Insert Ridiculously Violent Words Here
Written by Nick Spooner
Manchester's champions of slam, Ingested, have been plugging away for 15 years now, offering up increasingly polished hunks of death metal to the altar of public opinion; to be rewarded with an ever-expanding fan base. So as to honour this career milestone - and presumably to keep band matters ticking over whilst unable to tour their latest full-length, Where Only Gods May Tread - Ingested have had their 2007 debut EP, Stinking Cesspool of Liquefied Human Remnants, remastered and re-issued.
As the title may very well suggest, these are not a subtle 15 minutes of music. From the opening sample of a news broadcast from a grotesque crime scene, right through to the half-time slugfest that ends EP closer Copremesis, this is a release that opts for a "more is more" approach to sonic barbarousness. All the core components of a record of this genre are present and correct: the pounding double-kick, blast beats (including some warp-speed gravity blasting), chugged guitars and unintelligible guttural, gurgled vocals. And, in truth, the tracks themselves are assembled in an effective manner. Each one takes a dismembered leg and pummels the listener round the chops, and over the period of quarter of an hour this has the desired impact of leaving the listener crawling towards the kettle for a nice mug of herbal tea followed by a sit down.
In a way that such re-releases of early material tend to do, fans of the band will be interested in what if any retrospective signposts exist that point towards any elements of Ingested's sound developed on later releases. Thankfully for fans, such moments do indeed exist, and predominantly amount to passages of more focused groove dotted here and there which, ultimately, are recognisable as having become a major component of Ingested in later years.
Since this is a remaster and a re-issue, it would be wholly remiss not to mention how this release differs to the original with regards to production. As is to be expected, the whole mix sounds more modern and much cleaner, with all the instruments more discernible and containing a punchier low-end compared to the overall background rumble in the 2007 original. Immediately apparent too is that the drums have been massively improved; gone is the Quality Street snare and the clicky kicks, replaced by a far more balanced and appealing drum sound that emphasises the punchier elements and is more prominent during the sections of blasting. However, here we also find a problem with the drums that plagues this release: they're too loud. This has the effect of swamping what is, strangely, rather a slim guitar sound throughout; dramatically reducing their impact overall. It's an odd decision, and one that certainly detracts from the EP as a whole. Having said that, it should be emphasised that - no matter what the fart-sniffers might tell you - in a side-by-side comparison with the 2007, this new remaster absolutely wipes the floor with it.
So, if you are a fan of Ingested and interested in the origins of the band's sound, or perhaps you're just an unrepentant enthusiast for this species of brutal death metal, then it's worth giving this a listen. It's far from an essential release, but it scratches an itch and does so perfectly ably.