Rotten Coffin – The Agony In Slumber
Release Date: 16th December 2022
Label: Bitter Loss Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Brutal Death Metal.
FFO: Splattered Remains, Aborted, Misery Index.
Review By: Andy Spoon
Originating from Funchal, Portugal, Rotten Coffin releases their latest LP, The Agony in Slumber on December 16th, 2022 on Bitter Loss Records. Immediately, you get the vibe that this album is going to be a ride at the very first moment. The Agony In Slumber is extremely well-produced and engineered, despite the fact that the instruments were recorded in a home studio by the band members themselves. Given that they were presented with some of the technical duties on their own, it’s amazing to hear how cohesive and complete the sound is (after being mixed and mastered by Dmitry Fury at Enoth Studios).
The first vibes a listener might get is something mixed between Aborted and Misery Index, with a little bit of lively lead guitar peppered-in for flavor. As a debut album, Rotten Coffin features ex-members of Splattered Remains and Siamese Cancer, emerging from a three-track EP released in 2021. Vocalist Devourer has been featured in previous works such as Deviant Syndrome and Warder. The project also features session drums from Krzysztof Klingbein, whose performance on the album absolutely eclipses using triggers or programmed samples, something that listeners like me really appreciate, as it adds to a more “complete” and “raw” feeling to the music.
Immediately, old-school death metal riffs are one of the hallmarks of the entire album. Staccato chugging and power chords feature heavily in the mix, bringing a contemporary take on older Death Metal styles that go back to the Earache Records days (In contrast to, perhaps, a Swedish “chainsaw” style). Overall, I really like it, as it tends to lean more towards “Cannibal Corpse” than it does to the thrashy Death Metal riffs of, say, Morbid Angel (Except for the track The Agony In Slumber, which features a lovely OSDM solo). It’s apparent, however, that The Agony In Slumber isn’t meant to simply be derivative, as it really has an identity all its own, especially in tracks like Grim Megalith, and Metamorphic, tracks where there is a great deal of variety in instrumentation, style, and vocal delivery.
I think that the album was a fairly-short listen, only coming in at 42 and a half minutes total. Perhaps Rotten Coffin could have crammed another track or two onto The Agony In Slumber, but the 43-minute runtime just feels sweet and succinct, making the listen just long enough to be satisfying without crossing the “boring” threshold at all. I’m happy with the 8 metal tracks (with 2 interludes), all being around four and a half minutes each. That length leaves some time for bridges, vamps, and guitar solos, breaking from the older death roots, where tracks might only be 3-ish minutes long. The length is also broken up by a keyboards interlude at track 6 that adds a dark moodiness to the album before going back into the brutality of the rest. Overall, The Agony In Slumber is a great album that could be placed next to some of the genre’s above-average releases of the year, such as Decapitated’s Cancer Culture, Yatra’s Born Into Chaos, or Misery Index’s Complete Control. I think I can assert that confidently, as The Agony In Slumber was not only a great listen for the sake of the band, but for 2022’s well-rounded swathe of Death Metal releases.
(4 / 5)
