In 2018 it is easy to forget that both Entombed and Dismember are largely dead or on life support but you’d never know it with new crops of savage d-beating Boss HM-2 growling death metal crews constantly bursting from the suburbs of just about every country imaginable. Russia’s most noisome and aggressive Swedeath worship in recent memory comes from Wombripper, a gang of youths set upon tearing apart the well-gnawed meat from Dismember‘s limbs since their 2014 demo ‘Morbid Aberrations’. What a difference a few years and a couple hundred dollars worth of guitar pedals makes, right? That first demo was quite good but it’s cheap digital distortion sound marred an otherwise strong set of chunky death metal tracks with some small patience for semi-melodic and slower sections. Though it was a relatively basic effort Wombripper had clear intentions from the start.

‘Infected Tomb’ is the second recording from the band and it sounded entirely different now that they’d found a new bassist and used the more traditional buzzsaw method for their guitar distortion this time. The EP is a solid fifteen minutes of Dismember style death metal that showcases their full intent leading into their 2018 full-length ‘From the Depths of Flesh’. “Through the Blood and Fire” is probably the most standout track for me personally because it incorporates melodic death metal riffs into the tail end of the song and reminds me of a demo era band like Nirvana 2002. “Born to Kill” generally evokes a ‘Massive Killing Capacity’ like groove that is slightly less exciting though I appreciate when the drums slow down a bit because the snare sound on this demo is an oversized tin can whack when he really goes full speed.

I had no difficulty looking past the lack of production value on this EP because Wombripper never really struggle otherwise in their variation of old school Swedish death metal. The songs are well written within the template established decades before, though it certainly isn’t original in it’s imitation nor does it match similar efforts from Entrails or Cut Up. Perhaps the best way Wombripper stands out is in their extreme bursts of speed and aggression, though few death metal bands in this style lack it. This EP is most likely to end up in the hands of Swedeath loyalists and fanatics and in the case of this cassette version, folks (collectors) who want to hear the two bonus live tracks included. The quality is quite good or at least nearly on par with the raw studio recording of ‘Infected Tomb’ and it was nice to hear the band were pretty tightly wound and on-time in a live setting. Well worth a grab if you love Swedish death metal sound-alikes as much as I do.

Eternally rotting. 3.5/5.0

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