Pissgrave – Malignant Worthlessness │ Release Review

Pissgrave is so filthy they give us the musical version of having intimate relations with a sex doll you've found underneath a bridge.

It’s time to cake a month’s worth of grime beneath our fingernails, pull out a well-used meth pipe, sell the family dog for rocks and settle in for a dirty protest which would put GG Allin to shame; because Pissgrave has a new record out: Malignant Worthlessness.

Anyone who has ever gone on a countryside walk in the summer and stumbled upon a sheep’s corpse, or discovered a rotting crow under the bed which the cat has hidden, will know that death and decay have an utterly unmistakable stench. Thanks to Pissgrave, it also has a sound. The Pennsylvanian death metallers give us an entirely pragmatic sound. They have gone on record saying that they try to distance themselves from the more fantastical aspects of death metal, and it appears they have achieved this, as this record comes across as about as serious as a sleepover at Fred and Rose West’s house.

Comparing Pissgrave‘s sound to more popular death metal bands, such as Cannibal Corpse, is like comparing Darth Vader to King Leopold II of Belgium; the reality is far darker than the fiction could ever hope to be. Pissgrave’s efforts to get that message across with this record demand respect. Malignant Worthlessness can make something like Tomb of the Mutilated sound almost twee. Pissgrave begins the abomination that is Malignant Worthlessness with ‘In Heretic Blood Christened’. The song structure starts as though it’s in the middle of a particularly disgusting death metal beatdown, telling their fans that there’s no time for messing around with this record and that they’re right in the thick of all the filth they’ve come to expect from Pissgrave immediately. The vocals from Tim Mellon don’t even sound human, the gurgling of phlegm can almost be heard from the back of Mellon’s throat as he regurgitates stomach acid into the mic.

‘Three Degrees of Darkness’ moves the album into almost grindcore territory where the listener won’t know which decrepit tangent Pissgrave will take them on next. Downbeat, grooving riffs are being slapped around by disjointed and schizophrenic guitar noodling. On the title track, Mellon’s strangled vocals are completely unintelligible, but the intent for unpleasantness is clear. ‘Heaping Pile of Electrified Gore’ takes us right back into the golden age of death metal, capable enough that Death’s Chuck Schuldiner would be proud, whilst still maintaining Pissgrave’s distinctive reality-based message.

Unfortunately, this track ends with some brief spoken word, which has never improved any album. The listener is here because they want an escape from their mundane lives to roll around in the dirt for a bit, not melodramatic cringe-inducing poetry. But it’s mercifully brief, so next up, ‘Dissident Amputator’ meets us with some capable 80s thrash. This is a vocally focused track with guitar work reminiscent of Slayer’s Reign in Blood. ‘Interment Orgy’ reignites the death metal elements of this album smoothly, reminding the listener of the message Pissgrave is putting across with this album. ‘Ignominy of Putrefaction’ and ‘Lamentation of Weeping Wounds’ carry on down this same road as before.

There’s little new to say aside from how authentic the tracks are to Pissgrave’s stated goals and ambitions with their music. Finally, the record concludes with ‘Mystical Obscenities’. This is the album’s best track, regressing to sound like the bowels of hell have opened up and the listener has just been invited to sit down for a charcuterie board dinner with Jeffry Dahmer. It’s an offensive sensory overload not dissimilar to Dragged Into Sunlight’s Hatred for all Mankind. Pissgrave have just given their fans, new and old, an early contender for death metal album of the year and one thing is for sure: anyone who listens to this album will desperately want a shower afterwards.