Four years ago, the Swedish/Spanish death metal collaboration imploded their gory malevolence with the discharge of their sole release and debut album, ''Morphed From Deadbreath'' a much mighty suffusion of Incantation and cadaverous Swedish death metal, and despite its distinct prowess and immense effect upon deeply-intrigued listeners, the album did not draw half as much attention as some of the much more dominant retro death metal releases of the same time, such Dead Congregation's glorious disembowelment of evil, ''Graves Of The Archangels'', which no doubt led the upcoming pack of horrendous Incantation worshipers which would shortly envenom the world. Putrevore, on their debut, displayed a relatively fresh formula, a gory soup of rotten Swedish heft and imposing blood, and now, four years after the release of that swampy bulk of an death metal album, we're fed with the real deal, as Rogga Johannson and Dave Rotten, who are now proven veterans of the genre's differing varieties, present their AA material here, and we are enlightened with the fact that the debut was merely the starter meal, and the main dish has just arrived.
Admittedly, my first reaction to this was not at all positive. I didn't leave me flabbergast with its prowess and durability, and it was not what I had endeavored to hear after such a non-apprehensive process of excitement, but everything on the album seemed like tasteless hulk made up of brutal death metal and the subtle, depriving and compellingly evil aesthetics of ''Onward To Golgotha'', but it was the second, or perhaps the third listen which crammed hope into my ears, for the very moment that I realized and comprehended the album's brilliant succession and manifestation was the moment I learned to love it, and it was the moment I was sure the record would be the epitome of many, many retro death metal releases that would come afterwards, or that were already unleashed.
Macabre Kingdom lives up for its name, and that's just the least I can say about it. It's content is made obvious by the savvy album cover that enriches its course. Just think about it; the music on ''Macabre Kingdom'' perfectly fits the ghoulish fiend stalking its subtle minions whilst seated upon a fiendish, emaciated throne of gore, glazing at the undead which kneel before it. A truly gruesome and ghastly image of vividness, and moreover, the monolith that is ''Macabre Kingdom'' is still, so much more. There's a thick, almost charismatic enigma buried beneath the cylopean grooves and the elephantine grooves never cease to slam the listener with the embryonic excellence, stretched upon a base of carnal Floridian brutality, immense Bolt Thrower potency in heft and chomps, and a befouling, rotten contemplation of Incantation-esque everything, from tremolos, to bombastic bombards to swaggering ramparts. I still can't imagine how Rogga took his time to pen these compositions while dealing with a dozen more projects, and yet still elude boredom and add excessive competence and efficiency into the mix, making this the best effort he has ever worked on.
A hybrid on brutality and moist danger and thickness is one thing, evil another. In ''Macabre Kingdom'', you get all of that in one single compiled suitcase. In addition to its tremendous and substantial reservoir of riffs, and its unbridled hostility, the album can effortlessly display its love for cthtonic horror, as on ''The Mysteries Of The Worm Part 2'', which feels as if you're further dragged into a pitch-black void after the barbarous Part 1, and get swallowed by the band's darker tendencies, an emission of gore-laden shadow and cosmic miasma spiraling onto you as you descend further and further down a barren black hole. While the sporadic keyboard is trait specifically belonging to that track, there is a murkier blast of sound waves which evoke evil and raise the hairs on your back that support the album the whole time; the vocals. It's almost as if Dave Rotten reaches the subtlest tone he possesses and then spurts it out in a pernicious gurgle, and believe me, if the instrumental section of the album didn't hold them from exploding, the rafters would have shook, and the cavernous murmurs would have tinged in the core of your ears for hours. Dave Rotten's incredible delivery sounds rather like the product of a brutal rape by a demon, adding impious murkiness into Craig Pillard's already copious voice. Seriously, Dave Rotten sounds like Satan whispering through a hundred-and-fifty meter tunnel. And you're on the other side of it.
Flawless with its combination of brutality and wicked Incantation-esque creativity, ''Macabre Kingdom'' does not merely ''appease''. The underlying creativity and musicianship under its subtext of churning monstrosity is its prime tool and one that can outshine almost the entire race of retro death metal acts, and even a number of the genre's first-comers. This megalith is built upon total and immense doom and evil, and this single 35-minute rupture we received is only a mere flick of the giant's finger. Rogga and Dave's absolute climax is reached with this record and although I don't think this will cease to blow my ears for a very long time, I am still eagerly gathering my courage to face the extremities of a third primal obelisk. With ''Macabre Kingdom'' you will experience brutality, experience pain, experience primordial prowess, experience engulfing evil, with ''Macabre Kingdom'', you will experience immensity.
Highlights:
The Morbid Mass Of Swarming Entities
The Tentacles Through Time
The Mysteries Of The Worm Part 2
Beyond Human Comprehension
Rating: 92%
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