Mephitic Corpse hails from the USA and to be more specific, California. Now, California is known for its many things but not yet for the rotten grindcore influenced death metal. Mephitic Corpse is trying to change that since the beautiful year of 2018. Their demo release ‘Immense Thickening Vomit’ was almost immediately picked up by the USA-based label Headsplit Records which they released on tape in 2019. That demo got some traction overseas and reached the sickening shores of Denmark. Extremely Rotten Productions did the European version of the tape and Mephitic Corpse got a lot of praise from the underground grind/death metal scene. After the demo release, it got a bit quiet for a couple of years in the Mephitic Corpse camp but in 2024 they released a 2-track promo for what essentially led to their very first full length ‘Sickness Attracts Sickness’. 

 

If you are familiar with the absolutely filthy murky style of grindy death metal Mephitic Corpse is producing, then you know exactly what is being cooked on ‘Sickness Attracts Sickness’. slow and heavy downtuned riffs are being thrown at you left right and centre. The American 3-piece certainly know their instruments enough to produce the fat and murky sound that they are familiar with. Besides Mephitic Corpse, they have other projects too that venture around the death metal genre but listening to Mephitic Corpse, it confirms (for me) that this project is the filthiest of all of their other projects. 

 

If you are not familiar with Mephitic Corpse, which some of you are, the sound that they produce can be described with them playing nasty death metal underneath Shrek’s swamp. The filthy gurgling style of vocals from Matt Rose (main vocalist) are from high quality. It sounds like he has been doing this since the late ‘80/’90’s but I guess he is a little bit younger than that. Combine that with the insane bass tone that Parker Nelson and very quick and hard pounding/hitting Eric Liewald and you will have the murky grindy death metal factory of Mephitic Corpse. Needless to say, the American underground death metal scene has been surprising me lately with their capability of producing bands that are being so influenced by the late ‘80’s/early ‘90’s sound of death metal and are capable of producing that style while not sounding like one on one copycats. 

 

The 11-track ‘Sickness Attracts Sickness’ is filled with straightforward filthiness that leaves little to the imagination. The tracks aren’t the longest but what do you expect, 5 to 6 minute long tracks? I guess some of you wouldn’t mind but you would lose attention quite quickly if I may say so. Mephitic Corpse throws the 2 minute (and the occasional 3 minute) tracks at you with their filthy glory. For me, 11 2 minute-ish tracks are perfect for this style of metal. It keeps my destroyed attention span fixated and doesn’t really challenge me to put ‘Sickness Attracts Sickness’ into perspective. After listening to the album 3/4 times, I ordered the vinyl through their European label Extremely Rotten Productions and when I saw that there were only 2 copies left, I got very happy that there are a lot of people excited to own this disgusting 12’ vinyl. Going back to the music, the guys are throwing everything they have in the nasty 11 tracks. With the occasional intro here and there, they do tend to mix the relentlessness up with some slower moments. And with slower, I mean that they throw some extremely nasty headbangable riffs at you where you will have a hard time to keep your head still. Especially on the 10th track ‘Digested From Both Ends’ there are those moments where you do need to do a little bit more extra than the stank face you are already making throughout the album.

 

I am getting more and more back into listening to those disgusting styles of death metal and labels like Headsplit Records, Extremely Rotten Productions, Night Terrors Records and Raw Skull Recordz certainly help me find those bands quicker. If this album gets the same and more attention like their ‘Immense Thickening Vomit’ demo did, Mephitic Corpse will quickly turn into one of the most promising upcoming underground grindy death metal acts from the USA. Especially with them being so young, they will have a long future ahead of them with the capability of releasing more and more murky metal they have so far released. 

 

I hope one day I will be able to check them out live because they would be more than welcome to come over to The Netherlands are play a show or two around here.