The life altering pandemic has made its impact on the world of music and live events known. With little to no creative outlet, many artists have been forced to bunker into their home studios and fulfil this need. Whilst some have been beautiful and works of art, some are just dark and plain brutal! The latest effort by Indonesian brutal death metal duo PERVERATION would be an example of the latter. You can learn a lot about a band's musical intentions and form expectations of their sound just from their cover art alone. The graphic nature of the "Perversion In Manifest Disease" would make even the stomachs of the most seasoned death metal fans and original CANNIBAL CORPSE members churn! I look for the somewhat ironic parental advisory label, but that would be like sticking a 'deep water' warning sign in the middle of the Atlantic! This album isn't going to be for the faint of heart.

The album kicks off with "Destined to Imitate", with a brief yet intense sound bite of the screams and wails of agony from victims in a torture chamber! The digitalised blood splattering and the very fibres of human flesh being torn completes the illusion. Insert "that's pretty brutal" meme. Sadly, whilst this is a mainstay in the genre, I find it a little cliché and overdone somewhat. Throughout the album, we hear some highly technical guitar shredding. Listen to the riff in "Inject, Pleasure and Suffocation" for evidence of this. Sahrul clearly has some skilled chops. His skills on the drums are a sight to behold too. The speed at which he assaults the kick drum makes me wonder if he has motor powered steel ball bearings in his ankle joints! Each note from the bass guitar hits like a low sickening throb from the poisoned heart of a demonic serial killer. In particular during "Covid-69".

The production quality is certainly respectable. Everything sits at the right level in the mix and comes through reasonably clear. Vocally? Well, I have mixed thoughts on this. There's no doubt that Jossick can produce some demonic almost inhuman guttural lows. With that being said, I honestly don't know if a single one of his utterances were in clear distinguishable English! I can understand why he's going for this vocal texture, as it's synonymous with the genre. However, it's hard to create any interest or reason for the listener to invest in the story being told when the lyrics just appear to be repetitive gargling and growls. On the subject of repetition, it's hard for any of the songs to be clearly differentiated as they're all fairly similar.

For me, there's more to heavy music than just low tuned guitars, blast beats and guttural vocals. There needs to be variety in the texture of the music. Slower cleaner parts that can contrast with the intensity and speed of the heavier parts. They had the right idea with "Inject, Pleasure and Suffocation". At the mid-point of the song, the music comes to a screeching halt and our ear drums are subjected to a slow and vicious section. This allows me to really appreciate and feel the intensity of the blast beats and shredding that dominates the rest of the song. Whilst the duo are talented musicians and there's potential with the production, for me the song writing and compositional skills need urgent attention.