Mindly Rotten are a Colombian brutal death metal and while this has certain connotations, musically this bears non of the trademarks of latin brutal death metal and instead opts for a precise approach mainly inherited from Cryptopsy’s None So Vile but with a penchant towards chaos while eschewing any subtleties for a constant assault.
Drums dominate the mix and set the tone for the constant aggression on display here. Songs are led by a surprising amount of variation within the blast beats that are connected by dizzying fills and perfectly timed breaks that create the illusion of chaos without degenerating into sloppily played noise. Guitars are unfortunately very thin in the mix and at times barely discernible which is a shame considering the high quality of the riffs here. The riffs tend to be repeated an uneven number of times which enhances the chaotic feeling of this album and erases any feeling of stagnation. The slow syncopated chugs that are a hallmark of this style never make an appearance and the album is drastically better because of this. The band is capable of diving head first into consonance within these fast riffs without compromising the overall aesthetic and creating the necessary contrast to avoid monotony. While Mindly Rotten’s bread and butter consists of rapid chromatic riffs from the NYDM school of riff-writing, the ability to inject that consonance at any given time within the riff really makes them stand out and serves the unpredictability of these songs really well. Those melodies hold these disparate ideas together and provide continuity within the compositions even though the ideas are presented once never to be heard again.
Due to the nature of this album, it sits at around twenty-five minutes which is the perfect amount of time before it gets wearisome due its unidimensional expression of uninhibited viciousness. Herein lies the issue with this album, despite all the variety of ideas they all converge to a singular emotion, the evocation of unbridled anger. Changes in tempo and explorations outside of the confines of this style would have pushed this album to the level of a lesser classic but as it stands The Most Exquisite Agonies sits as an excellent example of what brutal death metal can achieve when it doesn’t decide to make itself the ongoing joke.
