Yanked from unmarked graves by bombardment, burst into rotten chunks and scorched of all recognizable features Ukrainian death-grind quartet STRUP unearth the carnage and destruction enabled a never-ending state of genocidal control on this quick and callous debut full-length album. Rooted in the cruelty of pure death metal’s tonality but writ with an extensive education in grindcore and gore-obsessed deathgrind in hand ‘Abyssurge‘ is an inhuman set for inhumane times and one which focuses solely on depicting the double-tapping of an already doomed and failed species into ash. It is otherwise a fine chunk of gutturally pitch-shifted, animalistic deathgrind with both early 90’s and early 2000’s features stuck in its craw.

Strup probably formed some time after death metal band Wormitorium split, as some of those folks now feature in this band, but I don’t have any confirmed information on ’em beyond a body count and a reasonable handle on their style and method. This ~21 minute record features eight fairly short pieces which run the gamut of Caustic Wound-sized 90’s deathgrind cutters which lead with the riff all the way to mic-gargling stuff fans of early Xysma (or, Blood) worshippers like Sequestrum would also appreciate. Something different from the ‘House by the Cemetery‘-core abounding today that would yet likely be enjoyed by that sort of fan just as much as a fan of the broader, better known strokes of grindcore would otherwise.

The bigger picture isn’t unheard of here, a combination folks have been fucking around with for decades, but the minutiae of Strup‘s work is blood-curdling stuff when it hits the right pocket. Before we get there they’ve smartly taken a long walk to start via opener “Absorbing Vacuum” and its forward-ebbing build of tension, a sensation that sets up their growling throttle into “Pseudorot“. The best grind-adjacent music has some fundamental handle upon the core structures of (80’s) hardcore punk and that is what drew me into this song (“Exgrave”, too) up front and kept it locked in for the brief but punishing full listen of ‘Abyssurge‘. A few ‘Dawn of Possession‘ worthy pinch harmonics and a hint of Nasum-era abandon help fire “Pseudorot” up but I don’t doubt that fans of pitch-shifted vocals and layered mania will catch those foul winds first.

The full range of what Strup are up on on this debut is pretty well summed on Side A closer “Disexist”, one of the harder struck and active songs of the lot which also showcases the vocal range from death roars to basement level regurgitation. The second half of the album blazes past otherwise with some doomed hits on “Plague Aura” and pants-shitting off the rails brutality on “Putrid Atom” exploring slower paced posturing/breaks in each song. Though I am no specialist in this realm of gutter barfed deathgrind it is all the more obnoxious and vile when paired with doomed-out slugging, a feeling which maxes out via closer “Fractal Decay”. — The full listen of ‘Abyssurge‘ doesn’t sport any sort of insane depth per my observation (don’t have the lyrics on hand) as a straightforward slurry of bizarre forms but it does hit hard in creation of a satisfyingly frustrated and explosive ouevre from its disturbed collage of retching gore and deathgrind riffing. A moderately high recommendation.

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