Regurgitated Stream Of Rot

Some bands change quite a bit throughout the course of their existence, sometimes ending up as something so radically different than what they were when they started, one might wonder how they ended up so far from their original sound. Bands that follow this route often progress for years or even decades to fully separate themselves from their initial bouts of creativity, but in the case of Embrionic Death, they managed a whole career's worth of development and progression in just three short years, over the course of three very different tapes. This release collects all three of these seminal death metal demos in one place, allowing one to fully re-evaluate this highly impressive, though short lived outfit. This collection kicks of with the bands second demo, Regurgitate the Dead, and I must, any fan of ultra brutal death metal would do well to sample some of these songs. Opening and ending with a clip from a Bugs Bunny cartoon (possibly a reflection of the member's ages, who were mostly VERY young), Bed Sores immediately encases the listener in waves of thick, slamming guitar riffs, alternating blast/groove drumming, prominent bass lines, and hideous vocalizations. The vocals deserve special mention, the perfect hybrid of growl, grunt, and gurgle which to me never grows tiresome, even though his performance can be lacking in variation. Modern brutal death/grind bands should take notice, as this vocalist displays how to be offensively brutal without resorting to annoying gimmicky squeals and burps. Though there are nods to Suffocation, all of the songs on this classic release are fresh and well written, with a good amount of variation. Take for example the epic riff that concludes Dissected and you'll see what I mean. The band is able to toy with very subtle use of melody within their guttural slam framework, so even though the songs are mostly of decent length for this style, they never become boring or tiresome, as each mega brutal riff gives way to an even catchier mega brutal riff. All in all Regurgitate the Dead could definitely teach modern death bands a thing or two about good songwriting, something that is wildly absent from the scene at this time. Perhaps it was due to a lack of interest that the band opted for a brand new style on their next tape, as Stream of Solidarity literally contains not one element of the bands sound from the first two demos. Instead the dive head first into a super technical style, most likely influenced by what bands like Death and Cynic were doing at the time. It can come as shock the first time around, after the six songs from Regurgitate segue into this progressive death cacophony, but these songs quickly prove their worth. As I mentioned the music becomes overtly technical in nature, seemingly willing to blend every kind of crazed experimentation into the mix. Riffs that reek of harmonic dissonance, collide with full on attempts at melody, relentless stop/start time shifts, popping slap bass, and vocals that are slightly more intelligible than last time around. The lyrics even take on a somewhat scientific yet existential bent, so maybe he wanted to get his message across and decided on a cleaner delivery, even trying his hand at some melodic singing as well. All around the performances are respectable, and the band's new sound comes across as thought provoking and original, but I can't help but wonder how awesome an album of songs in the Regurgitate style would have been had they kept pursuing that direction, and sadly, Stream ends up as the bands farewell release. Concluding the CD, we step back into the band's early days with their debut, Dead Rotten Corpse. An altogether more rumbling primitive affair, it's certainly not without it's charms. Here we see a more embryonic (pun) form of the style that would fully flower on the band's next release. The recording here is the most unpolished of the three releases, giving it that basement metal sound quality. There is even a little more grind influence on songs like Purified by Pus, and Funeral Procession. They were proba