PUTRIDITY

/TOMBSTALKER

PUTRIDITY "Greedy Gory Gluttony"

TOMBSTALKER "Age of Darkness"

By Dr. Abner Mality

Here are two death metal EP's that use completely different angles to accomplish their goals, with varying degrees of success.

Italy's PUTRIDITY is very easy to figure out and describe. This is slamming ultra-brutal stuff with the fine attention to detail of an 80 pound jackhammer used for brain surgery. There are two "classic" PUTRIDITY tracks, two new tracks and a cover of CANNIBAL CORPSE's "Ecstasy of Decay". What difference there is between the old and new tracks is impossible for any rational being to discern, as they all have the same sewer chewing guttural mumbles, drum cacophony and piledriver riffing. Even the cover comes across in the same fashion. Move along, nothing to see here...

TOMBSTALKER from Lexington, KY is a completely different story. From the thrashing opening minute of "Astral Combat", we're dealing with something more memorable and discrete, drawing influence from the likes of POSSESSED and RIGOR MORTIS. The song shifts gears several times but does so in a fluid manner, with lots of lead soloing. The three main tracks on "Age of Darkness" are almost "jam" tunes, as the band easily lopes from riff to riff and from solo to solo, with both guttural and raspy (but understandable) vocals. The EP's drawback is the acoustic instrumental title track, which kills about three and a half minutes for no logical reason. That's bad usage of time and nobody picks up something by a band called TOMBSTALKER in hopes of hearing sad acoustic melodies.

When it comes to a comparison between these two bands, though, TOMBSTALKER is a very easy choice to make and I eagerly await a full length from this band.