Masters of Moral - Servants of Sin

Don’t let the groove-lovers blurr your judgement, this one hell of a reunion album!

When it came to my ears that Pungent Stench had reunited I was afraid that they’d release an album like Club Mono Bizarre, filled with decent but rather monotone rocking groove. Fortunately the band decided to write and record an album which incorporated all styles they’d played in the nineties.

In contrast to an earlier masterpiece like Been Caught Buttering this time one cannot describe some songs as just fast (except for opener “Loot, Shoot, Electrocute”) or slow. The paces within songs are all over the place and the band presents us some very dynamic but compact songs.

It is very hard to name some best songs here, since all the songs do have their own specific qualities and highly memorable moments. Mostly I prefer to play “Loot, Shoot, Electrocute” and “Rex Paedophilus” because I can’t stop banging my head to these songs but in all honesty the entire album is of consistent quality.

The lyrics aren’t as brutal (or 'funny') as we were used from this band and some are even pretty generic. But that really doesn’t matter because the music in itself is almost enough to do the trick here. The artwork and the whole ‘eerie Christian pedophile’ atmosphere surroundign the album however is marvellous and I especially like the pictures in the booklet. There is no other death metal band with their sense of humour AND style!

The performance was surprisingly good. Alex Wank has never played this tight on a Pungent Stench album and Martin Schirenc’s riffs are slightly more technical than before. A logical development from the perspective of growning musical experience. Martin’s vocals however are slightly less manic than before but that is a minor complaint.

Remember this is a 2001 album, so the production was of course a lot more ‘professional’ than their early works. But it’s stull brutal and natural enough! In terms of quality and memorability this album is up there with “For God Your Soul” but not close to “Been Caught Buttering”. So that’s pretty good for a reunion album!!

This was the first album I ever heard with Pungent Stench and I bought it because I read about Pungent Stench in a Terrorizer magazine. It didn´t cost a lot but man this album is great!

The production is clean and everything is audible but it doesn´t sound clinical which is a good thing. Most of the songs vary quite a lot in tempo and riffing so they never get boring and the riffs are great. The guitar sound is crunchy and dry and is backed up by the bass in a good way, in fact bass and guitar melts together so you can feel the bass more than you can actually hear it. Don Cochino's vocals are a real high-light to this album. Raspy and dark but still understandable and he manages to sound kind of mean so it really backs up the lyrics, especially on "Rex Peadophilus".
The drums also sound good but the bass has kind of a clicking sound but it doesn´t get annoying. The lyrics are also something that really impressed me when I first read them. They are about very typical subjects but still come off fresh and also kind of amusing. The music in itself is old-school death metal but with some good twists to it and as I said the songs are varied in tempo and range from slow to midpaced to fast... well that covers almost everything I suppose except the hyper-speed blasting that many bands like to use today.

This is a great album and one of their best. If you have heard older Pungent Stench but didn´t like it then give this album a try and if you are a big fan of the older records and don´t like this one then give it a chance or ten.