Jungle Rot - What Horrors Await
Napalm Records
Death Metal
14 songs (41:06)
Release year: 2009
Jungle Rot, Napalm Records
Reviewed by Charles
What Horrors Await is no-frills death metal; and I mean no frills death metal. Anything which could be conceived as an extravagance is hacked off like an infected limb with a machete. It is a less flashy Decapitated, stripped of the instrumental flair and distilled into a chugging, rumbling groove, or a slowed down Desecration. Perhaps it’s also Obituary but with a sound that crunches drily rather than gurgles like a swampmonster.

You may correctly infer from that that this is dominated by mid-tempo boneshakers. Only very occasionally does this pick up into something truly energetic, as with the thundering title track. Generally, What Horrors Await is a pretty monochrome headbanger; catchy grunting riffs that nobody would have trouble keeping up with. There are some rather nice lead lines, but they are few and far between, as on Exit Wounds. They certainly liven things up, injecting a quivering ray of light through death metal thunderclouds, although I guess the hypnotic growl that uninterruptedly characterises the overwhelming majority of this is part of the charm.

An interesting addition is a cover of Destruction’s thrash classic Invincible Force. Perhaps it’s unfair to point out that this is by far the best track here, because it’s the best track on Infernal Overkill as well, and that’s a classic But it does drive home a killer energy that is often absent from the rest of What Horrors Await. This is not to imply that Jungle Rot don’t sculpt something worthwhile with their defiantly primitive tools. State of War, like all the album’s best (original) moments, is unhurried but concise, with riffing that is really quite catchy in its insistent rhythmic intensity. Closer Black Candle Mass is bludgeoning and thuggish and makes for a viciously apocalyptic finish.

Then again, perhaps “primitive” isn’t quite the word here. Say “primitive” and I think of Nunslaughter, Anal Vomit, or Impiety (see other reviews this week) which are a long way from Jungle Rot. Where they have a murky, lacerating, unholy sound, this is relatively crunchy and tight. It’s riffing is focused rather than violent and intense. Sure this is uncompromising music; nothing musically impure has afflicted this slab of old school US death metal, but it’s not as utterly feral as it could be either.

Plenty of people will know that they are going to like this and plenty of people are going to know that they won’t. Of course, one person’s “uncompromising” is another person’s “unadventurous”. The truth is, both can be applied simultaneously here.

Killing Songs :
State of War, Black Candle Mass, Invincible Force!
Charles quoted 65 / 100
Other albums by Jungle Rot that we have reviewed:
Jungle Rot - War Zone reviewed by Kayla and quoted 69 / 100
Jungle Rot - Darkness Foretold reviewed by Alex and quoted no quote
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