After the disappointing performance of the Rogga Brigade, the RMR crew yearned for some trve brutality. Death Metal ready to rip the flesh off your bones. Bestowed with a gazillion greasy hooks that will suck you into the darkly glowing underground. Oh, and none of that friendly gurgling and burpy wet schmoozing of the cadaver gang allowed.1 A redline not to be crossed.
So, what better idea than picking a band named after parasitic fungi. Will some crazytown loons be waiting just ahead at the dark end of the lane? Perhaps. Let’s find out what vile and ominously glowing creature finally graces our sumpy dark catacombs.
Boy, bands acting as duos produce the wackiest shit in the metalsphere. Think Anaal Nathrakh or – again – Veilburner to name just two. And the feistily named Entomophthora will fit right in. The angry two-member tag team – Tom Wahl and Roger Isaksen – took their debut concoction Instinctual Disease to their very own Extreme Metal gehenna and back. The outcome is a genre-defying ferocious blurb of some 32 minutes of airtime.
Now, shorties such as this one, need full battle power from the first second onward. Or else the concept will fail miserably, and we have seen this time and again. But, to bury the lede for once, Instinctual Disease will not disappoint. This densely written piece is so tight, no hair will fit in between its super-tight biker jeans and the grit and grime within. This thing’s frantic power will not only strip the flesh off your mutual backs but positively shred it. Before feeding the remains to the wolves, that is. Aggression writ large and no time to lose getting there. Blood-thirsty urgency well served, a feat many have tried and few truly mastered.
And the band throws it all at ye. Death, Thrash Death, and Tech Death trade places with tastily placed tremolos and Black Metal injections. And those blackened parts suddenly disintegrate into some disturbing dissonance that snugly fits into the overall storyline. The grim guitar work gorges with barbaric riffs, heavy chugs, meaty leads, and solos that seem to positively scrape along your skullbones. All of that comes with a hefty dose of desolation and tribulation, often BBQ’ed hot ‘n’ hot on an altar of almost gothic melancholy, seemingly run by an incarnation of Crypt Sermon from another dimension where vile Death Metal-driven savagery abounds (Artwork of Madness, Aftermath).
And the Wahl / Isaksen tag team didn’t just lean back and succumb to their very own inferno after that. Entomophthora sneakily continue to weave their many mycelial tentacles into the body of what will result in Instinctual Disease. Haunting monologues, choruses from hell, growls, snarls, angst-driven screams, and disturbing clears will keep you on edge. A record built on a vicious and viciously effective wall of sound. One that for all its inherent loudness, won’t lose one instrument. Even the bass won’t fall prey to the dreaded compressors. And that is a feat in and by itself.
Oh, and did you hear it? Aftermath seems to be a new incarnation of the good ol’ funeral march combined with some drama of a world ending in flames. Instinctual Disease – the title track – feels like Nuclear Metal incarnate with a brutishness seldom found this side of Hades. And finally, someone beat some sense into Sepultura’s atrocious Mass Hypnosis thingy with an inhuman lava-hot concoction that made us rock back on our haunches. The RMR crew’s usually no friend of covers. But this one’s an exception to the infamous rule if you will.
In the end, the RMR crew only had to move a bit West from Roggaland to the haunted Norwegian shores to find the object of our desire. Instinctual Disease packs vitriol, boundless ferocious energy, astonishing musical prowess, and an unholy urgency driven by a dystopian and excellent storyline. For a debut album, that’s one nastily powerful thunderclap, a new iconic piece of reviled devil’s music. As they said, “…welcome to bedlam, dire times here.” And that sets the bar very high for that sophomore album sure to come in the future. We’ll be watching.
Recommended.
Record Rating: 8/10 | Label: Soulseller Records | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 22 November 2024
- That’s why Rotpit wasn’t chosen to the questionable delights of this roster. Sorry, but not sorry. -Ed.-↩