Emerging from the concrete wastes growling and sputtering out swinging chunks of diseased flesh Staten Island, New York City-based death metal quintet FESTERGORE arrive upon a debut full-length statement after only just a few years of primal activity. Stoked by a hazy vision of ‘new old school’ death metal looseness and a simple enough sensibility for brutal diction the bulk of ‘Constellation of Endless Blight‘ grinds past the listener, directing their aggression down the road as their kicking-and-drilling parade drones on quick and dirty. While they’ve taken modest inspiration from the most rotten, or, best known relics of classic United States death metal they’ve not yet managed to leave an indelible stain on the mind through songcraft which only just arrives at an above-average standard. That said, this first time around their step into view is damned serious enough in its presentation and built around mechanically sound furor that there is yet some appreciable potential expressed herein.

Festergore formed as a trio circa 2021 between folks involved in thrash-adjacent bands during the late 2010’s. From the start their focus intended to put their own heat on ‘old school’ United States death metal sounds specifically, fully fleshing out into a quintet by 2022 when they’d release their first EP (‘Synchronizing the Kozmos‘, 2022). While the overall impression left by that first release was green, not there yet, some of the stuff they were doing was spot on such as the vocalist’s diction on certain pieces (“Surrender to Madness”), as they attempted a contemporary spin upon classic sounds. The riffs weren’t necessarily there in terms of impact, and some of the lyrics were pretty bad, but the first impression made was solid enough for a band that’d formed out of thin air during peak pandemic exhaustion and quickly gotten to work.

Expectations weren’t all that high for ‘Constellation of Endless Blight‘, any band that’d only been around three years before their debut LP rarely carries enough functional experience to bring a wholly considered, impactful result despite having more than a clear understanding of the modern standard for backwards-sighted, simpler death metal today. No reasonable result was guaranteed. If there was a sign that Festergore had it in ’em to do something interesting with plain-faced early 90’s death noise it was scattered throughout ‘Synchronizing the Kozmos‘ most off-subject moments where a string of melodic riffs, some latent appreciation for groove and some vocal ideas kept things moving. While I won’t say that things have changed drastically for this first LP their work does show all-around improvement beyond 2022 as the flit between ~3-4 minute death metal songs that carry some manner of correlative structure and feeling throughout.

Modest production values, a growling mid-room set guitar tone and mid-to-fast paced groove driven pieces sets us within the thick of mid-to-late 90’s death metal and its peaking era for both mainstream notice and the dry generica that’d come out of the woodwork beyond 1992. I’m not purposely using the qualifier “mid” so often, but there is certainly a middle of the road aura given off by this record despite how immediate many of its performances are aiming to be. In fact the production values are generally too modest, mild compared to what a less ‘old school’ focused grit might bring otherwise. As we link up with songs like “SMA” and “The View from Halfway Down” and find a distinct Floridian crawl-and-clatter to some of their rhythms this only compounds this observation that peaking up the sound design somewhere nearby late 90’s Morbid Angel and post-‘Stillborn‘ Malevolent Creation. On the other hand a few songs here are fairly basic in construction and ride along seemingly unrelated to the grit and grim of the full listen, such as “Cryogenic Decay” a piece which rides the fence between kinda Swedish semi-melodic fare.

With this in mind there is definitely a range of ideas, tics and temperament buried in the sameness of it all which ensures ‘Constellation of Endless Blight‘ reads as functional ‘old school’ death music for the sake of it. I wouldn’t count their gig as a contemporary amongst the best around today but amongst the hardcore-edged stuff around today these folks are at least a bit more conscious of the inner workings of classic death metal rhythms. For every stride made there is an (arguable) pitfall, though, with the best example being “Glass Casket” which carries the early moments of the album with some choice riffs to start then loses its general direction through a messy slowed second half and a guitar solo that feels like an extended outtake from the ‘Clandestine‘ sessions. The one piece which gets it most right in the circa ’93 sense, hits that brutal note and finds a pretty awesome set of rhythm guitar textures to toy with comes as “Surrender to Madness”, a fine example of simple yet effective chug-heavy death metal groove mutations that you’ll no doubt feel in a mosh-capable situation.

The perfect summation of the mixed bag on offer here is probably the closing piece, “What Once Was Proud”, as it gears up with vigor and an appropriate lead before sinking into its main groove. While it is a mean and contemptuous piece with some wild riffs (see: ~1:24 minutes in) which recall some of their better EP era variations taken from popular from U.K. death metal it is the moment-to-moment action which sustains its machine gun fire for just long enough to inspire motion. Twisted riff-play and a serious lead directive tears through the whole piece and offers a thrill but it’ll be hard to recall most anything that’d just happened the further you are from the point of impact.

Now, to be fair when Festergore are on fire they’re hitting well above their perceived punching weight and if this were the case on every song that graces ‘Constellation of Endless Blight‘ it’d be one of the all-around better packages from the ‘new old school’ feeling today but instead we get an almost-there record which kinda reeks of the underground but doesn’t quite nail the right depth for their specific arena. Man does it look the part though, the Lucas Korte cover art here is bold in its color choices and eye catching for its perspective recalling the vibe of the first Mortification album if given more dramatic perspective and further Eldritch bone-fingered touch. The whole package here is worth considering and ultimately does hit above average even if not every song was to my own taste, if nothing else I’m walking away from this record respecting how quickly they worked up to this point and see great potential for a more distinct and ear-grabbing feature to develop in the future. A moderately high recommendation.

---