Artist: Putridarium
Country: Germany
Label: Night Terrors Records
Formats: 7″ EP
Year: 2026
After a series of demos, a compilation of demos, two split releases and a full-length album, Germany’s Putridarium returns with a new EP called ‘Natvm Ad Mortem’. Honestly, the demos were okay but not yet very special, but the band was taking steps forward with the split releases of which the split 7” EP with Trollcave in particular was rather good. The album, on the other hand, sounded a bit stale, mainly because of its longer running time, which made it difficult to keep the fairly straightforward Death Metal engaging for a full 40 minutes. I was therefore all the more pleased to see that the new material was a 7″ EP: two tracks, one on each side, wonderfully concise and compact.
‘Natvm Ad Mortem’ runs for only about 13 minutes and, frankly, that really is enough. Whatever you’d like to say about Putridarium, they are not a band that is brimming with dynamics and sophisticated song writing. Instead they rely on rather simple and flat-footed Death Metal that is groovy and finds itself in the mid-tempo range for most of the time.
That means that Putridarium is not aiming for originality and doesn’t lean too much on diversity either. This is the sort of Death Metal you have to like, its solid but never very eventful. Like your average fast food meal: it tastes good, but you easily forget it. It doesn’t exactly knock the plaster off the walls, and the song material isn’t exactly so ingenious that it keeps you on the edge of your seat either. In fact, this is just a fun little piece of vinyl with some solid Death Metal that does what it should do: enjoy you for 13 minutes. But I do wonder whether something like this tends to be taken out of the collection more often after the first (few) listens following the initial purchase. Which isn’t necessarily to say this isn’t a good buy; a label that continues to release 7″ EPs, bucking all trends, deserves support, and, whichever way you look at it, Putridarium is still a lot easier on the ears than something like Deteriorot or Paganizer.
