Wounded suffering is the waste product of sorrow’s debilitating murk, the filth that’d fill the existential hollowing created by our protagonist’s mental and physical contortions as trauma runs screaming through each tunnel of their burning psychic nerve. With shock bristling at the back of their mind, and before the choice to transform experience into greater plasticity is made, the blur of cathartic action and emotional destitution forces Sydney, Australia-based death metal trio REEKMIND‘s pen in depicting a skull deeply bound within a web of emotional despair, entrenched in perpetual lamentation. This limits the tone of their debut full-length album, ‘Mired in the Reek of Grief‘, but also hones it into a lumbering raw’d beast of purpose where -feeling it- is the first step they’d take before crushing it out through the riff-and-roar of bludgeon-force death metal. Poisoned into wrathful stupor and smartly curated unto a sickened and lethal form of sludge-heavy death/doom metal this debut they’ve crafted in introduction sits purposefully stuck-in-place and rasping through its wretched first impression made.

Reekmind assumedly formed in recent years, presenting as a quartet under a first-name basis on record but as a trio in photos. I’ve no other information or any particularly educated guesses other than they’ve some obvious kinship with some Melbourne-area death and sludge attuned groups (Aglo, Ghostsmoker, et al.) and the ilk. What I am sure of its that they’ve taken some care to exercise their taste curating this record into a product which points directly at its audience while setting the appropriate expectations of gloom, doom and miserably struck death metal. Persistent as their sound will prove on the ride through they’ve done well to insert influences outside of the usual death metal fare, making for what is essential sludge/death metal in hybrid. In fact I can already hear the eyebrows of forty-something death metal geekdom furrowing, as atmospheric sludge metal factors into this band’s sound in a profound way at times, more than will feel comfortable for those seeking the puritanical 90’s set expectations of death/doom metal.

‘Mired in the Reek of Grief‘ is not just a title but a description of mindset, a representation of the frame of mind where the album sits and stews, relishing in scorn, depression, hopelessness and bitterness. Though the whole of the album centers itself around one general mode of lurched and rasped heaviness, developing that palette and not fucking around with it, that singular column forms into a deeply uncomfortable point of immersion which rides through the more-or-less continuous flow of the whole ~39 minute event. While it should be obvious at this point that you are in for something like a death/doom metal record in some sense Reekmind likely also enjoy records like ‘Summit‘ from Thou (see also: Thra, early Primitive Man) where the line between traditional extreme metal, doom metal riffs, and the most acidic forms of sludge scribble and blend into several shades of grey. The longer one sits with this album the sooner the nuances of those points of inspiration become more obviate in their conception though a “riff album” never completely raises its head from the thunderous slugging-along of it all.

Their tendons are turning to stone, clamping down upon simpler dirging death/doom metal riffs for the duration of four core movements which are parsed in eight-to-ten minute stretches (incl. intro + opener pair “The Reekmind” b/w “Slithering Spell“) as each of these blocks spreads its misery in description of a plane of suffering which exists within the affected individual, a horrifying internalization of eternal mourning. The most important note to take here in terms of artistic intent is that the Reekmind‘s ideal is crafted to represent (and manifest) the agony of grief and the perpetual feeling of mental alienation as lingering illness is perpetuated by trauma. They’ve done a fine job of this on this debut with consideration for the lyrics and the miasmic seethe which one should pick up on at face value. Where I’d point the pure death metal fandom first beyond the roughed-out grooves and mid-paced step of “Slithering Spell” is probably the second half of “Wading in a Body of Death”, a song which shares a modern vision of ‘old school’ informed death metal which is right on the cusp of sparking up beyond the unrepentant doom n’ gloom of the opener ’til ~4:30 minutes into the song.

Most of ‘Mired in the Reek of Grief‘ mills within the exchange of its two main rhythm guitar lines and a bass guitar tone with a fried edge, the clearest point of separation between these three voicings comes via the opening of “Cavernous Creeper” as the main riff breaks apart and the pinched harmonic swells add some swaggering menace to those first few minutes. While it’d have been easy to leave everything a plate of throttled mush the definition of tones, via a mix from Priory Recording Studios and mastering from Resonance Sound Studios, emphasizes the floor level burn of the bass guitar tone to great effect letting the distorted guitars ring and ride through the middle of the mix ’til their all-surrounding pairing splits apart here and there. The drums are realistic enough in their impact, a low riser and a wild splash to the cymbals when they kick up leaves the impression of an expanse, a plane of pure darkness rooted by pronounced bass presence. Not every piece toys with rhythm as much as that particular single but as a knotted apex for the full listen it’d stuck in mind for how the parts conjoin and unravel in space; We are quickly, er, not so quickly headed back toward mounting doom and despair with ~11 minute closer “A Lingering Mephitic Fog” but the collective second half of the full listen amounts to a point of devastation where neither relief nor hope-filled post-metal endpoint arrives.

Without overselling the profundity of Reekmind‘s very simply crafted, well buttoned up work the fact that they’ve taken the time to place some manner of personal meaning or evocation within each of these pieces helps it stick in mind beyond anything resembling standard fare. That said again this might be a quality over quantity experience for most in terms of the riff count being subtle and not so much the point of the full listen. ‘Mired in the Reek of Grief‘ is thusly effective in capturing the attention with its wrathful, pained expressivity and theme though the inner guitarist’s need for constant fluxion won’t be sated unless you’re particularly patient and otherwise interested in the potential immersion available. For a debut LP from a band I’d never heard of this is well-struck stuff, particularly of interest to folks who have a taste for distraught sludge metal atmosphere and its potential to heighten the morbid sensation of death-doom metal. A moderately high recommendation.

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