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Epicardiectomy > Abhorrent Stench of Posthumous Gastrorectal Desecration > Reviews
Epicardiectomy - Abhorrent Stench of Posthumous Gastrorectal Desecration

Czech Guttural Slam Indeed! - 90%

cphltrpsy, November 20th, 2022

This is absolutely one of the best albums by one of the best slam bands ever! Epicardiectomy (especially this era of their music) frequently faces criticism as "stupid" and "wigger-ish" but I completely disagree. I think that while this release didn't "save" slam (as many would have you believe) this is easily one of the best third wave slam albums and definitely deserves a listen.

Let's start with the vocals. They aren't your typical slam gurgles, in fact I would bet money they aren't anywhere NEAR the epiglottal gutturals found almost ubiquitously in the genre. They sound like pretty standard inhale gutturals and have a particularly "lush" sound to them that I enjoy to no end. Epicardiectomy's first vocalist gets a lot of hate for the way he dresses and for his "boring" vocals but I personally love both aspects and find them very different and refreshing compared to what I tend to hear and see in death metal.

Next, the guitars. The guitarist writes a very fun, catchy selection of incredibly tasty Cephalotripsy-esque riffs (mostly centered in the lower half-octave of the lowest two strings on his guitar but hey, it's slam). The guitar's tone is monstrous and thick, with a very nice crunchy distortion to it. Overall, the guitars are outstanding.

Finally, the part everyone seems to love: the drums. The drumming on this album is great, but I honestly don't see why everyone thinks of them as so amazing. Obviously, they're above average for slam-death, especially with the almost comical amount of cymbals on the drummers kit, but I don't see them as the god-level perfection most people seem to see them as. I definitely think they work as well as they could within the context of the album but other than some interesting cymbal and snare grooves that show up occasionally, they're pretty a pretty standard double-kick-snare-on-third slam pattern. Not that there's anything wrong with that, for the record. I love slam, that's why I listen to Epicardiectomy, but I just don't understand the absolutely massive hype around the drums on this album. Great drums for sure, but Milan is no god.

The mix is pretty much perfect for slam. The only gripes I have is that the vocals can be a little quiet, especially if I'm listening in my car, and that there's no real bass, but overall neither of those are deal-breakers for me. Theres a healthy mixing of 808 drops in this album, and I like those a lot.

The song-writing is great, but repetitive. Sometimes when listening through this album, I have a hard time distinguishing when one track ends and the next begins, but every track is genuinely enjoyable and I find myself head-banging along to every single one.

Overall, fantastic (if unrefined) debut from a fantastic band. This album only loses points because it can sound a bit same-y and for the previously stated mixing issues.

Standout tracks: Ulcerous Cadaveric Decrepitation, Vaginal Colony Full of Vermin

The epitome of repulsive magnificence - 96%

deathmetal69_, July 5th, 2020

Nothing like some good ol' Epicardiectomy. Loved by some, hated by some. I couldn't give a fuck less about what the haters have to say about this band, because this album is a true slammer's gold mine. People who shit on this band are losers, especially if they like slam themselves but dislike this band, which I don't understand at all. Anyone who's given me crap for loving this band can suck my cock and lick the balls. Epicardiectomy is awesome and it sucks for the people who don't see that. On this album, Epicardiectomy provides us with some satisfying slams, nasty ass tones, a rotten atmosphere, and catchy songs. For slam, this band is extremely ideal and essential. This album is the start of a god tier band's discrographic journey.

The main feature and reason why this album is so great is that the songwriting is solid and top notch. The drumming is swift, brutal; it's the entire package. The guitar has a loose and grainy feel, but it's still pretty damn awesome and makes for a nastier sound than it already has. (The vocals are awesome too, but the main focus right now is the music). A great example of what I'm taking about is the start of Fornicating in Pulverized Feces, (which is the BEST SONG on the album by the way). The short introductive drum beat that unleashes into 4 slam strokes on the guitar, then the double kicking, super fast and rigid snare blasting, and more relentless/faster slam riffing occurs. THAT'S what I'm fucking talking about, THAT'S what I love here. Most the songs have parts like that, and I'm in absolute love with it. A slightly different take/style of slam, basically Cephalotripsy but altered a little, along with some catchy as hell, head-banging-induced drumming and riffing? Yes please!

Milan, the star of the band, is a cool drummer. I love how he has absolutely no toms on his drumset at all, and relies on beats only. His playing style is unique, and he makes it work! He sure is talented and definitely a special take from the sea of brutal death metal drummers. No toms? No problem! That's how Milan goes about his work, and it makes me appreciate him even more than I already do. Love this guy!

The vocals are great but pretty damn controversial, especially to those who arent familiar with this album. Like I said in my other review for their pre-debut demo Ulcerous Cadaveric Decrepitation, he sounds like he's hocking up a fat loogie, like he's pushing himself to do some nasty slam vocals while he's sick, that's how the vocals sound. I appreciate the nastiness that Tom has in his vocals, and they couldn't fit any better on this album. Along with the catchy and awesome songwriting like I previously mentioned, the vocals that accompany the music are so good. Swift and energetic drumming, relentless + catchy slam riffing, and toilet bowl sinus infection-induced gurgles. Absolutely delicious and orgasmic to my ears.

Now I'm definitely not a fan of rap/hip-hop, but this album is (to an extent) the embodiment of rap/hip-hop beats, but created in the format of slam brutal death metal. Insanely catchy drum beats that accompany the fun and hooking riffs that walk along every measure. Every track is destined to get your head banging, and if you're listening to this and you're not banging your damn head, or even moving your head along with the beat, then I have no idea what to say, I can only react in confusement and dissapointment.

Instrumentation is on point and each member provided their share equally. Good songs, good playing, good everything. May be iffy sometimes and may not be as god as usual if you're listening while not in the mood, but at the end of the day this is a killer album, and it deserves every last bit of love and attention it gets. Can't forget the cover art either, I can say for a fact that it's the perfect art for an album that sounds like this. The art is pretty gross and horrid, and that's exactly the vibe that the music gives off when you listen to it. Sickening and rotted slam with cover art that matches the putrid music. Gross album cover, gross music. When I listen to this album, the fast repulsive slamming sickness creates the image of and makes me feel like I'm going through a wicked intense surgery! Great album that blesses my ears.

Abhorrent Stench of Posthumous Gastrorectal Desecration was made to be cool, catchy, awesome, and one of the best and iconic slam albums ever. If you're not familiar with the album it will probably take some time to get into and appreciate. This album is slightly raw, and some need time to get used to the overall sound and production (even though it's not bad and there's little to NO ISSUE at all). This is always an album I'll love, I want to call this my favorite by them, but I can't choose between this and their 3rd album Grotesque Monument of Paraperversive Transfixion. Both records are far too perfect.

Hail Epicardiectomy, one of the kings of slam brutal death metal. Cheers to them and their style of slam. They need to keep releasing new music if it's gonna be THIS good! \m/

Best Songs:
Fornicating in Pulverized Feces
Vaginal Colony Full of Vermin
Gobbling the Erupted Intestinal Mash
Phallus Decapitation
Feasting on Putrid Hysterectomy Remnants

My rating is the same as their tabs. - 0%

Palecompanion2001, May 9th, 2017
Written based on this version: 2012, CD, Coyote Records

When it comes to slam, I am not a huge fan of it. While I like a few bands for fun, most of it is fucking terrible. Epicardiectomy is the prime example of terrible slam. While they use the whole "Wigger" imagery, I find a lot of slam bands who use that imagery to suck, but not suck this bad. First off, can we take a second to recognize how terrible this artwork is? It was a super big turn off when I first saw it. I regret ever trying to give this album a chance. Slam tends to use the shock factor quite a bit in album artwork and that's fine. Just do not over due it to the point I literally want to cover up the screen while writing this. The album artwork isn't gross or anything, it just isn't easy to look at. Also, why such a long title? I doubt your fans want you to repeat this entire title for a recommendation. I really hope these guys are not trying to be serious.

Onto the actual music, the album itself is one of the worst I have ever heard. Who thought it was a good idea to give these guys the proper equipment to record? The album is nothing special at all, very bland riffs, super chuggy the entire way through, the drummer seems to only know how to do blast beats with a trash can, and the vocalist probably just inhaled his way in one tone you can barely hear. Slam is a fun concept, if used in moderation. There are great slam bands with fun vocals, good production, and actually try to use song writing ability throughout. This album just seems like it was written in two hours and just went with it. So bland it made me want to turn it off thirty seconds into the first song. Actually I retract that statement, because thirty seconds into the first song was a sample. Which leads me to my next point.

Do these guys know how to use samples correctly? You don't need a minute long sample at the beginning of each fucking song. Use them in moderation, if it has to do with the back story to the song great, I will listen. If you just use them to fill up time and use uninteresting samples I am going to consider you lazy. The first sample doesn't even say something. It just sounds like farting and someone getting eaten. I don't understand why that was needed, but you do you. Like I want to hear samples that really tell the story of the song, but if all your songs are giant words and medical terms having to do with guts and sexual organs that no one has ever even heard of, then I doubt a sample is necessary. It really shows a lack of songwriting ability and I find it as just a filler to make it seem like "Oh yeah guys we can write a long album! The only catch is half of it is going to be shitty samples!" Now yes it is over exaggerating but it just seems like samples take a lot of their songs.

The music is god awful itself, the guitar is just chugging and has a terrible tone the entire time. I don't know if they think are passable as riffs, but I am here to break the news that they are not. It is just lazy and generic, shows very little talent from the guitarist. Bass also seems to be absent from this mess of an album so that's one less thing I need to rag on. When it comes to death metal, riffs are the most important factor. Without a starting riff you don't have a start to any song. It is never worked any way else, you need to be creative to write something interesting. The guitarist just thought it would be good to chug without doing any thing else, not only for one song. The entire album is full of chugging and nothing else! Luckily for you, I am here to tell you that before you decide to put on this miserable disgrace for an album.

The drums... Oh god the drums. The drums on this record are worse than the first Waking The Cadaver album. It just blast beats with a really high pitched sounding snare with terrible mixing. Why the fuck has it become a trend for slam bands to use trash can snares? It doesn't sound good. I really just get bored and irritated that all he does is blast beat throughout the album. Add some diversity dammit. Blast beats are only good in small doses here and there, same way with chugs. Very lazy excuse of a drum track when literally the instrumentals sound mostly the same. They go fast with chugs and blast beats for about two minutes, and then a generic ping of the ride bell. Then they go on to act like it is a breakdown or a "slam" but they have been doing that same fucking "riff" and blast beat the entire song.

The vocals are more garbage than you can fit in that trash can snare the drummer has. Sounds like he is doing an inhale gurgle the entire damn time. If you are going to do vocals, for Christ's sake do not do inhales. They never sound good, ever. If he exhaled and actually tried to use some effort I would give the album some justice, but that isn't the case. This band seems to like to do the same thing over and over again every damn song and try to pass it off as an album. Get a good tone and use it, just don't inhale. I don't mind using the same type of vocals over and over again. For the love of god do not do gurgles the entire time though. It isn't good and uses no effort in trying to be unique.

I have hope for this band, they have potential if they stop putting out repetitive shit. They seem to have a new vocalist that exhales so that excites me. This album is the worst I have ever heard, but I will not disregard their further releases because they do have potential.

Could've been better. - 70%

LeMiserable, December 6th, 2014
Written based on this version: 2012, CD, Coyote Records

Believe me when I say that me not really liking this album is not because I don't like slam. I like slam. It's been popping up more and more amongst my "yet to play" playlists in Spotify and I'm really starting to stumble on gems that make slam a worthwhile genre to explore. Sure, it's about 95% made up of completely awful bands that do nothing but rip off Devourment and consider In The End Of Human Existence to be the genre's very own Ride The Lightning, but hidden in that remaining 5% are bands and albums that are more than worth your time to explore and give a listen. While I definitely feel Epicardiectomy are amongst the better bands from the genre, they're not exactly a band I like all that much. There's nothing wrong with the band, their way of playing slam is one of the purest possible, but this album suffers from some flaws that keep it from being a personal favourite by quite a margin. Epicardiectomy are arguably the best slam band out there in terms of understanding the genre though, because they managed to create an album that's 32 minutes long, but (excluding the intro samples) spends only 7 seconds NOT PLAYING A SLAM. That basically means this album is the most archetypical slam record the genre will ever see.

But that's also where my biggest problem with this album lies...when you've got a record that spends 99,9% of the time doing nothing else but slamming, it tends to get really tedious after a while. I can sit through about 3-4 songs on this album, and then I usually get bored or wander off because I feel I've heard most of what it has to offer. This fucking lives by its slams exclusively. Everything here is a fucking slam. You want 2 slams connected together? Let's throw in a slam! You want to speed shit up? Let's throw in a slam! You see, everything that's happening here is a fucking slam. That in itself could work if the slams themselves were catchy enough to keep my attention for as long as this takes...but that just doesn't really happen to be the case. The slams themselves are impressive, I can't deny that. Epicardiectomy play about a gazillion slams on this album, and none of them are quite the same as another in how the patterns are aligned. This is not something you'll immediately hear on the first few spins because it does really get boring after a while, but once you give this more and more time you'll slowly find out no slam sounds quite the same.

I might be contradicting myself right now, but really...the slams aren't the problem. It's the production job. I find this to be very unfitting for a slam album. The guitar tone is ridiculously muffled and sounds like someone put a bag over the recording equipment and it takes away some of the punch I like slams to have. Sure, it's a heavy guitar tone, it's ridiculously bassy and brutal enough, but it's a bit too restrained in how aggressive it sounds. It genuinely sounds like you're listening to somebody playing this album around the corner. It just doesn't quite crackle, scream or hit you hard enough. It's just not sufficiently punchy. It's also thick, creating a sort of layer that makes basically every slam sound alike, even when they're clearly different. The tone is still efficient enough to render the bass guitar entirely redundant, which is actually good because you can't fucking hear it anyway.

I find it ridiculously hard to explain what the drummer does. He doesn't really get to shine through enough. That's arguably not even the point of a slam album, but they come off as merely a factor to increase the capacity of the slams being thrown at you more than an actual drummer benefitting the entire album. He just doesn't quite get to do anything to make this album notable beyond the slams, meaning that this album could have easily utilized a drum machine and still be as effective as it is now, and that's never really a good thing on a metal album, is it? I kinda have the same issue with the vocalist. Slam vocalists aren't known for having an identity because they tend to sound alike, but this album pushes this idea of a slam vocalist way too far. As for how he sounds; a drugged pig with a plastic bag over its head having its tail cut off is the best-fitting description I can find for the noises this guy vomits forth. I'm sure the guy is doing the best he can, but it just sounds fucking lazy and, like the drum kit, basically functions as nothing more than just decoration.

Slams being the centerpoint of an album is all the genre stands for, but when you're this extreme about staying true to that concept it just comes off as stupid to me. Sure, slams are the majority of an album like this, but when everything else is so goddamn basic and bland it just becomes increasingly annoying as the album moves on. And arguably even worse, the slams themselves aren't even that good overall. I could've cut this album some slack if the slams were the best thing ever, but they're not, and that makes this somewhat unexciting. There's better out there.

Czech it out, y'all - 79%

GuardAwakening, December 20th, 2013

Death metal has a lot of coverage for so many different playing styles and feels for each band. This whole side of death metal; the REALLY guttural brutal kind that you may recognize as "slam", is the type that really hits me in the right way. It's the side of death metal that I personally prefer the most. It's heavy as balls and it's catchy simultaneously. Czech slam allstars Epicardiectomy do not disappoint as both these two aspects are heard in their music in a very real, free way.

This band grew a big part of the scene as they played at festivals including Mountains of Death and even scored a solid tour during a European takeover. Basically, they were making magic live years before they even had the chance to give their already given fans a full-length record. Years later, with a signing by Coyote Records and an album packaged with cover art by Tony Koehl, these three dudes made their way off the stage and into the studio to really bring some solid shit to the ears of showgoers.

Epicardiectomy do what you would just expect on this blaring slampacked debut CD. Heck these boys even sound even better on the album than in the flesh, yet don't get this confused with the implement as to say they're "bad musicians" when I say that either. That is not the case, if anything, they inject some new life into the death metal world with this record. What I mean is Epicardiectomy are not one of those bands to just play grab-ass with their fans and rely on live backing tracks to make up for effects and their thereof lack of a bass player. This band employs no bassist so the bass parts on the album are handled by their guitarist as a result. But yet still deliver great sets despite the fact that their live shows are bass-free. Sadly enough though Sergey Gordeev does practically nothing more with his bass guitar than follow along with his guitar chords thus rendering the bass on this album just to eclipse the strength of everything that his guitar playing is doing. I mean there are studio-sampled faux bass drops provided by production just to give the strength of their music that powering umph when required to deliver that insanely violent slam when they want and need to. But the guitar chords are so thick and contain more than enough overtone to rid out the use of bass playing.

At least Gordeev's slamming style is not only catchy, but it's face bludgeoning. Albeit you can hear only his guitar and none of the bass, but he's massively talented at what he does without further to say. Not only the oldest of the band, but probably the most profound at what he does at the time of this album. Drummer Milan Moškon wasn't someone I enjoyed as much on this release as I did on the band's promo CD Deranged Self-Mutilating Emasculation, which was released one year following this album. Moškon's style just didn't impress me as much as he had done on the two tracks that they had on that release. Not only that, but unfortunately enough, the mix job for his kit wasn't incredible either. The bass drums sounded overpowering while his snare is quieter than his symbols. The "ding" sounds he makes with some of the tiny symbols he utilizes leaves at least some variety in the outcome, which is never the case with most slam drummers. Most drummers in any side of death metal that has a mass abundance for slam can just make all the sounds they need in just three drums. It was nice to have some breath of fresh air in ths style he has. Also I feel the need to mention again that Moškon improved almost threefold following this album.

Vocals are really interesting, they have like a very muffling overtone while staying very dark and gurgling, which in turn doesn't even really sound much like a growl per se, but still is a guttural and brutal vocalization at that. If I could describe their singer, it would be to say that it sounds like this guy is sucking on the most brutal and blackest Slurpee in the world. Many people hate some forms of brutal death metal singers, mainly because of "burp" sounding vocals, but here it retains less of the belching approach and more of the "sucking through a straw" kind of sound. I won't complain about the vocals on this release, because I honestly do not mind the vocal performance whatsoever. Whatever tickles your pickle. This album was an enjoyable jam and kept me coming back countless more times after I had discovered and gave it its first listen a few months back. Big recommendation to Cephalotripsy and Cerebral Incubation fans.

As good as pure slam gets. - 68%

hells_unicorn, August 7th, 2013
Written based on this version: 2012, CD, Coyote Records

It's a bit hard to look on the brighter side of your life when you're an obese slob who is getting your entrails ripped out and feasted upon by another obese blob of a human, but it's at least worth a try. Carnage based album art may have been pioneered by Cannibal Corpse, but with the ongoing flowering of brutality in death metal of late, the once horrific album arts that adorned "Eaten Back To Life" and "Butchered At Birth" seem quite tame by comparison. Arguably the most comically ridiculous scenes of over-the-top gore and sordid acts are reserved for pornogrind and slam acts, and Epicardiectomy has arguably topped the bulk of their competition on the slam side of things with a truly grotesque, otherworldly scene that looks like it came right out of a homage to the early 90s sci-fi/horror film "Mindwarp".

Lyrically there isn't much to this outfit, as can be gleaned from the overlong and overtly descriptive title, but interestingly enough the vivid descriptions of murder and cannibalism are adorned with an even more primitive and one-dimensional musical approach. Forget any sense of flash or technical intrigue, save maybe an occasional pinch harmonic amid a continual barrage of extremely basic palm-muted power chords played at punishingly low pitches, this is the king of neanderthals when it comes to death metal, stylistically speaking. The overall sound is not quite as sludgy as a number of similar acts, possessing a guitar tone that isn't too far removed from mid-90s Pantera, and the drums are not quite as popping and tinny as what was heard out of Waking The Cadaver several years back, though it's definitely drawing upon a thin, higher end character indicative of a post-NYDM sound.

There are no meaningful distinctions between songs to be found on this relentless sea of sonic dismemberment, just an ongoing and undeveloped collection of faster and slower sections. The riffs don't really differ all that much, as the drums tend to dictate the overall character of the arrangement. Indeed, what often gives this album its sense of speed is how rapidly the machine-gun and blast beats overlap with the one-dimensional groove riffs. There is no bass player credited on this album, and if one was put in by a session musician, it's significantly buried underneath the incomprehensible gurgling and pounding drums, to the point where it can't be found. Given the depth of the guitar sound, any existent bass lines are not missed and would probably serve to morph this into the same sort of sludgy mess that is quite commonplace in brutal bands of late.

While I am not exactly the biggest fan of this style (mostly because it doesn't cut up the monotonous slam guitar lines with at least an occasional guitar solo or thrashing riff), I can say pretty confidently that this is one of the better pure slam albums to come out in the past couple of years. It's clearly geared towards fans of extreme slasher films and gore-infested horror, ergo the people who fast-forward through the dialogue sections in "Friday The 13th" and then proceed to watch the death scenes over and over. Don't expect any impressive feats of instrumental gymnastics like what is heard out of Cryptopsy or Dying Fetus, but do expect a ridiculously brutal experience that will make the "Saw" films seem quite tame by comparison.

who put the slam in the slamalamadingdong - 85%

caspian, July 31st, 2013

Writing a review for this is somewhat pointless- if you haven't already heard about this band based on reputation or that hilarious live clip floating around on youtube, it takes about 10 seconds after the hilarious intro (no idea if it's a sample, but it woulda been hilarious to record if not) to know exactly what you're in for this album. Slams, slams, slams, slamsslamsslamss slams of the simplest, catchiest, dumbest-est variety. If you like slams you will like this album, because that's what it does, whereas if you don't like slams then you won't like anything about this album, because there is nothing but slam.

Fortunately for me, I rather enjoy slam, and Epicardiectomy's take on it is such a catchy, well done, and surprisingly well-crafted take on the genre that it's basically impossible to dislike this. The slam-within-a-slam around the 3 minute mark of Fornicating... has to be one of the funnest, most entertaining moments in music for some time; this massive groovy slam thing that's already sick and perfect and crushing, and THEN A TEMPO DROP. A perfectly done fucken' tempo drop. Who would've thought a bunch of wigger caveman could come up with something so good? That said, it's worth getting back to "surprisingly well crafted" for a second. Not only do our Czech bros slam as hard as early Devourment or Cephalo or whomever, but they arrange the shit out of it. I like slam, I do, but it generally fails to keep my attention for all that long. This isn't anywhere near tech and there certainly aren't tempo changes out the anus but what there are are tempo changes juuust when it starts to get boring, a few million different feels, a drummer who knows exactly when to change things up and just when to SLAM (that massive slower slam in the closer track almost entering some sort of ritual, hypnotic slam-zen), basically it's one of the most retarded, yet well-thought-out albums out there. It's solid, consistently so.

There's still room for improvement though, still a fair bit. For one it'd certainly be interesting seeing more creative use of those EQ effects- the bass drops are simple, rarely done but tasty as- and I had this cool moment where I was cranking it through my headphones and it went all noisy and crackly on me. Sounded mean! I also think I preferred the much darker take that Cephalotripsy had- this is fun, and rather heavy, but it could certainly get a bit more menace into it. Perhaps it would be interesting to dump a heap of noise on a track, or get really intensely repetitive, to the extent that it almost drones? It's a simple formula- so much could be done with it!

I say stuff like that, but then you also realize that Epicardectomy are really bloody good at what they do. If I want dark, experimental slam I should probably just play it myself. Epicardectomy are what they are- retarded slams, all the time. Let's not take that away from them, eh?

If you don't know whether you want this album or not by now, I honestly wonder if you're decisive enough to get dressed every morning. Cheers!

The answer to infection - 100%

MutantClannfear, October 10th, 2012

For narrative purposes, let's temporarily imagine the brutal death metal scene as a whole as if it were a human being. It lives; it feels and loves; it possesses a physical body, the ability to speak, and all the other niceties that come with being a specimen of Homo sapiens. Sometime in 2010 or 2011, he checks into the hospital and the doctors, laying eyes upon his physical state, rush him to the emergency room. Over the next few days, he's hooked up to various bags of intravenous fluids, received numerous X-rays and biopsies, yet no one can make a diagnosis which would sufficiently explain all the various ailments he's facing.

Medically, he's accepted that his best days are behind him, by far: as he's aged, his Cephalotripsy cells have become cancerous and faded in efficiency, and have essentially stopped benefiting him entirely. His Cerebral Incubation cells, which would normally serve as an efficient backup, have been absent for a while. His body is attempting to create more, but it might very well be too late for him by the time enough are created. As a result, his immune system is left unshielded from the merciless garbage bacteria that would kill even the hardiest human, were they in such a state of weakness. He becomes tainted by rampant bacteria - "technical brutal death metal", they call them. They appear beneficial at first glance, but looks soon prove to be deceiving: these organisms do not slam viruses and bacteria as the Cephalotripsy cells once did, they blast it. These blasts, within the context of a brutal death metal scene's body, are like vitamins: essential in small doses, but in excess they contribute to internal chaos and general disruption. And yet they are running rampant, with Defeated Sanity and Condemned and Amerigorge bacteria spreading like wildfire throughout his body. Meanwhile, the world's greatest doctors and nurses congregate to debate methods that may save this man. They extract samples from cells superficially similar to Cephalotripsy cells - Abominable Putridity cells, to be more precise - and clone them, breeding hybrids such as Pathology, Katalepsy, Disfigurement of Flesh, and so on. They introduce these into the brutal death metal scene's bloodstream, only to discover far too late that Abominable Putridity is essentially a much weaker, mutated Cephalotripsy cell. These mutant cells are now running rampant in his body along with the technical brutal death metal bacteria, wreaking havoc on his organs and leaving him clinging to life with only the frailest of grips.

The doctors congregate one final time in a single room, House-style. They toss ideas around the table, and most are shot down. And then, one young Czech doctor, who's always been so relatively quiet at these meetings... He has it. His solution is quite simple, actually. Take a fully-functional Cephalotripsy cell. Now take another. And another. And another. Now splice them together, forcefully and with disregard for the potential consequences. It's an interesting proposal, and the doctors are up for the task. They retreat to the laboratory. On July 10th, 2012, the Czech man's mastermind is complete. Abhorrent Stench of Posthumous Gastrorectal Desecration is unveiled to the world.

This is exactly what the brutal death metal scene needs, and nothing else. Watching their genre face sickness and potential death, Epicardiectomy's first full-length looks at it and says "fuck that", except it's being shouted through a megaphone 6,000 miles wide and broadcasted to Earth from space, so in actuality it's more like "FUUUUCK THAAAAT". I typically don't believe in music genres having saviors or guardian angels, but I'll make an exception here - Epicardiectomy is the brightest glimmer of hope in a post-Cephalotripsy world.

I can see the PMs and emails now. "But MutantClannfear," they'll whine, "Cephalotripsy are still alive and well! How can you say this is a 'post-Cephalotripsy world'?" Perhaps it's not. But it's almost certainly a world in which Cephalotripsy have seemingly lost their interest in the BDM scene's conventions, and chosen to take to their own individual style within the genre. While Uterovaginal Insertion of Extirpated Anomalies is probably one of the best - and simplest - brutal death metal albums to have ever existed, their most recent promo from 2011 hints at a stranger beast. Sporting a surprisingly unrefined and barely-held-together production job, and time signatures that almost feel Meshuggah-ish in that they feel complex for complexity's sake, Cephalotripsy seem to be taking an almost Ulcerate-like direction with their music, creating a sort of brutal death metal that disregards the genre's catchiness while retaining the core BDM atmosphere of brutality and senseless violence. It can't be said that this couldn't be foreseen, because even on Uterovaginal Insertion of Extirpated Anomalies they wanked around with odd time signatures more than your average BDM band. 5/4 here, 7/4 there, a 20/4 over yonder. They were still being played within the context of a slam-driven band who took all their pointers from Devourment, though, and that's where the promo differs from it. The material itself is decent, but it's not the sort of stuff that I want to lead the genre into a new decade - I imagine that trying to do what Cephalotripsy do is very difficult, let alone doing it properly. Were other bands to fuck it up (and we all know they would), the BDM scene might truly experience its final gasps of air, as it would attempt to grasp at whatever experiments it could before finally conceding and dying. I've digressed a bit further than I intended, but this brings me to Epicardiectomy.

Epicardiectomy understand that brutal death metal, being a very primitive genre which probably took all of two seconds to conceptualize, had probably reached its qualitative peak within a year or two of its formal conception. A few other bands, such as Cerebral Incubation and Cephalotripsy, have also understood this in the past, and spent their days refining Devourment's early material instead of attempting to adapt the formula to the times. To put it quite simply, Epicardiectomy, and their seven-syllable name, do not gravity blast. They do not riff, they do not tremolo, they do not noodle. They slam. They slam and slam and just never fucking stop.

I was previously familiar with Epicardiectomy via their involvement on the Goresoaked Slamassacre split, and while they were probably the weakest band present there at the time, they've definitely stepped up their game and improved practically fucking everything. Essentially, this full-length is Uterovaginal Insertion of Extirpated Anomalies loaded up with enough PCP to kill a bull elephant thrice over. Cephalotripsy tune their guitars to something like B, Epicardiectomy tune to A (if not even lower). The vocals, while not really similar to Angel Ochoa's trademark drain gurgles, are a sort of muffled, vaguely Dying Fetus-ish growl/snarl that is just as potent (if not more so) at suiting the needs of slam death that is this fucking retarded. Basically, if you told me that these guys had never heard any music in their lives that wasn't by Cephalotripsy or Devourment, I'd believe you.

The slams (yes, I'm going to refer to all the guitar parts of this album as "the slams", because that's pretty much an accurate representation of what they are) are wonderfully constructed in all the various factors that go into their creation. First of all, the guitar tone. It's clear as crystal, it's got a faint bit of crunch, there's bass out the wazoo, and it's just all-around massive. Whereas Cephalotripsy's guitar tone mostly just crunches, with comparatively little bass involved, this is a lot closer to modern slam standards, featuring perfect amounts of just about everything. The slams draw from so many different aspects of brutal death metal that the idea of it ever getting stale is practically fantastical. Searching through the album's composition, you'll find, among others: momentous, fast slams backed by Cephalotripsy-esque rolls of double bass; slams that work around inserting triplets into a measure, similar to classic Devourment; stompy slam/breakdowns which are usually closer to home with bands like Dying Fetus than all-out BDM; and chuggy deathcore-ish slams backed by blast beats. But saying that there are four types of slams on this album is really an unfair way to look at it, because Epicardiectomy do so much to break the monotony of their music that it really should be more formally recognized.

Every single slam on Abhorrent Stench of Posthumous Gastrorectal Desecration has its own unique identity, shaped by one of the above four rhythms mixed with a bit of added flair. This flair comes in a few flavors, from the thick, aurally pleasing pinch harmonics (which are used here exactly as pinch harmonics should be in BDM - as accents, just as one would use a snare drum); to the subtly shifting and changing drum beats, which refuse to laze around and often fully develop themselves throughout the four measures in which a slam is played; to the alternating to palm muting and back from it (but really, from palm muting and back to it, since they do it so often), which throws a few clean, undistorted notes into the middle of the band's chugfests to catch you off guard; to a little extra dash of melody similar to that which early Waking the Cadaver employed, creating something which has musical value beyond a bunch of catchy half-steps up and down a scale; to the nice little EQ effects which occasionally pop in and out of the music, such as the absolutely delicious one near the end of "Gobbling the Erupted Intestinal Mash" which sort of floats through each of your ears, losing all its bass before gaining it all back suddenly with crushing force; to the massive, explosive bass drops the band throw in every once in a while just to remind you how fucking awesome they are. Assuming that the band can use any combination of these elements (including using them one-by-one or all at once), mathematically speaking, they have just created 162,000 different ways to play a slam. Also assuming that each of these can be played on one of four types of rhythms found on this album, that number jumps to 648,000 total possible combinations using Epicardiectomy's brilliant formula, to say nothing about the actual note patterns within the slam that differentiate it rhythmically from other slams. It cannot be stressed enough that each of the slams on this album is wholly unique and memorable, and all of them are worthy of humming to yourself as you walk down the street. Most BDM bands have about two hum-worthy slams on each of their albums; Epicardiectomy managed to build an album out of nothing but hummable slams.

Epicardiectomy also possess a brilliant understanding of how to carry momentum in a slam song. Most BDM bands decide that after a monumental, crushing slam, it's high time to play some dumb tremolo riff or some weak, sparse slam that no one really wants to hear. Even worse, they'll sometimes seemingly drop everything they're doing, as if standing there slack-jawed and thinking to themselves "uh...me no know how to connect slam to slam". Epicardiectomy, being the idiot savants they are, seem to always know how to connect their slams, be it with a stripped-down guitar riff with no drums or vocals backing it up, a thumpy Dying Fetus-esque section with a larger- than-usual emphasis on the downbeat, or simply jumping straight into them when that's deemed the right thing to do. Not only that, but their songs alternate between tempos with astounding finesse. This was a minor issue on the band's Goresoaked Slamassacre material, since Epicardiectomy would occasionally slow down to a slam and then just keep slowing down to the point of self-parody, but the band have clearly been taught well since then - the band will slow down with a slam that rolls in its pace, and with just as much prior warning as needed, pick back up to blast speed in a manner that feels both natural and necessary to the pace of the song. (A side note about the blasts in this album - yes, it is true I usually treat blast beats in BDM like moldy spots that need to be cut out of a banana. However, this album makes them work, because they are not used in typical Defeated Sanity "gravity blast over riff" fashion. These are more similar to the blasts you hear in the more extreme sorts of deathcore bands, like Suicide Silence - they basically involve hitting the cymbals on the downbeats while the snares work twice as fast underneath them. They're probably my favorite type of blast beat, and the decision to use them here on this album, as opposed to alternating blasts or gravity blasts, is greatly appreciated.)

Simply put, the drumming is very yummy. Starting off with the tone of the kit: Epicardiectomy have a serious case of DAT SNARE going on. Seriously, it sounds like a perfect mix between Abnormality's wood block and your everyday slam band's trash can, and this combination works absolutely perfectly. During the slams, the snare clanks and donks, and the kit practically rattles like a coffee can during the gravity rolls, but during the blasts it goes to wood block mode. This is good, as wood block gravity rolls probably wouldn't sound very nice and clanky blast beats would sound even less appealing. The cymbals are mostly very hissy and undefined with the distinct exception of the china cymbal, which sounds surprisingly spacious and clear. Of course, this is slam death metal, so the background noise provided by the cymbals doesn't really detract from anything at all. And the kick drums are also a very happy medium between nice-sounding and too nice-sounding (so they don't really click, but they don't sound like an ass being slapped or a soft, "pffffffft" sort of fart either). Technique-wise, besides the aforementioned blasts, kick drum rolls and snare rolls, there are a lot of syncopated rhythms, where a cymbal or snare hit will be absent or a beat late. These don't make much sense at first listen, but once you're able to detect that they're coming, they can be appreciated as nuances in the general feel of the music. You could also interpret this as a remnant from the Cephalotripsy influence - while Epicardiectomy aren't really fucking around with any time signatures besides 4/4 and 3/4 here, they may very well be keeping the relatively odd (by BDM standards, of course; don't expect Flo Mounier levels of technicality or anything) accents as a homage to their main influence while managing to still dumb down their music a fair bit.

The bass guitar is...wait, is there a bass here? I don't hear a bass. Moving on.

The vocals are good, and extremely so. They're just as obscenely grotesque as one would expect from an album with a title that's sixteen syllables long. They're actually pretty damn unique and I'm not sure how to accurately describe them. I think "werepig choking on a blanket" still holds up pretty well, but in all seriousness, the vocals are exclusively a very throaty, slurred growl that sounds absolutely feral and, well, brutal. If aliens came to Earth in the distant future and found no evidence of human existence except for the audio on this CD, they'd depict us in their biology textbooks not as primates, but as canines or bears. The vocals have this subtle yet ever-present muffling effect, suggesting that the vocalist is either cupping his hands or producing sound from the very back of his vocal chords. Either way, it's fine with me, because these vocals suit the music to a T. Honestly, I'm pretty sure I'd be disappointed in this album if it had any more core variation than it does, so the vocals being totally single-minded really doesn't bother me much at all. The vocalist takes a decidedly backseat approach to the music, pretty much being like a particularly fuzzy bit of background noise which regularly pops up around the slams and gives them a bit of added roughness. That's not to say they can't be appreciated as vocals, though - much like Dying Fetus, Epicardiectomy are capable of delivering some vocal lines that, while decidedly delivered in a monotone, are catchy as all can be. For any other band, they'd sound ridiculously silly, but Epicardiectomy were destined to have vocals that sound like these, in the same manner that Epicardiectomy were destined to be the smartest band of retards that ever existed.

The doctors walk out together to the hospitalized personification of the brutal death metal scene, still lying in his bed and gravely ill. In their hands they hold a syringe, full of a cloudy green liquid. It's absolutely filthy, olidous, and purulent, but the doctors know that it's for the good of the brutal death metal scene that they do it. Forcing him to hold out his arm, they tap into a large vein and slowly push the nauseating fluid down inside, little by little. Oh, he screams and he swears and he squirms, and as they pull the needle back he spasms violently. A few minutes pass and his body is calmed once again. He looks calmed, or eased, as if a massive discomfort had suddenly been removed from his body. A day later, a blood test reveals his Cephalotripsy cell counts have miraculously returned to stable levels. He stays in the hospital for one final week, being injected with the mixture each day. On his last day, he asks to see the syringe for a moment before he is discharged. On its side, in black marker, he sees the word crudely scrawled: "EPICARDIECTOMY". He grins.

Abhorrent Stench of Posthumous Gastrorectal Desecration is most certainly not going to magically sway the opinions of anyone who needs their death metal to be intelligent and dissonant and complex and what-the-fuck-ever else. If anything, it'll attract attention similar to that drawn by Waking the Cadaver's Perverse Recollections of a Necromangler and go down in history as one of the worst metal albums of all time. Evaluated as a slam album with no outside prejudices, however, this is perfect. This is what all slam death metal bands come sort of close to reaching for a few seconds of their entire careers, except in this case it's stretched out into an entire album. Honestly, if you made me try to pick a worst moment on this album, it'd probably be 2:29-2:36 in "Ulcerous Cadaveric Decrepitation" if only because excluding the occasional intro samples, that's the only section of music that isn't a slam. To reiterate: there are exactly seven (7) seconds on this album when this band are not playing a slam. The members of Epicardiectomy are quite obviously musical geniuses who have succeeded at dissecting the nature of slam death metal and eliminating all elements of it which did not more-or-less contribute to the crushing of the listener's skull. I wouldn't be surprised if they take five years or more to release their next album (hey, if Lykathea Aflame and !T.O.O.H.! are any indication, Czech bands that play wonderful music are rather slow about releasing it), but whenever their next album drops, I'll await it eagerly in the hopes that it'll earn the title of Album of the Year in my heart, just like this one did. Abhorrent Stench of Posthumous Gastrorectal Desecration is the savior, the zenith, the ultimate regression, the chemotherapy...and hopefully, the future of the brutal death metal scene as a whole.