Corpus Offal – Corpus Offal (Review)

Corpus Offal are a death metal band from the US and this is their debut album.

I had no idea that Cerebral Rot had split up. If you don’t know them, check out 2019’s Odious Descent into Decay and 2021’s Excretion of Mortality, both very fine slabs of hideous death metal. Why is this relevant here? Because Corpus Offal have arisen from the decayed corpse of Cerebral Rot – the guitarist and guitarist/vocalist have been vomited forth into this new incarnation, and they have brought a new bassist and drummer with them, (the former ex-Demoncy, the latter from Autophagy/Bell Witch).

Scene set, you should have a decent idea of where Corpus Offal are coming from. Delivering 49 minutes of gory death metal, Corpus Offal is an album that takes no prisoners, (as it has just hungrily devoured them whole).

Corpus Offal pick up where Cerebral Rot left off, and it’s not a stretch to think that this might have been close to what the the band’s third album could have been. Corpus Offal is the next logical extension of the Cerebral Rot sound – the songs are longer and more disgusting, with occasional death/doom injections, while also bringing in elements of goregrind for added fury. Having said all of that, Corpus Offal are still their own, new entity, and this record stands up on its own broken, defleshed feet.

Corpus Offal contains six songs of well-written bloodthirsty death metal carnage, (plus an utterly pointless intro, which adds nothing to the album). Ignoring the initial waste of space opening, the first proper song sets the scene, with grotesque vocals and squelching, disgusting riffs. With squealing leads, guitars that carve flesh with brutal ease, and vocals that sound inhuman, this is old-school death metal of the foulest variety. Best get your shots before approaching this one.

The music is brutal and repulsive, but these eruptions of aural depravity offer more than mere slaughterous ways. The band use their butchery skills to shape these cuts of meat into morbidly appealing forms. The blood and entrails tell stories, with the band as horrifying storytellers. So effective are they, that they even manage to establish horrendous macabre atmospheres, which makes the overall bloodshed and mayhem even more terrifying.

Corpus Offal is a strong old-school death metal album. Offering substance amidst the decomposing stench of violence that surrounds it, there is a lot of juicy horror to be dissected here by adherents of the style.

Highly recommended.