Rotting in Hell

One of my absolute all time favorite date metal releases Rotting In Hell is an extremely well done and crushing slab of death metal. What I love about this album is that it is almost like a mash up of all the classic old school death metal bands but still manages to be fresh and original. There is clear Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, and Immolation influence but Deteriorate brings their own raw and primitive energy to the table on this release.

The album starts with "Agonized Display" which is has some of the most pummeling riffs in 90s death metal. There even seems to be kind of a New York hardcore vibe going on directly after the first verse which is really cool and interesting and reminds me of early All out War. The vocals have layering effects going on all throughout the album and the singer Mike Trush has a very unique approach. It's not a guttural approach but more of a yell with high screams layered on top at times. Another thing to mention is the lyrics on this album. The satanic lyrics are so impactful and seem to hold more significant where as a lot of times that whole aesthetic can come off as cringe. The song "Cannibal Autopsy" has a gnarly breakdown toward the end and the lyrics are inspired by the old Italian cannibal flicks of the 70s/80s which is cool. The highlight of the album for me is the last track "Decomposed Anatomy". Strait up gnarly Cannibal Corpse style riffs with a great song structure and punishing and nasty chorus. This is an absolute must listen for death metal fans and it is quite a shame this release doesn't get a bit more recognition when it comes to early 90s death metal.

Holy crap this is an absolute lost classic. I hadn't heard of these champs until I got the JL America comp called "Brutal Aggression." What I love about a lot of JL America's releases is that they captured a very specific era in death and black metal that was and is very representative of the past and the future of what would become of the genres and bands that JL America represented. Back when JL America seemed to clamor to get these releases out, it was a level playing field between bands like Immortal and Goatlord, or Masters Hammer and Nokturnel. In addition, it wasn't only the label that was representing the US and European scene so honestly, but each of the bands represented their own niches within a plethora of genres in such a remarkably bold manner that each JL America and Turbo USA release still stands as a pertinent bookmark in the timeline of metal. Immortal's "Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism" represented the budding Norwegian scene that would grow to dominate the black metal scene. Let me get back to Deteriorate. What my point boils down to is that "Rotting in Hell" stands as a good example of what a lot of great underground death metal bands were doing in 92 / 93.
To start things off the right way, "Rotting in Hell" opens with a morbid intro of distorted screams over an ambient death wind. After about a minute of this the pummeling death machine that is Deteriorate rolls into town. The excellent production on this is immediately evident. The drums are clear as a bell, the guitar tone is thick, crunchy, and powerful. The vocals are artfully given a great stereo trick here the left speaker is a millisecond delayed from the right. It does for the vocals what reverb or delay does but without compromising any clarity and the decay is immediate. For the rest of the album you're going to bang your head the entire time as "Rotting in Hell" offers up a bottomless bucket of chunk, sludge, and sick melody. Your dinner also comes with a complementary choice of blastbeats, skank sections, or hooky breakdowns.
All in all I think its sort of redundant for me to dissect this album and tell you all about every single second of it. Its just an absolute death metal classic and you'd be a total fool not to pick it up if you ever get the chance. The chance might be rare because JL America stuff is sort of rare, but right now Deathgasm Records has a ton of JL America stuff on sale after he unearthed a bunch of it in a recent buyout. Also I don't have a weblink for an official Deteriorate site but I recently heard they are still together with a different vocalist.

While no one would ever accuse Deteriorate of being original in the lyrical, song titles, or cover art departments, they still showed some promise musically on Rotting In Hell. The one thing that stands out most about this album, considering the time frame it was released, are the vocals. While every band and their mother was trying to top each each other in the "I can growl lower then you can" game, Deteriorate employed a hoarse, raspy "Wicked Witch of the West" style of vocal exhortation. As for the music, Deteriorate really stood out from many of the bands overcrowding the Death Metal scene in the early 90's. Catchy riffs are spread throughout, laced with tight solos in certain places, to create an album of fierce, melodic Death Metal. Out of the 10 tracks, "Decomposed Anatomy," the final track, stands out the most to me. 2 things prevent me from giving this a perfect 100 score. First off, some of the blast beats just come off sloppy and out of sync with the rest of the music. Second, the "let's moan and scream like idiots" vocal passages the band uses in a few of the tracks are laughable rather then scary. other then that, this one is a must have.

Due to the fact that JL America ceased operations long ago, this one has become extremely rare. I have seen it pop up in auctions from time to time in the last month or so, so that is your best bet in finding this rare gem.