In my opinion, 2020 is shaping up to be a very good year for Brutal Death and Slam. I've personally heard and/or reviewed a number of excellent or very good albums: ARCITECTURAL GENOCIDE, TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, GOREVENT, GUTTED ALIVE, MOLESTED DIVINITY or DERANGED. And ABOMINABLE PUTRIDITY and PUTRID PILE will drop an album later this year. What else can a devotee of drop tuned guitar madness long for? Perhaps a DEFEATED SANITY album? Recording has already been completed, actually. But let's not get too fixated on the old guard, let's check out some new blood as well. CORDYCEPS is a band from Las Vegas, Nevada whose debut "Betrayal" has been released by Unique Leader Records. Their debut EP "Black Blood Butchery" was released in 2017 by New Standard Elite, so the band has been with big name labels since the beginning.

CORDYCEPS represent the good ol' blasting Brutal Death sound of bands like DISGORGE or CONDEMNED. It's bare knuckled, pounding stuff with a smidge of technicality added to keeps things interesting. They utilize chuggy riffs and create interesting rhythmic patterns, often with syncopated chugs. The guitars never go full-on slam, but there is a lot of groove. What also stands out is how layered the music is: sometimes they utilize dual vocals (guttural and high pitched) in a quite refined way, and some parts have backing tracks that add a dark, lingering atmosphere. The opener "Parallel Dissonance" shifts between pounding sections and sections with chuggy riffs and an atmospheric backing track. Same goes for "Comatose Subservient": the chugs are very groovy and the pounding sections with the backing track have a horror-like atmosphere. The song has a cool atmospheric break with a slow build-up, followed by an intense layered, climactic part. The title track overall slower and chuggy, but has an insane mid-section, that has an almost death-grind intensity. The first single from the album "Parasitic Degenarate" also slaps.

CORDYCEPS have delivered a good Death Metal album, everything is pretty much on point on this record, as far as the sound that they're going for is concerned, they really have that down. But I wish it had more stand-out moments, because a little bit of fatigue starts to settle in when you get to the second half of the thirty-something minutes long album. "Betreyal" is well executed and overall enjoyable and worth checking out, it could use more musical ideas.