Degeneration of resilience, Lovecraftian horrors divulged, and drug-addled paranoia abounding feature as potential muse for the transformation of Gdańsk, Poland-based death metal duo BÜDDAH on this inspired debut full-length album. Though the band’s work yet feels disjointed and tentative in style on ‘Amyotrophy‘ their fusion of ‘old school’ extreme metal traits successfully represents its own restless tension, a level of uglier contrast which reads as early progressive death metal with speed/thrash metal residue lubricating its many-geared apparatus. The resulting experience is a brew of both primally thrashing wreckage and virtuosic finesse which, by way of many crooked connections and a few brilliantly stacked ideas, keeps the ear guessing throughout.

Büddah formed in early 2022 between like-minded students of the ‘old school’ in the Bydgoszcz area, a group of minds possessed by traditional heavy/extreme metal’s expressive qualities and high standards of musicianship. Though their line-up would change frequently in the space of a couple of years the one constant in their early work seems to be a love of thrash metal and surreal, fantastical themes. Though they were marketed as a black/thrash metal band by some and blackened thrashing death by others their earliest material, ‘The Curse of Ferrius‘ (2022) EP, was suggested as most inspired by demo-era Death, early Katatonia, Dissection and Bolt Thrower. If you didn’t listen beyond the first song on that EP in preview (or just the Running Wild-esque “Priest Militia”), check out “Endless Dungeon” for a more complete picture of their early sound and how that might translate to this new material.

By 2023 most all of the band members left to pursue pure thrash (see: Technophobia) and that’d left visionary/vocalist Julian Suchtta to essentially re-think and restart the band. ‘Amyotrophy‘ is a different beast as a result of this wherein they’d soon become a duo which includes co-vocalist, guitarist and bassist Marek Gross (Zenith) alongside session/live drummer Igor Jażdżewski. So, expect a pretty wide gulf between the ambitious, kinda rocking collision course of ‘The Curse of Ferrius‘ and the somewhat more squarely death metal rooting of this debut full-length album which otherwise veers into progressive death/thrash and hardcore punk shaped movements (see: “Fiend”) throughout its course.

Album opener “Amyotrophy I” takes us to most all of these suggested sub-genre locales in its initial stretch beyond a sort of (earlier) Revocation-esque opening salvo, sporting a clangorous and at-times virtuosic bass guitar presence from Gross and a neo-thrash gallop set behind it. It wasn’t until that first bass guitar solo hit ~1:45 minutes in that I’d resisted the urge to turn the record off and I was glad I’d practiced restraint against that knee-jerk first impression as this sort of mangled ‘old school’ ideation of prog-death (or, nearby) didn’t line up with the expectations set by the band’s debut EP. The rest of the album retains an ambitious if not scatterbrained approach which ranges from briefly adventurous vignettes (“Bowel Fane“) to 4-5 minute death metal songs with speed metallic backing (“Disfigured Ones”).

The aforementioned “Fiend” serves as a key hinge-point for the full listen as it uses the momentum of “Disfigured Ones” to build its own agnostic wheeling between various rhythmic ideals where speed metal and early 90’s prog-death are the main juxtaposition at a glance. Otherwise the biggest evidence of somewhat drastic change applied to Büddah‘s gig is “Mouth Full of Bones MMXXV”, a new version of a single (“Mouth Full of Bones“) released back in 2023 which isn’t so drastically mutated in this form but rather heavily edited down to its most basic effect and obviously transformed by different sound design/performance. This portion of the album is probably most vital for conveying the general stylized sound achieved on ‘Amyotrophy‘. Though they’ve not shaped this eclectic vision into something as riff-driven as I’d like clear nods to classic thrash metal fandom helped to keep the full listen compelling enough on the ride through.

The general shapes and shadow-built contours of Büddah‘s ideal are all the more evident on this debut album though all parameters yet appear tentative, unsure of where each thread is going in terms of tone and construction but wholly confident in their delivery. The overall effect of ‘Amyotrophy‘ is adventurous, a crossing of both primitive and sophisticated wiring which has yet to smooth the articulations between ancient ‘old school’ musculature and songs written with irregular, emergent skeletal forms. Naturally some of this works and some of it merely bridges the chasmic divide between tonally unpredictable movements, a not-so surprising trait for a band who could now be described as “progressive” in some aesthetic sense. With that said there is something inherently satisfying about their ratio of ruggedness to aspirational muse, the contrast provided within creates just enough tension to spurn on momentum of the full listen. A moderately high recommendation.

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