Fetid Zombie – Epicedia

fetidzombiebandcamp  I’m going to tell you right here and right now that there’s something incredibly criminal happening in the metal scenes all across the globe. It’s the phenomenon of several people from different backgrounds, cultures, and variants in musical taste can come together and call a record, or band even, amazing in every way, but then it seems hardly anyone talks about it. That is the career of Fetid Zombie in a nutshell. While the man behind it, Mark Riddick, who’s become a legend in the underground thanks to his brutal artwork, has put out five full-length records and multiple splits and EPs in recent years alone, his band isn’t all that widespread relatively. Today, the release of Fetid Zombie’s sixth full-length of “Epicedia”, will change that for the best, that I’m sure of.

To boil it all down, there are two ways you can do a full-length: (1) do a little of a lot, or (2) do a lot of a little. Somehow, Fetid Zombie manages to pull off both brilliantly. Busting in with but only four tracks to call its own, “Epicedia” immediately makes up for such a small listing with the shortest being eight minutes flat. I don’t know about you, but knowing that I’m about to be greeted with slabs of god-tier death metal that come in 8+ minute onslaughts . . . that gets me f*cking excited! And not a single track disappoints either. The only way I can imagine someone not liking the magnum opus that is “Epicedia” is that you don’t like death metal to begin with. Otherwise, Fetid Zombie has created what is easily one of the most monumental, powerful, and putrid albums of the year bar none. Whether it be the horrifying tone that’s brought to every single track, the riffs brought from beyond the grave, the multiple contributions from other excellent artists from across the world, or how “Epicedia” has so many different styles and sounds spread throughout it’s [approximately] 35-minute run time. But no matter what, if you’ve managed to reach the final note of “Epicedia” you will be nothing short of compelled to listen to this excellence again. That is the devilry that Fetid Zombie has mastered. No matter how tiny the taste you’ve gotten, after hearing this glorified chaos once you’ve no choice but to come crawling back as if your very life depended on it.

I don’t know about you, but I can definitely live with hearing something like this over and over again for years to come. That’s why my opening statement is such a big deal to me. Fetid Zombie is like a god amongst the scene in terms of musical skill and with its presence alone it induces an unforgettable feeling of what can only be described as a metalhead’s nirvana. Fetid Zombie is absolutely not t be trifled with, and if nothing else, “Epicedia” is irrefutable proof of such. I’m possibly throwing my money at the screen right now (you can’t prove if I am (I totally am)), and I advise you to do the very same should you want an elite death metal experience like none other before it.

You can purchase and stream “Epicedia” on Bandcamp here.

Track Listing:

  1. Lowered Beneath
  2. Devour the Virtuous
  3. Devour the Innocent
  4. If the Dead Could Speak