Mutagenic Host "The Diseased Machine" (Review)

Mutagenic Host "The Diseased Machine" 

2025 Dry Cough Records (LP and European Cassette) / Gurgling Gore Records (US Cassette) / Memento Mori Records (CD)

www.drycoughrecords.com / www.gurglinggore.com / www.memento-mori.es

BADASS TRACKS: All of them, motherfucker.

BADASS SONG TITLES: The Twisted Helix, Incomprehensible Methods of Slaughter, Organometallic Assimilation, Artificial Harvest of the Obscene

BADASS SHORT DESCRIPTION: Heavy as FUCK

This review is a bit short because I'm not going to bother going through this album in bits like I do some albums. Why, you ask? Because I don't fuckin' need to, since this album is setting the clear benchmark for death metal in the year to come. Every track has purpose, every track has hooks, every track is well-written, and every track is HEAVY AS FUCK. Period. This one crushed my face, and since receiving the cassette in the mail from Gurgling Gore (a record label that I've come to trust as a home for sick underground death metal in the same way that Headsplit has been), I've listened to it five times, and the 6th right now as I write.

Mutagenic Host comes from the UK, and their sound is a bit like if you stripped the overt melodicism from Bolt Thrower's latter-day works, sprinkled the early 1990s Tampa sound on the remains, and added some Midwest brutal death metal grooves. They actually remind me a lot of Gutted from Toledo, OH, and perhaps a little bit of Descendent from the same city. They, too, delivered heavy-ass, chunk-filled grooves at a mid-paced velocity and didn't overuse the blast beat. When Mutagenic Host uses blasts, it serves the song structure. I like blast beats as much of the next guy, but a band like this should hang in the pocket just like they are, and let the sheer fuckin' heaviness of the music reign, and not the speed, so much. Even the intros, outros, and interludes have their purposes, with all kinds of crazy machine noises and almost telling a horrific science fiction tale. It's nice not to have to sit through the same old stuff in that regard. There are just a lot intros out there, and doing them differently is a huge plus. I may be wrong, but I sometimes think I hear a bit of Celtic Frost or Hellhammer in their sound, also.

I'm not going to waste any more of your time describing this slab of industrial-strength steel. This is real death metal for real death metalists, as I'm so often fond of saying. Posers beware! It'll wipe them out at even low decibel levels. Just go buy this, and you'll get heavy as fuck death metal that shows no compromise and no remorse, and wastes posers at 1000 yards. I'm a fan now, and I cannot wait to see what they do next. As far as what version to buy, if you're in the US and you like cassettes, the Gurgling Gore version is really nice with a transparent green cassette with the band logo printed nice and big right on both sides. Even the case is great, because the rear of the case is a teal color that matches the purple and teal cover art nicely.