Expurgate have been brutalizing the planet since 2010, but are just now getting around to releasing Dementia Tremens, their first full length via Comatose Music. What we have here is a textbook example of slamming death metal, replete with vocals that sound like a pig being sodomized with a sewer pipe, a reliance on crushing, molasses-like tempos and song titles like “Fermented Concubine Ingurgitation” and (my personal favorite) “40 oz. Facefuck.” Sick shit to be sure, but well-crafted sick shit.
As I’ve mentioned before, a lot of the slam I’ve sampled sounds like complete ass, robbing the music of the skull-caving heaviness it requires to get the point across. This is not the case with Dementia Tremens; the production quality here is top notch, allowing the slams to do their job, which is of course to turn you into a slobbering neanderthal motherfucker that wants to kill or fuck (or both) everything in the general vicinity. This is well-produced/written/played music, but it is music designed to tickle the lizard brain into overdrive, to draw out the ugliest, basest of human emotions.
Clocking in at just 22:45, Expurgate are proponents of the get in, kill-fucking-everyone, get out school of death metal; most individual songs are under three minutes. This is a wise choice on the band’s part; the tracks are completely devoid of fat, solely focused on fucking you up, and as a result the album doesn’t get stale or repetitive, it doesn’t have time to. In fact, Delerium Tremens is one of the few slamming death metal recordings I’ve heard that leaves me wanting more.
Expurgate have vomited up a gnarly little slab of slam with Dementia Tremens. It’s filthy, twisted and heavy as all get out; the perfect soundtrack to corpse molesting, mass murder or just a good ol’ fashioned ass-kicking. It’s also a hell of a lot of fun.
