Caustic Wound – Grinding Mechanism of Torment Review

By Saunders

Back in the strange old days of 2020, Seattle’s Caustic Wound detonated a skin-blasting deathgrind debut, entitled Death Posture. It landed on my end-of-year list and has remained a staple since. Comprised of like-minded scene veterans, including members of Mortiferum and Magrudergrind, Caustic Wound skillfully weld brutal, old-school death and grindcore influences into a raw, gnarly, riff rumbling beast. Death Posture’s dirty, unrefined production and reeky, terrorizing attack lent it a dangerous, unhinged edge, complimented by its infectious riffcraft and ugly underground values. Fast forward to the present and Caustic Wound reappear hellbent to fuck things up in their wickedly violent, deranged way. The efficient, action-packed platter of splattery goodness gets the job done in under half an hour, rifling through sixteen sharp, savvy and utterly punishing deathgrind bursts. With all the pieces in place, can Caustic Wound back up their impressively savage debut and capitalize on their prior groundwork with a sophomore album to savor?

Grinding Mechanism of Torment picks up where its predecessor left off, albeit offering a freshly inspired take on the bare-bones aesthetics and raw buzz of the debut. First and foremost, this shit maintains the band’s brutally raging, guttural thrust and blast riddled form of deathgrind mayhem, featuring the thrashy, artery slashing hooks and gore spattered flair to do Exhumed and Impaled proud, Caustic Wound have sharpened their weapons of butchery and refined their sound, without compromising the blasty, grind-fueled punch and exhilarating blast of the debut. This is partly attributed to a cleaner, more refined, though still appropriately thick, beefy production job that stays true to their brutal underground roots. The tidier sonic aspects fail to diminish the savage old school charms and full throttle grind attacks that litter the album (“Advanced Killing Methods,” “Human Shield,” “Endless Grave,” “Dead Dog”).

Without discarding those classic death and grind influences of yesteryear, the influences reach a little broader, encompassing the occasional d-beaten Swedeath smackdown, hardcore stomp, and nods to the early days of legends such as Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse and Terrorizer. Equipped with a bevy of killer riffs, the songs penetrate the memory bank. The buzzsawing, uppercutting riffs are uniformly strong, regardless of speed, but especially when Caustic Wound occasionally lay off the relentless pace and unleash the Leng Tch’e-esque groove and grind sections (check the sludgy, groovy crush of “Drone Terror” or insanely hooky riffs of “Blood Battery” as primo examples). Elsewhere, wild solos punctuate the chaos (“Infinite Chaos,” “Blackout”) and Clyde Lindstrom’s (Corpus Offal, Fetid) meaty, phlegmy vocal eruptions enlivens and adds a feral, guttural punch to proceedings, lending character and deceptive variety, not content to fall into being an unremarkable rhythmic afterthought. Not content to play it safe, closer “Into Cold Deaf Universe” dabbles in slow building, sludgy discordance, and samples before eventually mutating into a deadly deathgrind epic, unloading across nearly seven minutes of blasting and caterwauling noise, capping the album in momentously chaotic, violent fashion.

Despite the cleaner sonic palette, Grinding Mechanism of Torment packs a hefty wallop in the heaviness and brutality stakes, and is anything but a run-of-the-mill example of old school deathgrind. Chase Slaker and Max Bowman wield their axes with feral abandon amid lightning bursts of speed, vice-tight interlocking riffs, and divebombing solos. The riffs are a constant highlight and the deeper emphasis on thick, headbanging grooves unlocks some seriously chunky, infectious moments, such as the vicious outro of the grindy “Sniper Nest,” and swaggering grooves of “Horrible Earth Death.” Amidst the speedy focal point and blast riddled displays, the rhythm section of bassist Tony Wolfe and drummer Casey Moore do a bang-up job of driving this deathgrind killing machine and locking down the mean, violent grooves punctuating the album.

Death Posture established Caustic Wound as a deathgrind powerhouse to be reckoned with, embracing classic death and grind values, executed with fresh and frenzied flair. Some of those endearing, caveman charms of the debut cannot be recreated in the more refined format. As such Grinding Mechanism of Torment may lose some of the wild, unhinged edges of the debut. However, the album compensates through its addictive riffcraft and diverse, though still plenty brutal display of deathgrind lunacy, expanding their songwriting scope and marking a grisly, bone-crunching, and righteously infectious return.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Profound Lore
Website: Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025

#2025 #40 #AmericanMetal #CausticWound #CorpusOffal #DeathMetal #Deathgrind #Exhumed #Fetid #Grindcore #GrindingMechanismOfTorment #Impaled #LengTchE #Magrudergrind #Mortiferum #NapalmDeath #ProfoundLore #Review #Reviews #Terrorizer

Corpus Offal – Corpus Offal Review

By Tyme

Corpus Offal is the surviving core from the now-defunct underground death dealers Cerebral Rot, whose two releases, Odious Descent into Decay and Excretion of Mortality, received coverage here from AMG’s very own Ferrous Beuller. Responsible for a large portion of the Cerebral Rot sound, guitarist/vocalist Ian Schwab and guitarist Clyle Lindstrom (Fetid, Caustic Wound) have surrounded themselves with a new rhythm section and a refreshed moniker. After a promising two-song demo in 2024, Corpus Offal wasted no time sculpting a handful of other sanguineous songs to include on its 20 Buck Spin eponymous debut album. After laying eyes on Karina Monzon’s monstrous cover art, my mind first went to Autopsy‘s Severed Survival.1 This intriguing aspect of Corpus Offal‘s aesthetic excited me and had me salivating at the chance to dig into this newest vile vessel.

Corpus Offal plays fucking death metal.2 Period. Free of any thrashy overtones or proggy atmospherics, Corpus Offal arrives to offend your pedestrian sensibilities like a bucket of bloody guts splattered across a white tile floor at your feet. With the cover giving me such strong Autopsy vibes, I was happy to hear that the music on Corpus Offal is also very reminiscent of Severed Survival. Schwab and Lindstrom have hung a ton of fleshy riffs (“Gorging Gastric Decedent”) and chaotic solo work (“Spinous Forms of Mortal Abhorrence”) up on Texas chainsaw-sized meat hooks for bleeding. And while a fair amount of Cerebral Rotteness and Fetid fecundity remains in Corpus Offal‘s sound, Billy Anderson’s3 less cavernous mix and master lends an extra bite of sharp evisceration to these proceedings. Further pustulating the sores of this cadaverous corpse are Jesse Shreibman’s (Bell Witch) suppurating drums and Jason Sachs’ viscously bubbling bass work. This is moldy green ham and rotten egg death metal, so pull up a chair, Sam I Am, because Corpus Offal doesn’t give a shit whether you like it or not.

Corpus Offal‘s highlight is Ian Schwab’s vocal performance, which combines the gurgling gutturals of David Torturdød (Undergang, Phrenelith) with the bellicose burblings of Antti Boman (Demilich). Schwab spews forth like a bulbously engorged spore, leaking loads of purulent pestilence. His gravelly gurglinations douse the “Service for a Vacant Coffin”-like4 swing and swagger of “Essence of Dissolution” and the riff-filthiness of eponymous track “Corpus Offal” in globs of effluent ooze. Again, this is a nod to Billy Anderson’s great booth work, as each instrument has enough toxic air to breathe, and the poisonous fumes of Schwab’s vocals are at the forefront instead of being hidden in a haze of cavernous cacophony. Corpus Offal‘s unique brand of sewer core would have New York City rats running for cover, but even a death metal sewer starts to stink after too long.

Corpus Offal‘s debut clocks in at just under fifty minutes, and while I enjoy it just fine, some of the viscous fluids could have been allowed to drain. A case in point would be the wholly superfluous intro, “Purging Creation,” as it reminds me primarily of the equally unnecessary intro to Seep‘s “Encased in Shit,” both taking up about the same amount of time before getting down to business. No song on Corpus Offal clocks in under the six-minute mark, and two of them, “Corpus Offal” (7:44) and “Ripened Psychosis” (8:31), very well could have. The goriest offender is album closer “Secreted Effluence (Spilling).” This twelve-minute track begins with an intriguing guitar-plucked intro that, when repeated at just around the eight-and-a-half-minute mark, might have been an appropriate time to close the coffin, but instead, meanders and progressively slows to its death, having overstayed its welcome.

I spent time revisiting the Cerebral Rot catalog in preparation for this review, and I can confidently say Ferrous scored those albums appropriately. The promise imbued on Cerebral Rot‘s final release has translated into an excellent baseline for Corpus Offal to build off of. This is grotesquely fun death metal that cares not for the proclivities of an over-educated audience. These knuckles are dragging and bloody. With some editing, I believe Corpus Offal has even greater things to give, and I’ll be looking forward to their next awful excretion.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: 20 Buck Spin | Bandcamp
Website: Instagram
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025

#20BuckSpin #2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #Autopsy #CerebralRot #CorpusOffal #DeathMetal #Fetid #Mar25 #Review