Roadrunner were partly to blame. IIRC they churned out a few too many death metal bands that all sounded the same, thanks to Morrisound and Scott Burns. The Scando reaction was to start church-burning and killing each other while making shit music, and in the UK Cradle of Filth became famous for having better t-shirts than tunes. I could never give much black metal the time of day; when I saw Emperor in London in 1997 I thought they were a load of toss. So perhaps I gave up on death metal, but only because it was almost all bollocks.
Except it wasn't, really. It was just hiding. And a funny thing happened in 2006. In August, to be precise. I got a new flatmate and the first Saturday after he moved in I had nowt planned for the evening. Neither did he. On a random whim I thought I'd check out the Peel's website and see if there was owt on. And owt was on; an Extreme Metal night.
Fleshrot were playing.
I hold Fleshrot responsible for the renewed vigour I find in myself when it comes to death metal. They're to blame for everything, including ultimately the existence of this blog. They played a fucking blinding set that night in Kingston, and acted as my portal back into the world of death metal, especially UK death metal.
It didn't start well. They looked like a stoner band. The singer came on just walking, not bounding. There was no energy and we couldn't see his eyes, as he just stood by the mike with his hair draped over his face. But once the intro riff went away it was a full on oinkfest of the highest calibre and I went home proper invigorated by what I'd seen.
So look, I'm not a proper journalist, and truth be told when it comes to music criticism I can't really do that good a job. I just want to call attention to the bands I find out about, and at the same time call a spade a spade. In this instance that means saying this: Fleshrot play good death metal, and oink like bastards.
Soon after seeing them I dropped them an email via an address I got off their website. To date they're still the only band I've got in touch with (actually that's a lie; the singer from NecroRitual wants to buy me a pint for putting videos of them up on youtube) but it was phenomenally encouraging. Here's a cut-down version of the exchange we had (no words changed, just some taken out for brevity):
Hey Fleshrot - saw you guys at the Peel last Saturday and thought you were totally superb. You going to have t-shirts on sale at the Cartoon next week?
Glad you enjoyed it mate, hopefully we will have some tees available on the 23rd, if not,we have just recieved our new artowrk for our upcoming album, so [...]
New artwork? Hope you're not changing your logo!
erm, we are kind of, [...]
All I really care about is that the band name remains almost indechiperable.
hahah yeh man, itl be even more undreadable!!
These boys obviously get it. Fleshrot, I salute you. I've seen you live twice -- and it would have been 3 times if you'd not "called in sick" to that gig in Camden on Dec 29th -- and I'll see you again, no doubt.
- Fleshrot.org - their official website
- myspace.com/fleshrot
- grindethic.co.uk - their label/distro
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