Album Review : Abominable Putridity - Parasitic Metamorphosis Manifestation (2021)
A band with a name like Abominable Putridity doesn’t really need me to tell you why you should listen to them. It’s the type of band that chooses its audience as much as it chooses them. If you’re into extreme music and slam, what they do goes above and beyond the norm. They released a new album in 2021. Parasitic Metamorphosis Manifestation is their first full length in nine years. I don’t know what the title means, but it’s cold, punishing and pretty fucking great.
This Abominable Putridity isn’t quite the band you remember, though. It’s not a group of slammy Russian dudes killing it around iconic vocalist Matti Way. Pretty much everybody’s left the band except drummer Alexander Kubiashvili who now plays every instrument and hired OTHER iconic slam vocalist Angel Ochoa on gurgling duties. Because of that, Parasitic Metamorphosis Manifestation is quite different from its predecessor.
While this isn’t exactly the lo-fi pit of nastiness that makes great slam, Parasitic Metamorphosis Manifestation compensates with intent. This is a genre where what it played doesn’t matter as much as HOW it’s played. Alexander Kubiashvili and Angel Ochoa navigate slam’s narrow creative corridor with stomping, unrelenting riffs and blast beats so syncopated, it sound like they were broken down by a machine. Slam’s never been played quite like that.
A good example of what I’m talking about is Non Infinite Sequence, which Kubiashvili starts with expansive, almost aerial riffs that make you feel like it’s raining fire from the sky or something. This song really highlights the difference between slam and death metal well, because it keeps crossing the line. The album sometimes had this military feel to it too. It' is broken down in these weird, mid-tempo cadences that are almost like marching music.
My favorite song on Parasitic Metamorphosis Manifestation is Superior Extradimensional Decimation, which has this bridge-like part where Alexander Kubiashvili plays this anguished riff drowned in reverb that segment the song narratively and create a superior apocalyptic experience. The title song is probably the most brutal on the record, though. It’s just a mean, crushing wall of aggression that moves up on you. It’s not a complex song, but it’s badass nonetheless.
Can we take a moment to discuss how awesome Angel Ochoa is on this record? Fuck, that guy is good. He is the very voice of inhumanity. His tone is so consistently low, gurgly and monstrous that it serves as a lynchpin for his Kubiashvili’s larger musical scope. Angel Ochoa is the slam metal boogeyman your parents were worried about when they hid your Cannibal Corpse CDs in 1997. No one is as consistently nasty and otherworldly as him.
My favorite Ochoa performance on this record is undoubtedly Inorganic Infusion Protocol, where SEEMS like he’s singing pretty complicated lyrics while expertly surfing the tempo of the music. That’s the thing with this Abominable Putridity record and great slam in general. The emotional intent matters as much as the music’s complexity and Ochoa and Kubiashvili are trying to rip your face off every 30 seconds here. That’s emotional intent alright.
It’s difficult to get into specific songs more than I already did because a) they’re all meant to go together to tell this story of space annihilation and b) they’re all heading the same way from a different angle. Parasitic Metamorphosis Manifestation is nothing if it isn’t a cohesive record. I guess the mix could’ve been a little better at highlighting the quality of Angel Ochoa’s work and pitting it against the crushing guitars, but we’re splitting hair at this point.
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Is Parasitic Metamorphosis Manifestation slam or brutal death metal? Not that you should give a shit, but it kind of surf the line between both genres and exploits the creativity possibilities of death metal while keeping the steady, pummeling intensity of slam. Not to badmouth the previous iterations of Abominable Putridity, but Alexander Kubiashvili had really cool ideas about extreme music and I’m glad he had a chance to express them on this record.
This is one of the steadiest, nastiest records I’ve heard in 2021. It’s only 24 minutes, but it’ll make you feel like you’ve lost any sense of space and time. If you’re into brutal music like I am, your decision is probably made to give Parasitic Metamorphosis Manifestation a shot. But even if you don’t, this album belongs in the Smithsonian for the morbidly curious about ear-splitting music. It is a great specimen for what violent music is capable of.
