Review from Death’s Embrace:
Worm Colony Inside Your Colon
Face Eating Parasitic Infestation
New Song
Weak Die First (cover)
Grotesque Impalement (cover)
Für Elise
Kevin Fucking Sucks
Botched Molar Excavation
As the last band of The Underground’s final show of 2025, Putrescent Carcass make for a gloriously irreverent closer (hearing Chris B say the words “slamming brutal death metal” is comedy gold) to a year of excellent heavy shows at Wave Music Studio.
Their big scene entrance came at the Aftermath’s Metalfest in August, where they warmed up the room for Rokkasen and won hearts with their charisma and unpolished slamming brutal death metal style, which recalls Cannibal Corpse, Amputated, Dying Fetus, Bong Rips for Jesus and the heaving morass of other bands that blend horror film influences, unintelligible vocals, crushing aural onslaughts and illegible, scribble-style logos. Fresh off the release of their eponymous EP (check Bandcamp) just five days earlier, the trio are a highly anticipated headliner, bringing a loyal crowd with them.
They wriggle out of the festering cadaver with Worm Colony Inside Your Colon. Guitarist and lead vocalist Connor Zeng delivers an ear-buffeting combination of guttural utterances – sitting somewhere between a belching drain and angry neanderthal – and nasty, buzzing riffs that advance through the venue like locusts through a crop field. Bassist Monty Lindner locks in with a groovy, elastic tone and even steps up for a few burps and growls.
They’ve clearly spent the last few months practising hard: songs are more fleshed out and have more dimensions, and the setlist feels crafted into a journey rather than a bunch of mashed together snapshots.
Like a lanced boil, Face Eating Parasitic Infestation erupts violently, Connor Z sounding like he’s throwing up bad shrimp while drummer Connor Wei hammers away, head down, as if he can’t bear to look. There’s something tribal here: the voice as percussion, Monty’s hair a blur. Connor Z even drops a solo, but unfortunately it’s obscured in a swampy mix and the high frequencies don’t quite ring through.
On New Song, his burps morph into wretched black metal howls. It’s a festering scene and the room approves: punters, who’ve been tearing at each other since the first notes of the set, finally open up a pit, rendering the centre of the room impenetrable to anyone who’s not looking for a rabid face smashing.
Next, it’s Sunami’s Weak Die First, “a cover for all you hardcore fans”, then Dying Fetus’s Grotesque Impalement, followed by an unlikely segue into Für Elise (not even Beethoven is safe from a Carcass mauling). By now, fans are whipped into a primal frenzy, just beating each other blindly. A pair begin stomping in the middle in lockstep and a furious circle pit forms. The band greet the turbine by whirling their hair, too, while holding down a two-step rhythm and fierce breakdowns, Connor W going nuclear on the double kick. From the evil tumult they exhume more cro-magnon “urgghhhhs”.
Now it’s time for Cabin Socks! Say what? Kevin Sucks! In fairness, we’re now deaf. There’s a perfect swing and stomp to this: it’s like something our ancestors would have chanted as they circled around the campfire. Connor Z contorts his face for new sounds and Connor W’s meaty beat keeps the primordial soup vertebrate. An ominous tone pervades, then there’s an impressive solo; again, the sound is buried beneath the tumult. “I’m fuckin’ tired,” Connor Z says. People don’t realise the stamina this music takes – it’s not easy to sound like you’re retching up bile for half an hour while keeping the melodies and riffs flowing.
Closer Botched Molar Excavation crawls in on a bubbling, borderline-offensive bassline. Dry ice rolls, the room darkens, and chaos reigns: slap bass meets coffee-grinder vocals, tempo slows to a final cymbal ting. One of Monty’s pedals dies in the wreckage.
They came, they saw, they putresced. Other bands may seek compositional polish and sentimental songwriting while agonising over their stagecraft, but Putrescent Carcass are here to have fun while blowing the room apart. This is a band to unite during fractured times, reminding us that for all the trappings of civilised modern life, we’re still just animalistic sacks of meat who want to ogle the grotesque and club skulls. It’s that spirit that has everyone dragging their knuckles out of Wave Music Studio once last time this year, and ergh-urgh-erghhing all the way home.
-El Jay
