Because I love few things more than an absurd challenge that requires no physical effort, one of my goals in 2025 is to listen to the entire Agathocles discography, or at least, as much of it as is readily available. While that undertaking is obviously subject to the ups and downs associated with several hundred splits of varying quality, one of the earliest and (so far) strongest of those releases came about in 1991, one that saw those Belgian mincecore monsters paired with this French goregrind unit that, I must sheepishly admit, I had absolutely overlooked until now.
But the universe provides, my friends, because now that I’m fully on board, here I sit with a brand new Putrid Offal offering, only their third full-length in thirty-five years, and knowing now what I didn’t know then, I’m quite excited about this. Weird how things work out sometimes, innit?
Thematically, while Putrid Offal certainly finds inspiration in the icky, they approach their blood-spattered battering from a more historical side than sheer medical dictionary verbosity. Sicknesses Obsessions dealt with the origins of pathology through the work and studies of Andreas Vesalius, and Obliterated Life is another scholarly trek through blood and guts, this time focusing on a French battlefield surgeon during the Napoleonic wars, Dominique-Jean Larrey.
Musically, all those goregrind hallmarks remain, the sheer savagery of the riffage and the rhythms, the hints of sickly melody between them, the dueling high-low vocal attack, and a general sense of grossness befitting the subject matter. “The Sweet Fragrance” blasts out of the gate, with perfect examples of all of those traits, the vocal hook of the chorus balanced atop lightly dissonant chords, while second track “Boning Hall” (cue Beavis laughter) follows suit, the tandem showcasing Obliterated Life’s strengths in back-to-back bashers. Further rippers like the savage “Meat Stall,” “Sanguis In Oris,” and “Mass Murder” hammer the point home happily. In the end, Obliterated Life comes in as Putrid Offal’s most vicious and sharpest offering yet, although it does up the aggression largely at the cost of the epic tints that colored Sicknesses, with that prior album’s touches of female counterpoint vocals and tasteful keyboard augmentations. (Obliterated is a strong record, no question, but Sicknesses remains my favorite of the three Offals thus far.) Still, savagery is the name of this game, and savagery is certainly what’s delivered, throughout Obliterated Life’s fifteen tracks and nearly forty minutes.
I’m not entirely sure how I missed out on Putrid Offal for decades, though in my defense they weren’t around for two of those. Nevertheless, better late than not at all, of course, and it certainly helps that they’ve delivered an absolute monster of a record right as I’m coming into the party. So if bloodsoaked death/grind tickles your sickness, kids, come on in and join me… it’s gross in here. And you’ll love it.
