Ingurgitate - Bleeding His Sacred Kingship (2005)

Because killing us all in the previous year wasn't enough for the Texans Ingurgitate, they decided they would exhume our now rested corpses, prop them up into some semblance of normal existence, and then brutally slaughter us all once more, this time with an even more densely focused narrative of uncomfortable brutality which excels in brickhouse pit rhythms far more than its predecessor, the loathsome lasso of Blackest Origins. The stops have been pulled out, the chainsaw taken off its hook in the shed and the targeted towards once more towards the constructive destruction of Christian imagery. I can only imagine the level of wanton confession this band would require to compensate for such an act as Bleeding His Sacred Kingship, but I don't really think they care. Better to rule in Hell, after all, right, pardner?

From the minute "I Have Created" issues forth from your speakers, those very same audio heralds will hate your guts, because Ingurgitate is so deep and disgusting here that they will rattle your rig apart at the very metallic and plastic seams. Truly, this is about as unfriendly as an album can get, with thick bass lines and darkened guitar tones that surge and thrust across the more brash performance of the drums. Like Devourment, the band can utter forth an ugly breakdown, but never dull, and I found the overall riffing skills superior as they rend and tear listener flesh like starving Satanic dire-buzzards. This album is even shorter than the debut, clocking in at a total of 22 minutes, but these are 22 minutes in which you will barely have time to break the surface of bloodied, shocked bodies as you drown in the viscera of "The Weight of Your Sins", "Whoreson" or the tense and tight "Twisting Prophetic Revelation".

The band rarely takes a break unless you're dealing with the shredded intro to "Only the Voiceless", or the haunting ambiance that alights "Consecration in Black Flames" or the bonus track "A Burial for the Exalted" (on the 2008 reissue through Ossuary Industries), but this is welcome, because Bleeding his Sacred Kingship is true to its sanguinary, blasphemous intentions, a slab of sheer entertainment that is so fun and energetic that it almost escapes any trace of criticism on those grounds alone. The riffs are better, the grooves better, and the sheer force of it will knock you out of your seat, and while the buck stops just below true greatness, after tossing the unfortunate rider, this is one of the finest individual death metal records I've heard out of Texas. Don't expect to lock horns with it and survive for long.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (condemned to pain)

http://www.myspace.com/ingurgitate

Ingurgitate - Blackest Origins (2004)

Texas has rapidly developed into the next 'Sweden', 'Poland' or 'Florida' in terms of its death metal scene, but fear thee not, this is not the type of community bound to produce world touring super star songwriters concerned with image and melody. No, the scene in Texas is downright fucking hostile, and Ingurgitate are just another band involving members of...well, other local death metal bands. Specifically, current and former conscripts of Infernal Dominion, Devourment, Viral Load, and Braced for Nails, a few of which are pretty damn fun in their own right. Judging by the intriguing occultism of the cover imagery, and welcome lack of gore and torture porn that adorn even some of the members' external works, I was not sure quite what to expect of the sound.

Perhaps I expected some Deicide or Morbid Angel worship, but while these are present to some degree as they are with all such acts, Ingurgitate are more in line with the ripping Midwest brutality of a Lividity, or their fellow Texan bands. While not as stomping or slamming as, say a Devourment, they've otherwise got that same devotion to sheer guttural force and highly percussive riffing, which makes sense, since this debut is largely the work of one Chris Hutto (who was also in that band). The drum rhythms are intense, riotous walls of double bass engorged upon the deeply chugged vortex of mutes, sometimes winding off into streams of clinical grief "("Disavow Christian Ignorance" or "Archaic Persecution of Allegiance to Jesus Christ"), but also throwing the listener for a loop or two, like the pummeling open notes ground up late in "Enthralled by Christian Reverence" or the melodic spawn point located deep within the crypts of "Scathing Tractarianism Immortalizing the Beheading Christ".

The summary execution of both Holy Spirit and Samaritan found in this band's titles and lyrics is probably not going to appeal to the average churchgoer, but for anyone who desires a mindless slug fest behind the local mortuary, come and gone in about 25 minutes of explosive rectal sacrilege, Blackest Origins might just have enough meat and muscle to sate that killer within for just a few more days. This is not a band long on riffs, but the primal violence created through the guitars and deep logistics of the hammering throat-work should ensure a satisfactory level of damage and discourse for any who would keep his or her expectations realistic for something arriving in this particular crop of bands. This is hardly a death metal classic, but it functions with its perturbed imagery as it grinds the image of falsified human iconography into fertilizer.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

http://www.myspace.com/ingurgitate