Beats and yelling: Moral Putrefaction

Moral Putrefaction
Out 24^th May, self-released

Albums like this only add fuel to my hypothesis that it takes a non-Western perspective to salvage the legacy of extreme metal forged in Europe and North America. This Indian outfit are nominally of the old school camp, but such is the identity and life bubbling through the many contours of this debut that the category is almost by the by. Immolation circa ‘Unholy Cult’ onwards immediately stands out as a key influence, which, as a body of work, is almost defined by the way it distinguished itself from the old school crop it grew from, remaining one of the few pillars of post 2000 death metal to carry a flame of creative progression.

But leveraging the unmistakable melodic language of Rob Vigna along with his oddball percussive dissonance is only one piece of the Moral Putrefaction puzzle. A more simplistic but no less enjoyable undercurrent of driving, linear, tremolo based riffing serves as the foundation, which in turn is broken apart by disruptive breaks of sincere aggression.

The production is remarkable in itself for being almost entirely unremarkable. Aesthetically, it is non-partisan, making no explicit reference to a particular scene or era. This serves as the perfect spacious template upon which to place the substantive riffcraft articulated across each track. Drums are clear but on the bassy side. Cutting through the mix well whilst grounding it in an ambient menace. The guitar tone is equally ambiguous. Whilst up to the task of fleshing out the regular blasts of staccato energy there is also a soft organicism at play that adds immersive, cinematic qualities to moments of profound import. Mid-range distorted vocals mirror Ross Dolan in their phrasing and rhythmic intonation, but texturally are maybe closer to Luc Lemay pre ‘Obscura’.

Moral Putrefaction still suffer from the common aliments of the debut album. At times they fail to rise above their key influences, sounding like a mishmash of Immolation and Morbid Angel offcuts. At others the link riffs are a little too off-the-shelf and generic to really motivate the transition from one theme to the next.

But such things are forgivable in a debut (and given the current standards of contemporary death metal). What this album lacks in mind bending novelty it makes up for in an adeptness at bringing together the macro picture. Moral Putrefaction are able to work with slow, meaty mid-paced dirges perfected by the Finnish scene, alongside choppy disorientation and speed via sudden breaks into hyper fast blast-beats and unbridled atonality, just as they are able to decorate this flesh and bone with a joyfully creative melodic inflection that works its way through repeated lead refrains as well as the solos themselves.

Much like the noteworthy consistency of much South American extreme metal of the last five years or so, I’d suspect that Moral Putrefaction’s distance from the somewhat bourgeois angst of Western metal and its total capture by social media status seeking allows them to flesh out a vision far more compelling than much contemporary output from Europe and the US. But much like the Chilean metal we’ve been enjoying here lately, it never quite comes together into a uniquely exceptional statement. Perhaps this is simply the nature of the by now legacy status of extreme metal subgenres in 2024. Or perhaps it’s still early days for this movement, given the cacophony of content it must compete with online, it takes time to make an impression and build an identity. But from what we’ve heard thus far, this debut offers great promise rarely seen from a fledging death metal act.