Guest Article by Malus
After the death of the classic death metal scene, more extreme and experimental types of death metal were arising in the late 90s and early 00s. A lot of these bands get overlooked and disregarded for the early 90s classics, but these bands had flourishing creativity, building upon the classic bands and taking them beyond their initial visions into something new, intriguing, and arguably at the same level. Regurgitation is among this archetype, holding fast to the brutal death metal side of the scene which was growing within Ohio in the late 90s. With their album, Tales of Necrophilia, Regurgitation takes the tropes of bands earlier than them and puts a new extreme spin on them.
Regurgitation takes more influences from the Barnes’ era Cannibal Corpse sound than Suffocation, which many bands had cloned up to this point. This is shown in their plentiful midpaced tremolo palm muted harmonies, minor 3rd tapping trills, and trudging quarter note chugs, reminiscent of many riffs from Butchered at Birth to The Bleeding. Instead of opting for the mid-paced route of many Cannibal Corpse songs around that era, Regurgitation is decidedly more challenging.
From off-setting meter changes and angular jumps including sluggish slams to high fret foolery, Regurgitation is not always the most catchy band. Oftentimes when they intersperse these chugs into their more melodically momentous riffs, they will repeat only the chug part of the riff near the end of the phrase to the point of nearly wearing out its welcome in order to create an effective dreadful monotony. This purposeful use of chugging on the same note right on top of the beat rather than creating a groove separates Regurgitation a lot from stereotypical brutal death metal. These slams are not mosh fodder, but serve to bludgeon the audience with their primitivism and anxious phrase extensions.
Regurgitation is also very keen on jumping around the fretboard at will, introducing chromatic maze-like tremolos to be abruptly interrupted by diminished and minor 2nd trilling, often adding 3rd or 5th harmonies to these parts of the melody as the riff repeats in order to gradually cacophonize the phrase until breaking into a plodding slam or doomish dyad fest. The fluidity of the tempo really helps it achieve an unhinged feeling as the band shifts suddenly from chromatic tremolos backed by double bass into quick high flying diminished trilling over short bursts of blasts.
The angularity of the melodies paired with odd meter and phrase changes put Regurgitation beyond the realms of typical Cannibal Corpse inspired brutal death metal into their own atmospheric and disgusting niche. What this album lacks in more traditionally satisfying songwriting is made up for with the atmosphere evoked by their unintuitive and challenging style of composition.
