Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Cerebral Rot - Excretion of Mortality (2021)

20 Buck Spin have a seemingly endless line of impressive acts churning out some of the more extreme spectrum of metal currently in existence today.  There's rarely a month that goes by that some particularly grim and gruesome album cover doesn't grace my screen, offered on some fittingly splatter effect vinyl type bundle.  This attention to detail in the underground is paying dividends to the listener and the label I would argue as the old-school dirge of Cerebral Rot is a familiar blast of 90's death metal, incorporating death/doom, Autopsy-like values on production and musicianship as well as the squally depths of Demilich for good measure.

There's little here for me to not like in all honesty and as I write this review I struggle to remember quite why I saw fit to award their debut release a measly two-and-a-half stars (that's my afternoon sorted now).  Drummer Drew O'Bryant is a fucking animal and even on a record where he sounds like he's playing under the earth itself with the murky production job, you can hear him blasting the living shite out of his kit and adding blistering runs also.  When the tempo drops to more of a crawl, he's there again holding a more subtle yet firm line to assist the flow.  Flow is something that Excretion of Mortality has gallons and gallons of over its seven tracks.  Whilst it may not be the most technically astute death metal album of the year it is certainly put together by a tight bunch of guys.

Ian Schwab's vocals are right up my alley to.  Like a more coherent yet by no means any more accessible version of Antii Boman, they have an atmosphere all of their own really.  Their cavernous depths are matched perfectly by the mining sound of the riffs, the squealing and squally stabs of melody and the unfathomable gloom of the bass.  Nodding thoughtfully along as I listen to write this review, I am regularly distracted enough to stop typing and just zone out of the immediate surroundings and devote my whole attention to this record.  It sort of draws you in almost organically (resist album closer Crowning the Disgustulent (Breed of Repugnance) if you can and you are truly dead inside).  The album in many ways is just as ugly as the artwork suggests yet has an odd murky vibrancy that the artwork colour scheme matches also.  One of 2021's standout dm offerings so far.