Death metal is an easy art form from a presentation standpoint. Not from a musical angle, because that shit is fucking hard to do. But with the right name and violently crafted album and song titles, you should be able to find your audience fairly easily, as long as you get enough exposure. Are you going to be confused at all when you see music by a band called Grotesqueries? No, you’re not.

The Boston-based death metal crushers are arriving with their vicious debut full-length offering “Vile Crematory,” yet another box checked by these guys when crafting their sub-genre aesthetic. I don’t mean to suggest as cheekily as I did that there was some think tank involved or something. Instead, this band—vocalist Mike Buonomo, guitarists Brendan O’Hare and Connor Thompson, bassist John Rainis, drummer Yianni Tranxidis—just knows what they’re doing and are coming at you with vitriol and chaos, making their first major statement something that leaves no doubt. This is vicious, ugly death metal, and if you appreciate its bloodiest forms, you’ll be right at home here.

“Hypnagogic Transmutation” opens with strange sounds and warbling weirdness, spreading for the first couple minutes before things are torn open and begin to stomp guts. Guttural growls kill as the fast, snarling playing wraps like a constrictor, death warping as gurgling panic lashes bones. “Corpsejuice” ignites and crushes, brutal growls leave bruising on your trunk, and the mangling power begins to flex its muscles. Ugliness continues to build as the growls engorge, whipping by and leaving you retching.  “Gorrified (The Ageless Malignancy)” brings bass buzzing like an overflowing hornet nest, the playing unloading and overwhelming. Growls mash as sinewy playing punishes, then the guitars go off and set fires, spreading sludge and torching faces, dealing final blows of pulverizing pain.

“Meat You With Chain” clobbers right away, steering through fast, grim hell, the menacing blows crushing viciously. The leads build steam as the guitars bubble over, adding putridity and chaos to the festering wounds. “The Dweller’s Threnody” is doomy as it lurches through the mud, becoming a battering force that destroys bones. The guitars angle and chew, feeling mucky and grimy, the howls scraping flesh from bone, rampaging into the arms of total slaughter. “Madness Breed” is gutting as it trudges through, the growls making your stomach contents churn. The playing turns fast and slashing, melody simmers and changes the colors, and strong leads devastate, ending everything in a bone-crushing blast. Closer “Dismembered Fears” is thunderous and storming, bringing delirium and slashing force, the skies darkening as howls crush. Speed becomes a factor as the guitars burst into hyper speed, the playing sinks into the muck, and then the heat returns, drubbing and scorching to the end.

Death and its stench are in the air and poison your lungs on “Vile Crematory,” a record that sounds like the soundtrack to your worst nightmare. Grotesqueries ply you with enough stomach-turning chaos and massive force to leave you sore for weeks, and when your experience is over, you are strangely satisfied, even if it’s in the most warped possible way. This is a punishing first full-length from a band that is just getting their claws into death metal’s corpse, and they seem far from ending their feeding.  

For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/Grotesqueriesdeath

To buy the album, go here: https://caligarirecords.storenvy.com/

For more on the label, go here: https://www.facebook.com/CaligariRecords/