Achingly tired, restlessly itching around the wound we find ourselves delirious from the numbness quickly forming behind the eyes as Wolfsburg, Germany-based doomed death metal band CRYPTIC BROOD reinfect through their scour of the ear. An experience of painful nausea and intense fever-dreamed maul the trio’s third full-length album, ‘Necrotic Flesh Bacteria‘, continues to blend the awkward step and depressive gloom of 80’s doom metal with classic death metal sounds at a dynamic ratio which allows for madness-inducing riffcraft on both sides of the fence. Blending their decade-plus of experience into true ‘old school’ death-doom metal fusion and foil this latest release appears written to count with their well-oiled sludge-pump delivering songs (and plenty of riffs) that grip the mind, riddling the experience with morbid tension and leaving the listener’s skull stamped with their own brand of dogged hysteria.

Founded as a trio circa 2013 these folks cranked out a moldering ‘old school’ death metal-fed demo tape to start, impressed all with a split w/Graveyard Ghoul (see: Hallucinate nowadays) and had landed on Xtreem Music by 2015. At a time when the hyped return of Autopsy warranted yearly iteration these folks stood out as an original among many groups finding their path with a similar admixture of grindcore-infused speed, pure death metal kicks and traditional doom metal inspired riffs. This is essentially what they’ve been doing since then, freaking people out with the ‘Acts of the Unspeakable’-level trip of ‘Brain Eater‘ in 2017 and eventually shotgunning my brains into their gear with a sophomore album (‘Outcome of Obnoxious Science‘, 2019) that’d had me referencing the first Penance album and Blood‘s ‘O Agios Pethane‘ in the same breath. They’d nailed the marriage of real-ass doom metal with real-ass death metal and without sounding like tire cloneage at a time where only the most dull and rote riffcraft was being slung, they stood out then and today they’re still sticking out like a rotten sore.

That is to say ‘Necrotic Flesh Bacteria‘ doesn’t fuck up Cryptic Brood‘s good-going gear, they’re writing tighter and tougher songs here which’re even more horrified and gore-slicked in their movement than ever but still tuneful in the olden way. If you can grip your guts tight enough and lean into the nausea they provide for a solid ~40 minute ride this one feels like it is always on the edge of collapse, the cusp of splattering to the ground into a pile of skittering insects, as the full listen uses doom metal riffs as tension within lingering thoughts and erratic phrasing enough to challenge and delight the riff-tuned ear with vibrant yet morbid tarantella. You’ll likely have expected this tightened, ever-shifting trample from the band per their 2022 released 7″ ‘Caustic Fetid Vomit‘ which’d more-or-less been a bridge between the five year gap and how they’d translate as a faster-thinking, sometimes faster moving death metal band.

The change-ups and tempo flares begin to fire up within seconds as we are guided down into the sewer-level laboratory via “Acid Fumes”, the first of several pieces which feature a howling delirium and jagged interplay between the main rhythm guitar thread and the molten, mushroom covered bass guitar sound which (again) recalls both ‘Mental Funeral‘ and ‘The Road Less Travelled‘ by way of some kind of Greg Ginn-level death metal fusion walk, right on the verge of skronk but never reaching for nonsense (see: “Oozing Pox”.) Whether we’re talking early Rise Above Records era doom or Saint Vitus-adjacent Black Flag records the left-handed turns that Cryptic Brood take on this album have some extra weirding touch to them, tighter playing than ever to be sure but also a muse that feels both referential and irreverent to the boundaries of punk and metal traditions (“Digging Through Skin” and its jogging thrasher strut) enough to serve its own mutant energy. I’d probably described the band’s first record on similar albeit more grind-minded proportions back in the day but here of course we’re years down the road and it feels like these guys are leathered with experience and in their absolute prime (per both compositional character and skill) which yet feels organically achieved.

The bludgeon is set, the general voice of the record has been heard just a couple of songs in at least in terms of the plodding guitar tone, a back-set bass guitar with a tinge of distortion, dual vocal action mixing things up, and an ever active approach to drumming which shows some close study of not only ancient death/doom movement but the early extremity that’d inspired it. That doesn’t mean a song like “Viscid Fluid” sounds like Hellhammer or whatever but the real death/doom metal heads out there’ll feel the truly buried corpse of Sempiternal Deathreign in there somewhere, sans the messier lead guitar style. As was the case with the previous record I could probably get into plenty enough detail on every song here but really I’d been sold before the second song finished and by the halfway point Cryptic Brood already have my vote, they’re not only speaking an old, dead language of death metal but all of has this profoundly adventurous and psyched-out dirge to its path, essentially staying true to their original vision in the process.

If your main desires in the realm of death metal land somewhere between morbid garage-level filth and uncannily skilled wandering dementia you may just be the right sort of mark for Cryptic Brood‘s freaked out old school death/doom metal step on this third album. At not point do they rest upon comfortable climes or plainly typified reach, insisting upon their own glorious pocket of rot while avoiding the lowest common denominator effect ‘old school’ inspired acts often carry in terms of taste level. If nothing else ‘Necrotic Flesh Bacteria‘ embeds these folks’ in mind as an idealized vision of classic death/doom metal ideals which still has places to take their sound. There is a solid underground classics-minded grip of songs here which feed off of one another, mass together and split apart as they congeal in mind, allowing each song its own big riff or pace change (or both) to help identify each gory landmark one’d anticipate on repeated listens. For my own taste this type of action is a point of excellence, one they’d achieved on their second record even, and this time around they’re poking my brains with a stick hurling more riffs per minute, more of the change-ups and turn on a dime movements that keep the whole deal interesting after countless listens. Essential ‘old school’ death metal for 2024. A very high recommendation.

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