Rotten Liver   

Purification By Debauhery

Mortis Humanae Productions 2013

French black metal legion, Rotten Liver savage your limbs with riffs that cut like icy shards on their debut EP, Purification By Debauchery.  Infamous Nil saws with cutting guitars and a chilling atmosphere.  This is pure blackened traditionalism along the lines of a middle ground between Antaeus and Darkthrone.  Feral riffs with disharmonic accents blast away before the song falls into somber, solitary guitar segments that flow like a dreamy melody.  Of course this is overtaken by more sardonic black metal with trilling notes and thrashy riffs.  Become The Arcanthropos unfurls dissonant riffs to start the song and then grinds its way through Darkthrone-esque riffs that sound alien on the surface, but at their core they are grotesque and primitive.  When the song really explodes into hyper blasts of devastating force you are sent reeling.  However the track soon settles into some midtempo rhythms and a nice, languid guitar solo.  Black' N Rot is just what you'd expect some black n' roll grooves with some serious nods to Darkthrone and Bathory.  Then the song erupts into lightning speed violence while ghoulish rasps caress the edges of the track and then the cycle repeats.  Thin, yet monstrous Celtic Frost riffs bring the track to a deathly close.  Finally we are lulled into somber security by the title-track and its opening doomy melodies.  Then they are smashed aside by frenzied Swedish black metal style riffs which then morph into a battering beat and Darkthrone-ish guitar phrases.  A surprising rock groove appears before once again being buried beneath gloomy Swedish anti-melodies.  Rotten Liver's compositions deliver a darkened mutation of Swedish, Nordic and old school influences and then rots and corrodes them with their frigid delivery.  This EP is a sinister omen of the terror to come.