During the first half of the 90s, as Black Metal and Death Metal experienced (on their own times) a growth on popularity, things were done in a way that wasn’t planned, or in other words, were done in an organic spontaneous way where no one cared about labels or models. It means that things were created by experience, not by definition, and the limits were expanded. Today, some bands try to keep the old flame alive, and some really are doing things in a very good way, as depicted by “Forever Below”, the first album of the North American quintet PUTRASCENSION.

Their music can be said as in the same trench of DISSECTION, THULCANDRA, SACRAMENTUM and others, what means: they’re a melodic Blackened Death Metal act (or a Melodic Black/Death Metal, as you wish to call it), full of weight and aggressiveness, but sharpened by darkened and sad melodies (boosted by some tremolo picking guitars). But even in such old and defined subgenre of Metal, they’re creative and pretty good due the focus on the harmonies weaved by the guitars.

The band worked with Benjamin Karas (on the sound engineering) and Bobby Torres (on the sound engineering too, but who did the mixing and mastering as well), and the sonority can be said as a hybrid: it bears the rough and crude appeal of the past on the instrumental tunes, but with the sound definition used on the daily releases, what allows the hearers the real experience into what their music expresses. And the artwork of Misanthropic-Art for the cover is really very good and depicts what the quintet is up to.

When the album plays, the musical work they express on “Forever Below” puts in evidence the members’ musical experience (they’re members of HAMMER FIGHT, WOLFCLOAK, TOMBS, and WINDFAERER), especially on tasteful moments as “Deeper Hell” (a fast and furious song with a hooking set of arrangements that seduces the fans, especially due the storming guitars), “Hydrohammer” (where the speed decreases its levels a little and the somber melodies becomes evident, and with very good contrasts between shrieks and grunts), “Stillness” (the sad and hellish melodies shown on the guitars are amazing, but pay attention to the excellent rhythmic shifts created by bass guitar and drums), “Carved in Fog” (another excellent sets of instrumental arrangements and tempo shifts are heard, with memorable bass guitar parts and nasty screams and chants), and the somber “Efface”. But “Void Within” and “Meslamtaea” are excellent as well.

It can be said that “Forever Below” is that kind of album that is a ‘must have’ one for extreme Metal fans. And PUTRASCENSION is really a remarkable new name, a revelation, indeed.