#pestilength

[drondskaath]

Pestilength/Necronauta | Aesporeh | 2023

Spanish Black/Doom Metal

https://pestilength.bandcamp.com/album/aesporeh

[dustedmagazine]

Pestilength — Basom Gryphos (Nuclear Winter)

Basom Gryphos by PESTILENGTH

Basque death metal band Pestilength has a name expertly crafted for our times: a pestilence that has been in circulation for way too long? You can check both those boxes — and the association with the “death” in death metal underscores the alarming aptness of the semiotics. The affective vibe and the cultural ethos articulated on Basom Gryphos are thick, complicated stuff to work out. There’s a related issue of tone: for this listener, there’s something close to obscene, something that feels vaguely vulgar and grody, that happens when one says “Pestilength.” It’s hard to identify what about the term produces the repellant resonance, which adds to the uncertain representational stakes. Whatever it is, that resonance is in tune with the band’s music: thick, pummeling death metal of a high degree of intensity and a pervading sense of gravid sternness. Combine two song titles (“Exertion” and “Vexed”) from Basom Gryphos and you get a fitting mission statement for the record: vexed exertion.

A lot of contemporary death metal takes shortcuts to vex listeners to the point of gross-out. The throat-fart vocals of slam, the cartoonishly violent cover art and explicit yuck of song titles, the attempts to mimic peristalsis and digestive action in atmospherics and riffs: those are long-standing tactics in the genre, and they can produce some entertainingly unpleasant results. Pestilength doesn’t make forays along any of those avenues. The band prefers to confront the listener with the sheer force of its riffs, using them as blunt instruments to reduce various fleshy forms (ears, frontal lobes, bellies) to jelly. The results can be surprisingly musical; see the second half of “Tephra Codex.” There’s nothing especially complex going on, but the riff is infinitely repeatable, and the small rhythmic changes made by the drummer-entity identified only as N. introduce an interesting mutability to the long passage of thumping aggressivity. 

Indeed, the best songs on Basom Gryphos keep things simple, and the supple muscle of the riffs’ bottom end often has a viscid, organic quality that’s quite effective. “Entglant Subh” might be the most guileless display of that, a song that just wants to stomp and clench. The song’s title includes the Catalan word for England — but beyond that, this reviewer can’t comment on themes, or meaning. In spite of the dearth of representational content, and the lack of fancy flourishes and conceptual baggage, “Entglant Subh” is a hugely satisfying song. And it’s likely that Pestilength’s music is good in direct proportion to that dearth and that lack. You focus on the songs, the rhythmic wallops and the riffs. In death metal’s current conjuncture — with all the high-brow, speculative narrative, and all the cynical “brutality” turned up to 11 — it’s sort of refreshing to hear a band that wants you to groove on the riffs, and on the volume. Given the outsized exertion these guys put into their playing, their intensity is more than enough to vex. 

Jonathan Shaw

[stylized-corpse]

Album Review: Pestilength – Solar Clorex

Pestilength – Solar ClorexFebruary 16th, 2024Death Doom / Death MetalDebemur Morti ProductionsBasque Country, Spain I was only recently made

This new Pestilength record is awesome!

[kimkimberhelen]

Pestilength - Baleful Profusion (2024)

[metal-patches-vinyl]

Houston fiends! Get down to @whiteswanlive right now for the #HoustonMetalSwapMeet! Treasure hunt for underground gems. I just met up with @goat_throne_records, who has a great table featuring his releases (I bought three!). Our people are assembling; heed the call. 🤘

My loot:

Black Oath - To Below & Beyond

Pestilength - Basom Gryphos

Cardiac Arrest - Haven for the Insance

Wulfskol/Hexella Split

2x Judas Iscariot CDs

[columnistfromtheabyss]

Review: Pestilength – Basom Gryphos (Nuclear Winter/Sentient Ruin)

My review of Pestilength's second album, Basom Gryphos, written for Heavy Music HQ:

Basom Gryphos is Pestilength’s second studio album after releasing Eilatik in 2020. It can be considered as a successful effort that has been effective to complete the world of the debut album.

In some ways it may seem that Basom Gryphos does not bring much with it, and is devoid of elements that make it a special work. But the manifestation of the album’s vibrant spirit makes sense when you listen to it several times. Basom Gryphos doesn’t put much on the table, but the album’s success is in their Incantation/Immolation-themed death/doom metal combination, with strong touches of black metal. It creates a dark, horrific and evil scene, reigning all over its ominous spirit. It’s an effort that ultimately allows Pestilength to score the points needed for an effective work.

Rating: 3/5

[thedespicableblog]

Pestilength - Eilatik Thanks teerak Chester Lim ! 🙏🥺🖤 Thanks Warwick for delivering! 🤜🤛 #Pestilength #Eilatik #LP #VinylRecord #Vinyl #BlackDoomMetal #ThankYou #ExtremeMusicForExtremePeople (at House of Metal) https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ_hvCpJFax/?utm_medium=tumblr

[drondskaath]

Pestilength | Eilatik | 2020

Spanish Black/Death Metal

https://pestilength.bandcamp.com/