Album Review - Succumb To Rot (Corpsessed)

The Great Metal Debate Podcast

Welcome back metalheads to another episode of The Great Metal Debate podcast. I'm Xander and today we will be talking about the Finnish death metalers known as Corpsessed. This is their 3rd full-length studio album Succumb To Rot which was released on April 22nd through Dark Descent Records. Anyone who is fan of slow grinding or that sludgy style of death metal will most likely enjoy this band. As with most metal bands, this band begins their album with an ominous instrumental intro track that sounds like what someone would hear playing in their minds just before dying. That foreboding sense of gloom but with heavily distorted guitars thrown into the mix. The name of this track is the album title but after about 2 minutes or so, the album dives right on into the next song "Relentless Entropy". Jussi-Pekka Manner kicks things off on drums to start the mayhem. Next up we have another song that opens with the sound of flies buzzing followed by an extremely heavy rhythmic guitar chug. Jyri Lustig and Matti Mäkelä's dual playing style are guaranteed to get your head banging in this song called "Death-Stench Effluvium". This was the first single released for this album in the form of a black and white music video full of grotesque imagery which is fitting for this track. "Spiritual Malevolence" contains a strong build up for most of the track until Niko Matilainen comes in and delivers his harsh growls for us on a silver platter. Following this we have the song "Calling Void" which begins with the fastest drumming on this entire record. The double kick drums will rattle you to the core! Later on in the track we get to hear a brief bass riff played by Tuomas Kulmala. However, it is very short lived yet still memorable. "Sublime Indignation" is exactly what you can come to expect from a band of this caliber. In recent years, Dark Descent Records has signed quite a few interesting bands in the sludgy death/doom subgenre; most of which have been hits with the underground metal scene. The last two songs "Profane Phlegm" and "Pneuma Akathartos" have not strayed at all from the musical formula in the way that it keeps people invested. To me, Corpsessed is one of those bands who can be crowd pleasers for many Outer Heaven or Drawn And Quartered fans. I would say that this band is definitely a cut above most bands in this genre in the way that they can be a crushing death metal band while not just playing the same songs over and over. Sure, there might be similarities on the notes but they're never fully the same. For the untrained ear, it would be hard for mainstream listeners to distinguish between certain tracks. Corpsessed also isn't so obscure that it's not for everyone but it's also not Mozart of Metal either. This is a band I can recommend to only specific types of metalheads out there. With that being said, I'm going to keep it fair and give these guys a 7.5 out of 10. You can listen to Corpsessed's music pretty much everywhere including: Amazon Music, their bandcamp page or even by hard copies that you can purchase on the Dark Descent Records website.