CABINET — Claustrophobic Dysentery (review)

CABINET — Claustrophobic Dysentery album cover

Album · 2022 · Death Metal

4/5 · 2022-04-01
siLLy puPPy

Blackened death metal seems to be the flavor de jour of many extreme metal bands in the 2020’s where the bleak depressive atmospheres of black metal merge with the physical demands of the more technically infused world of death metal. While the style has been lurking in the shadows for about 15 years after Portal emerged from the underworld, in the last few years it seems like many death metal bands have forsaken the gymnastics of technical wizardry in exchange for conjuring up the most hideous and oppressive sounds possible. While some bands have done so within the context of the world of tech death metal, some have gone even further down the sewer pipes to craft the most otherworldly messy metal that bands like Black Sabbath could never even dreamt of some 50 years ago! 

CABINET is the latest to join the world of blackened death metal with its debut full-length CLAUSTROPHOBIC DYSENTERY following last year’s EP “Decomposing Hexahedronic Seplophobia” however considering this year’s “real” album is only a mere six minutes longer than last year’s so-called EP, it only goes to show how the distinctions between release formats have become pretty much meaningless as time progresses. This band is known to come from California and possibly the Mammoth Lakes region at least according to its Bandcamp site and with band member names like Four Filthy Shelves of Putrid Decay (bass), Repulsive Dirtnap Casket Crusher (drums), SixSixSix Chambers of Rotten Mold (guitar) and Filth Esophagus Vacuum (vocals), you know you’re in for a nauseating ride!

For a band that excels at repulsive subject matter and shock and awe worthy of existing in the world of goregrind, i had to look the word CABINET up to see if it had some tertiary meaning referring to putrid vomit or something because it’s probably one of the lamest extreme metal band names i’ve yet come across. I mean why not name your band Garage Door Opener? Or Pencil Sharpener? Or Dining Room Table? Haha! Despite the stupid band name, CABINET really does know how to conjure up a bleak and disgusting album’s worth of filthy extreme metal that takes the technical gymnastics of death metal and marries them with the bleakness and atmospheric qualities of black metal, the irreverent blasphemy of war metal along with healthy doses of drones, dark ambience and good old fashioned noise.

With nine tracks that just miss the 33-minute mark, CLAUSTROPHOBIC DYSENTERY is like the soundtrack to a murder scene in a sewer system where parasitic astral entities perform bizarre rituals and the worship of all things filth is a bonafide religious experience. This is one of those bands that also makes you break out your unabridged dictionary because with track names like “Lilliputian Flicker of Fasciollasis” and “Hallway of Dacryocystotomic Depriciation” you will certainly feel like you’ve somehow been transported to a coroner’s report during a Satanic ritual of some sort. While some technical metal is technical for its own sake, CABINET delivers the kind of ugly metal for ugliness’ sake. Everything about this one is crafted to eke out the most hideous possible combinations of tones, timbres, terror and tyranny all for the sake of doing so.

Interestingly CABINET has mastered the art of variation with each track delivering a new mythology of cranking out the filth. The main gist is atonal dissonant down-tuned guitar riffs and thundering percussion that ranges from doom metal sluggishness to fully-fueled death metal rampage. Crafty melodies are not the desired outcome here but rather monotonous heavy driving droning effects that find poltergeist infused atmospheres haunting ever cadence of dramatic din. The vocals are delivered as deep guttural growls that conjure seplophobic demons from below hell. The deliver of the album is extremely consistent and unlike bands like Portal and Mitochondrion spends much more time on slower passages including the non-metal “Outro (Foul Structural Rot)” which features bizarre unnatural sound effects and somewhat clean guitar affects which accentuate the atonality and ugliness.

This is one of those extreme metal albums that really works well and a kind of torturous metal that i have acquired a taste for. It hits all the right spots with crushing extreme metal riffing at thunderous speeds and detached lifeless snail-paced runs. The production is quite diverse as well even though the tones and timbres are designed for maximal bleakness. The way the composiitons are put together makes this freakish free-for-all quite unique sounding and a welcome addition to any extreme filth metal collections out there. This is a band that has certainly gotten my attention and one that will hopefully stick around and take the world of blackened death metal down a few notches into deeper and darker recesses of hell’s kitchen. Love it!