If Unending Rotten Cycle by Putrevore isn’t the sound of the dead clawing their way out of their graves to form a Death Metal band, then I don’t know what the fuck is. This record is everything its title promises—endless decay, festering rot, and an unholy cycle of brutality that devours itself again and again. It is a sonic thesis on decomposition, a masterclass in making the most vile, sickening concepts sound terrifyingly beautiful. This isn’t just music; it’s a necrotic process set to a relentless, bone-shattering rhythm.
Putrevore, for those who’ve somehow avoided their diseased shadow, are not just another Brutal Death Metal project. They are a collaboration between the mad genius Rogga Johansson (yes, that Rogga, of Paganizer, Revolting, Ribspreader, etc.) and the guttural titan Dave Rotten (Avulsed). This basically means this isn’t just Brutal Death Metal—this is Brutal Death Metal played by reanimated corpses with the unholy precision of necromantic craftsmen who’ve spent decades perfecting the sound of decomposition. The combined experience of these two veterans doesn’t just bring technical skill; it brings an understanding of the genre’s primal blueprint, an ancestral knowledge of the pit.
From the moment the opening track, No Mourning the Grace, vomits itself into existence, Unending Rotten Cycle lurches forward like a maggot-infested juggernaut. It’s a work of intentional, textural filth.
The guitars are a monolithic wall of decomposition —thick, tar-like distortion dripping with bile and grave mould. This isn’t trebly buzz; it’s a dense, suffocating sound mass that demands physical resistance. The low end is crucial here: the bass gurgles beneath it like the digestive system of a decaying god, a thick, palpable presence that gives the entire album its immense weight and subterranean grounding. The low-frequency rumble is less a musical instrument and more an acoustic representation of seismic activity under a graveyard.
The drums, meanwhile, are relentless: a war machine forged from bone and rust, grinding through every riff with skull-crushing authority. The production allows the drums to retain a raw, punishing snap, ensuring they don’t simply vanish into the guitar sludge. They drive the ‘cycle’ forward, a metronome marking the time between life and putrescence.
And then there’s Rotten’s voice. Jesus wept. If Satan ever had a sink, and it got blocked by the remains of a thousand damned souls, it would gargle and choke like this. Every growl is subterranean, every guttural roar sounds like it’s being dredged up from Hell’s own plumbing system. It’s not just deep—it’s elemental. It occupies a space lower than human speech, more akin to the sound of waterlogged corpses being dragged across concrete. The kind of vocal delivery that makes your internal organs want to file for divorce.
Rotten’s delivery is a perfect match for the lyrical themes of endless decay. It’s not about angry screaming; it’s about suffering made resonant. He is the translator for the damned, giving voice to the voiceless horror of biological disintegration. It’s a performance of absolute commitment to the vile aesthetic.
But what truly separates Putrevore from the countless imitators crawling through the filth is focus. This isn’t a sonic tantrum without direction. Every riff, every tempo shift, every breakdown feels designed—sculpted from putrescence but arranged with a terrifying sense of structure.
Beneath the sludge and savagery lies true musicianship, the kind of understanding that only veterans of the Death Metal trenches could achieve. They know exactly when to maintain the blinding pace and when to drop the floor out from under you with a lurching, doom-laden riff. This precision is what makes the album so suffocatingly heavy. They weaponize the slower tempos, making the transition feel like being crushed beneath a hydraulic press rather than simply taking a break from the blasting.
Tracks like Beneath These Graves and Cult of the Tentacle are thunderous, relentless, and grotesquely addictive. They exemplify the band’s mastery of the groove hidden within the gore. Even when the pace drops into mid-tempo stomps, it still sounds like the Earth itself collapsing under the weight of its own rot. The rhythmic certainty transforms the auditory experience from simple aggression into something profoundly ritualistic. You are not just listening; you are submitting to the cycle.
And that’s the hideous, beautiful truth of Unending Rotten Cycle—it’s ugly, it’s vile, it’s monstrous, but it’s also undeniably alive. It breathes decay. It is the sound of the grave made flesh, of the rotting turned rhythmic. It’s not a celebration of death, but an unflinching document of what comes after, delivered with the merciless perfection of two masters who know exactly how heavy rot can sound.
Unending Rotten Cycle by Putrevore is available November 11th via Xtreem Music.
CHOICE CUT: Morbid Procession
BLACK METAL ARCHIVES VERDICT: Unending Rotten Cycle is unholy perfection: heavy as sin, rancid as a corpse, and executed with a precision that only the truly damned could muster.
PRESS SOURCE: Imperative PR.
