stores and flipping through the albums. I’d find the album covers I’d like and it was bands like SODOM, DESTRUCTION, CELTIC FROST, SEPULTURA…now I’ve got guys like Schmier and Max (Cavalera) appearing on my albums. It’s pretty cool. I can’t believe I pulled it off.”

A Call To Arms is for the death metal fan who likes things thoroughly uncomplicated. There are no acoustic introductions or progressive instrumentals for building atmosphere. It’s a collection of short, brutish songs about violence and death. Death Squad is a thrashy circle pitter, Maggot Infested reeks of CARCASS and Genocidal Imperium is a nihilistic fist-swinger. It’s the sound of a band who spent a lifetime on the fringes and are now more self-assured because of it. JUNGLE ROT are a band that could potentially show up at a hardcore all-dayer and nobody would complain about it.

“It’s typical JUNGLE ROT. We’ve perfected a style and we’re on our eleventh album now. It’s everything that we fought for. Our identity finally came together on the last three albums, you hear the first vocal, the first note, you know exactly what it is. It’s straight-up JUNGLE ROT you know, we want to fight and keep going. We really defined our style after so many years. We don’t want to change anything, we have a sound and a style and our identity is everything.”

Inevitably, with a name like theirs, there’s a big focus on war and the horror that comes with it. They’re not glorifying human conflict, if anything they make it sound disgusting and evil and unquestionably bad. “With a name like JUNGLE ROT you can’t really get away from war. We’re always going to have some war-related topics in our songs. We not pro-war or anything, The name comes from my uncle, who was in Vietnam. He used to tell stories about jungle rot.”

Despite finally reaping some of the rewards for his hard work though, Dave isn’t one to sit on his laurels. He’s got ambitions of playing the European festival circuit in 2023 and finally gracing all the stages he’s seen on YouTube. He’s also aware that now he’s reached his fifties, he’s not the same person he was when he started out:

“Going into this record I can tell my voice has changed. I hope it’s aging like fine wine but I can tell it’s getting higher. I’m still me and I can still do it, but my voice is changing. I’m in my fifties now and I hope I’m not gonna become one of those guys who just can’t pull it off anymore.”

JUNGLE ROT are never going to be as big as METALLICA. They won’t headline stadiums or become global megastars, but after paying their dues way past the point where most bands would give up, they’re proof that a willingness to put in the work eventually pays off. And if he could give any advice to young bands who are just starting out, it would be this:

“Try not to be gullible and don’t go signing contracts too quick. We got screwed over by some of the first few deals we made. To this day people are still making money off us for those first few albums. Don’t be naive, get a lawyer to go over them and don’t go jumping into things because in the long run you’re gonna suffer. It’s been twenty years and we’re still paying for it.”

A Call To Arms is out now via Unique Leader Records. 

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