ROTTING — Crushed (review)

ROTTING — Crushed album cover Album · 1998 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2/5 ·
SilentScream213
What I’m about to say could be taken either as an insult to the genre or the band, depending on what fence you’re on, but I promise it’s neither; Rotting sounds like if Grindcore was regular music.

Fist of all, almost all the songs here are above 2 minutes (with two clocking in over 5!). They all have various sections, with bridges and repeated verses. The drumming has a great amount of variety, rather simple but very effectively utilizing many different beat patterns found in extreme metal. Even the bass is audible! The songs sound like fully constructed and realized passages of music rather than short snippets of maniacal, unrelenting aggression.

Even the tempo is all over the place, with plenty of stereotypical Deathgrind pummeling, but also slow and heavy grooves. This thing has a ton of crushing weight at all times, and that helps it stand out. The bassiness and emphasis on the rhythm section are combined with a dense production job to make this thing feel like an aural slab of concrete. Whereas most Grindcore is manic and fleeting, these songs are a lasting assault, like slowly being beaten to death via a crude battering weapon.

The biggest weakness here is in the guitar riffs. With so much emphasis on the low end of the sound, individual notes can be difficult to discern, and higher notes are pushed way under the wall of sludgy sound. Most of the riffs stick exclusively to a few very low notes, and that makes them quite monotonous. Better lead guitar work would make this a masterpiece in the genre, but unfortunately they fall flat in what is one of the most important aspects of Metal music.
Share this review

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Hin helga kvöl Atmospheric Sludge Metal
SÓLSTAFIR
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Cycles of Suffering Black Metal
BURIAL OATH
Buy this album from MMA partners
Facilis Descensus Averno Death Metal
SAEVUS FINIS
Buy this album from MMA partners
Merciless Crossover Thrash
BODY COUNT
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us