One of the purveyors of the Canadian early death metal scene has always been Rimouski’s, Necrotic Mutation.  I still have the Sepulchre of the Suffering on cassette, from 1993, when I was tape trading back in the day.  Necrotic Mutation had more of an underground cult following and never really got their shit together to do a full-length.  Releasing a bunch of ex’s and then calling it a day.  But the band reformed last year so hopefully a debut album will be released.  Necrotic Mutation were raw, brutal and had some Suffocation influences, but you can also hear how their sound influenced the mighty Gorguts.  Especially Luc Lemay capturing some of the vocal stylings of Daniel Jalbert.  So now is a great time for the reissue which combines the 1992 Advanced Tape rehearsal, 1993 Sepulchre of the Suffering and the 1995 The Realm of Human Illusions.

The reissue starts with The Realm of Human Illusions ep first.  This was a more polished effort than their earlier material.   “The Psycho Path” (Always loved the play on words), is a song of extreme heaviness and plenty of 90’s era blast beats, which were influenced by 90’s NYDM.  “Behind the Veil” always had some Death influences with the guitar melodies and of course the obligatory slow-downs and blasts coming right around the corner to lasso your pathetic head off your useless shoulders.  This song has great vocal patterns, growls, powerful barks and a few pinch harmonics thrown in just to hammer you down.  The part starting at the 2.30 section is the Holy Shit moment and one of the strongest musical pieces Necrotic Mutation ever wrote.  It’s vicious and pummels non-stop.  The Sepulchre of the Suffering ep will always be near and dear to me due to my tape trading days but the fact I still own it shows how much I listened to this sob back in the day.   The death metal was a tad more primitive, with more of an emphasis on more guttural death metal, and even a little Broken Hope in there.  You may even hear some early Carcass influences.  “Rectal Extraction of Maggot Colony” is still one of my favorite 90’s brutal death metal songs.  I remember when I first heard this I was like-what the hell is going on in Canada?  Canada at the time had more thrash metal bands and while some bands would go towards a death metal song Necrotic Mutation and Gorguts, really were the ones who put the Canadian death metal music on the map imo.  “Persistence of Agony” still sounds ultra-ferocious and the guitar solos thrown in with all the chaos does break things up a tad and some monster growls and blasts really make this a ripper of a song.

The 1992 Advanced Tape is excellent and really shows a band honing their craft in the early go around of brutal death metal, but for the time period, this sounds great.  I had never heard it before and it sounds much better than other tapes of the time period.  13 Media put this compilation out and I think this is conjunction with the band, in that I could find no real info of this label anywhere.  By now you all know how much I love reissues and how I can be a stickler with reissues.  I mean if you’re not gonna include everything and make the packaging worthwhile, especially in today’s dwindling album sales, than what the hell is the point.  The Necrotic Mutation 1999 ep is not on this comp, but aside from that this is an upper decker top-shelf Rini reissue.  The Realm of Human Illusions ep cover adorns the thick chunky digipak and all the material has not only been remastered but has been remixed.  What a freaking treat.

Needless to say Necrotic Mutation has never sounded so good, but damn-this is how you do it, son.  But they did not just stop at that.  They included not 1 but 2 booklets.  1 booklet is the Sepulchre of the Suffering and the other is The Realm of Human Illusions.  Both booklets contain the original artwork, pictures, lyrics and liners and the advanced tape info is in the Sepulchre booklet.  Whether you were a fan of Necrotic Mutation or really love quality reissues, or possibly both, you have to pick up Mutanthology-it’s a phenomenal compilation reissue, that comes with a sticker too.

 

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