Review: Eternal Rot “Cadaverine” [Godz ov War Productions]

Just a glance at the artwork surrounding Eternal Rot’s debut album Cadaverine tells you that the contents are not going to be pleasant. The sleeve captures a grotesque fiend climbing out of his tombstone and the sound created by this UK/Polish alliance is every bit as deathly.

This really is music, if that’s not overstating things, for the dispossessed and the damned. Eternal Rot’s tempo is relatively stationary. The power and aggression come from the marauding atmosphere and the demonic feel of the songs, which could loosely be described as hellish. This is the first full length release from the pairing of multi-instrumentalist Peter Mayer and glass-munching vocalist Grindak.

Cadaverine is a gut-chugging gorefest, made all the more impressive due to the haunting crushing mood that prevails throughout. And with Eternal Rot it’s not that the lyrics are unintelligible, it’s more a case of vocals – at least on opener “Undying Desolation” – being swallowed whole by a set of skins that take a prolific pounding and messed up guitar arcs that could hook a salmon.

Within this devilish cocktail there are vocal strands but Grindak’s growls are summoned from the very depths of his lost soul, and are so black as to be barely detectable amidst a sweltering asphalt cauldron of foreboding.

With titles such as “Their Decaying Eyes” and “Putrid Hallucination” there’s never much chance of the dark swirls drifting away. The atmosphere created by Eternal Rot is soul destroying with its almost painfully repetitive riff streams.

At nine minutes, “Slough Of Despond” is the longest of the four tracks, opening with an almost bestial belch before a deep rumbling throb starts to infiltrate your open pores. The incessant pounding is reminiscent of Conan although the rivers that flow through Cadaverine are straight from Satan’s back passage.

If you can handle the tumultuous tablets of doom created by the likes of Monolithian and Bell Witch then Eternal Rot’s rumbling grooves of death and decay will certainly give your neck muscles a workout to remember.

https://youtu.be/7VHqcH9TSs4