Corpus Rottus - Nihilism

CORPUS ROTTUS - Nihilism (LOST APPARITIONS Records - CD 2012)

Corpus Rottus was a solid, but shortly lived US brutal death metal band, which maybe never got a lot of appreciation, but their only album, 1991’s “Rituals of Silence”, was a good effort. It’s one of those cool, but rather lesser known releases, which had no chance to become as popular as “Effigy of Forgotten” or “The Dead Shall Inherit” but does it mean it’s not worthy of support? I like it! Corpus Rottus split up around 1992-93 I think, but before calling it quits they did one more recording, which is a demo titled “Nihilism”. It was not released, until Outlaw Recordings came up with its vinyl version (which must be quite rare, as I’ve never seen a copy of it anywhere) and later Lost Apparitions Records did a CD version of it in 2012. It’s great that this demo was saved from being forgotten, because it’s very solid portion of death metal, that really sounds great and brutal as fuck.

This demo contains eight songs, but three of them you can scratch right away, since they’re like few seconds short only, so they’re not so interesting and there’s nothing special about them. The rest of the songs is also quite short, their time is never longer that three minutes, but it’s enough to get hit hard with this heavy and massive sounding shit. There are some great riffs, the pace is usually fast, so there’s no time wasted and it feels like the band attacks right from the beginning, with no aim to take prisoners, but to crush and destroy. For me this demo sounds exactly as I like brutal death metal to be – not overly technical, but also not annoying with some shitty pigsty vocals or unreadable riffs. This is pure death metal, with fierce, brutal sound, sick vocals and sometimes with quite groovy feeling. The song writing is impressive, production is quite good also I have to say, so I am sure that if this demo was released back in 1992, then it would get a lot of good responses. Life’s a bitch though, Corpus Rottus is no more… but I am glad that the demo was rescued from complete oblivion.

Standout tracks: “Beyond the Obsequium”, “Funeral Homes and Morgues”

Final rate: 80/100