The Faithless

How about this? Deteriorot (an awesomely goofy band name if ever there was one) have been around almost since the springtime of death metal, but have only just got around to their second album, apparently owing to being jerked around by labels if Xtreem’s promo write-up is to be believed. I’d be surprised if the name rang many bells (certainly didn’t for me), and so it’s quite easy to write the band off as one of the genre’s long-serving also-rans. But do so at your peril, because whilst this is hardly the type of band that would have substantially impacted a scene already dominated by Morbid Angel or Obituary, it ultimately defies attempts to consign it to plucky underdog status.

For this demonstrates a grimy, old-school flair that does let the band sound like they could compete with the giants of the artform not on riffs or ferocity but sheer ugliness alone. On The Phantoms Cry they expertly construct a heaving, pained slugathon of a tune; opening with a creaking Entombed-coated-in-sludge wheeze, it rattles its way down into a slow and unpleasant churn over which a pasty, tuneless lead guitar wails. It’s the latter type of trudging numbers at which Deteriorot excel, providing a medium through which they can really create some menace- as with the excellent title track. Paul Zavaleta’s overbearingly harsh vocals are the perfect complement to this- a delivery which could imbue even the most unthreatening of riffs with a semblance of death metal horror, and which generates a feeling of real oppression around the better riffs on display here. Witness Beyond this Emptiness, which, with its keening lead lines almost sounds like a gasping, Scandinavian funeral doom number- an impression cunningly juxtaposed with dissonantly grooving riffs.

Like Triptykon, I think Deteriorot becomes a less distinctive band when they ratchet up the intensity tempo-wise. Tunes like Into the Abyss of Sorrow only really come alive once they’ve slowed down. But the more I listen to this the more I think the band understand that perfectly and play confidently to these strengths. The obvious exception is the high-energy galloping slaughter of their Outbreak of Evil cover, which has a real heavyweight gruffness that works very well. We close with the mesmerising and sinister Alone and Cold- a wonderfully painful listening experience, as grindingly lethargic guitar flailings bring The Faithless to a gruesome close. It’s a tour de force of deep unpleasantness, and a wonderful way of bringing this album to a climax- or perhaps a funereal, lumbering nadir. Excellent.