MUTAGENIC HOST
MUTAGENIC HOST – “The Diseased Machine”
by Thor
MUTAGENIC HOST is a trans-Atlantic collective of extreme metal musicians based out of London, England. The group’s debut album “The Diseased Machine” officially sees them join the ranks of NWOBMATINU, or New Wave of British Music Acronyms That I’ll Never Use. Seriously, though, there is a nice batch of British death metal bands currently festering on the global scene and MUTAGENIC HOST is now among them.
Sonically, “The Diseased Machine” is an album that would fit right at home in 1995. It’s not emulating Death Metal 1.0 the way so many newer “old school DM” bands do, but rather MUTAGENIC HOST seems to find its footing in the aesthetics of early second-wave death metal. Stuff like MONSTROSITY, BRUTALITY, and SUFFOCATION come to mind.
While it’s heavy, the band’s music isn’t extreme... in relative terms, of course. Groove is the name of the game here. There is no speed to speak of. And that’s okay. It’s just an unusual choice within a genre known for featuring absurd amounts of it. BPMs aside, there are killer riffs up and down this thing, and the vocal performance is top-notch.
Conceptually, it feels like MUTAGENIC HOST is trying to meet the moment, railing against A.I. and an unchecked, unethical global elite eradicating the powerless while we watch on, apathetically. It’s uplifting stuff.
While MUTAGENIC HOST’s “The Diseased Machine” isn’t going to make anyone feel like they’ve just discovered the next evolution in heavy music, it is a solid debut. It’s heavy, accessible death metal with a unique perspective and, who knows? It may end up becoming one of those gateways-into-death-metal classics like SIX FEET UNDER’s “Haunted” or OBITUARY’s “World Demise” were 30 years ago.