Label - Century Media
Release Date - 3 February 2023
Words - Tony Bliss
Striking fear into the heart of writers worldwide with their unpronounceable name, an affinity for hard-partyin’ and some of the most wholesome song titles this side of Cannibal Corpse (‘Face Ripped Off’ or ‘Testicular Rot’ anyone?), Sangsuisugabogg quickly earned a reputation as a bit of a silly bunch. What is also well established is that these Ohio-based deviants are one of the most destructive death metal bands on the planet, and so it stands to reason that sophomore LP Homicidal Ecstasy is an absolute riot of lobotomised spitting ‘n’ puking.
Something akin to Mortician and Devourment having a bit of a wrestle mid-way through a meth binge, the Sugabogg boys deal in a type of horrid, gelatinous noise that positively bleeds character, despite being drop-tuned beyond all reason and pushing almost comedic levels of brutality. Indeed, whilst it’s true to say that the band’s sound is like an unholy concoction of slam, two-step hardcore, old-school death metal and grind (after it’s been left out in the sun to go putrid), the likes of a lovingly entitled ‘Hungry For Your Insides’ and ultra-violent brute ‘Skin Cushion’ lunge at us with such squealing, guttural intent that all the riffs and blasting begin to sound more like a tumbling landslide of skeletons and severed heads than the result of four dudes in a recording studio.
Pristinely produced to somehow benefit from both maximum clarity and flesh-exposed rawness (it will come as little surprise that extreme music sensei Kurt Ballou was in the mixing-board hot seat for this one), the band are never anything less than one hundred per cent barbaric, but there are still plenty of other things going on underneath that Voorhees hockey mask. Take ‘A Lesson In Savagery’ for example - a track as wilfully fucked up and dissonant as anything we have heard from Sanguisugabogg to date, and which devolves into such depraved depths of groove-driven slurry that, by the time it delivers its final blow, it sounds almost crippled by distortion. ‘Mortal Admonishment’ on the other hand nearly gets away with being a stage divin’, basement show limb swinger, be it not for the numerous riff changes and wonky atmospheric offshoots keeping up the sense that something isn’t quite right. Shoutout to closing track ‘Feening For Bloodshed’ also for some low-slung bounce that even Roots-era Sepultura or nu-metals heaviest bands would be proud of.
It may be forty-five minutes of some of the ugliest music spewed up from the metal underground in quite some time, however as is often the case with records that inhabit a world of such obnoxious gore, Homicidal Ecstasy is an absolute truckload of fun. By the end, you may be drenched in offal and trying to collect your shattered teeth from the floor, but take one listen to this and try not to break into a smile or death metal grimace at least once per song. I dare ya.
8/10
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