Eternal Rot - Moribound Review - Metal Utopia

Band: Eternal Rot
Album: Moribound
Label: Memento Mori/Godz ov War
Genre: Death/Doom
Country: International
Release Date: July 24th, 2023
For Fans Of: Gateway, Coffins, Rippikoulu

If you’re like me, you’ve consumed so much extreme media that you’ve become completely desensitized. Maybe it’s a product of being part of the growing-up-with-the-Internet generation, but not much seems to faze me – be it horror, gore, or whatever else. This phenomenon is mirrored in my music taste as well. Extreme metal is supposed to be exactly that: extreme. But over the course of years, it becomes so familiar that not much surprises you. That is- until something unique comes around.

Eternal Rot began as a fairly straight-forward death/doom band in 2012, but have since morphed into something quite fascinating. The band consists of three Polish musicians, and their new album Moribound is their third full-length offering. The band combines their lurching death/doom riffs with some of the most unique vocals I’ve heard in a long time. If you told me the vocals on this record were actually samples from zombie movies, I would believe you. The vocals consist of throaty snarls and creaky gurgles drenched in reverb that sound convincingly inhuman. The stereo-panned clicking noises and reverberating creaks are genuinely unsettling, like you’ve awoken some undead creature from its slumber.

Eternal Rot have expanded on their sickening formula with Moribound. On many of the tracks we hear bouncy, back-breaking riffs more familiar to brutal death metal, but the greatest curveball is on the third track, “Swollen Corpse Adoration”. The track features a solo in the first 30 seconds, and by two minutes in we’re treated to a groovy pentatonic lead that signals a transition to a sludge metal-influenced breakdown that is honestly so much fun. It caught me off-guard at first, but as I listened to it more it totally fits, and gives a lot of personality to a nasty, inhuman-sounding record.

Through and through, this record is repulsive, purulent, filthy, drag-you-through-the-mud death metal that solidly succeeds in its goal of crushing you in a disgusting muck. It’s neck-breaking, stomach-churning, knuckle-dragging death metal for those of us who prefer horror movies to snuff films. From the atmosphere created by the reverb and delay effects, to the inhuman vocals and the monumental guitar tone, this thing is a beast you’re gonna want to hear.

Rating: 7/10

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