A Diminutive Double Death Doom Do-Si-Do
Fun size death metal EPs >>>>>>>>> “fun” size Halloween candy.
We’ve elaborated at length these past few weeks about how autumn is the season for black metal, what black metal to pair with your oat milk latte, yadda yadda blah blah blah etc etc. However, just because temperatures are dropping and nights are lengthening up in the northern half of the globe doesn’t mean we need to go full corpse paint yet. There’re still plenty of hours in the day to get grimey and slimey with death metal. And fear not, dear Toileteers! These two gloomy, sometimes doomy, bite-sized slabs of death metal won’t break that seasonal melancholy you’ve been propagating like so much patchy, wispy no-shave November neck hair.
2021 Demo — Void Witch
First up we have a potent shot of witch’s brew straight from the cauldron of Austin, Texas’ Void Witch. This 2-song demo of catchy melodic death-doom will have you shambling n’ sliding like our multi-legged friend on the album cover. That is to say I doubt many of you are particularly graceful dancers, but I don’t suspect that will stop y’all once your hear these seductive harmonies. While this fits squarely under the death doom umbrella, there’re ample tempo changes throughout these two songs that keep things moving, grooving, and intriguing. This demo is so fecund with riffs one of the genre tags is “big fucking balls metal”. Should have called themselves this Particularly Well-Endowed Witch.
Standout moment: The time change at 1:40 leading up to That Riff at 2:01 of “My Coffin Overfloweth”. Mmmm. Also see 3:17.
Dissolved Hyphae—Congealed Putrescene
Let’s head across the border to NOLA to sink our mycelia into some fungal death metal courtesy of Congealed Putrescene. One degree of separation away from Toilet darlings A Novelist, Congealed Putrescene doesn’t have any of those fancy smancy saxophones or clean vocals. Nosiree, this is dense, chitin-laced, heterotrophic Death Metal in the vein of Undeath. It is here to blast you with riffs and remind you that fungi can and will try to end you, endothermic metabolism be damned. Point in case, the third song “Amanita bisporigera” refers to a species of gilled mushroom colloquially known as “the destroying angel”. This is undoubtedly the most metal common name given to any organism and also precludes the need for further review and analysis of the music. Slap that play button and prepare for fungal-fueled destruction.
Standout moment: 1:11-1:55 of “Dissolved in Hyphae”. The hi-hat counting down to the absolutely nasty drum+ riff beatdown at 1:21 will have you head banging quicker than you can say “basidiomycetes”.
