PUNGENT STENCH

While Austria's death metal beast PUNGENT STENCH has unfortunately been plagued with internal and external drama for years, their work has been monumental in that hazy realm that connects death metal and grindcore. And now, thanks to the long-running Dutch label Hammerheart Records, PUNGENT STENCH's legendary 1988 demo "Mucous Secretion" is reborn. The lo-fi batch of blistering tracks aren't just an interesting flashback to the early period of one of Europe's most seminal death metal bands, these timeless songs outshine the majority of modern death metal.

A key aspect of PUNGENT STENCH's unforgettable nature is their no-frills, punk energy and approach, which stands in stark contrast to the overly polished, sterile encapsulation and spirit of contemporary death metal. The miscreants behind the band recorded the demo's material in a single session with nothing but an old-fashioned boom box. The tracks would later be re-recorded on subsequent releases like their 1989 "Extreme Deformity" EP, their split with DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA from the same year, and their 1990 debut LP "For God Your Soul…For Me Your Flesh". The re-release's special golden nugget comes in the form of six additional songs culled from a separate rehearsal around the same time, including the previously unreleased number "Melted Corpse" and the SLAUGHTER cover "Strappado/Incinerator".

The demo kicks off with a beautifully extensive and unsettling sample from "Evil Dead", adequately setting the tone for the unhinged, demonic sonic debauchery that follows. "Extreme Deformity" is performed at a higher tempo than the version that later appears on the EP of the same name, and while both versions are great, the demo take's unrefined qualities and savage grit make it the superior of the two. Demo closer, "Embalmed In Sulphuric Acid", meanwhile, catapults a nasty groove into a full-throttle attack that's as subtle as a derailed train tumbling off the tracks. It's very much in the vein of early NAPALM DEATH and TERRORIZER.

PUNGENT STENCH will forever be known within the annals of death metal history for their addictive, catchy deathgrind madness. (If the trio — drummer Alex Wank, guitarist/vocalist Martin Schirenc and bassist Jacek Perkowski — were to have written this last sentence, they'd surely use the word anal instead, true to their absolutely perverse sense of humor.) "Mucous Secretion" is a fantastic reminder of PUNGENT STENCH's brilliance for old-timers, and one can only hope that the re-release gains enough traction and attention to fall within the radar of a younger death metal audience.