Artist: Desecration
Country: USA
Label: Hells Headbangers Records
Formats: LP
Year: 2025
Honestly, when I first ran into Desecration, I wasn’t all too impressed with the band from Newport, Wales. Perhaps it was my mindset at the time, the setting in which they appeared in my life, both around the early 2000’s or my introduction was just through “the wrong” albums – most likely a combination of all three. I don’t remember exactly when, but I saw the band two times in a rather short period and I thought they weren’t able to match the headliners. So, it took me a good decade or so before I ended up exploring the band’s discography. Still I am not very convinced with most of their material, but their early goings were rather brutal and although they never really managed to catch up with the big names of the, mainly American, bands in this Brutal Death Metal style, they were certainly able to compete with them in terms of quality.
With a couple of short players in the form of two demos, a rehearsal and an EP the band already made an entry in the underground Death Metal scene before putting out their debut album, that finds its re-release through Hells Headbangers and for the very first time on vinyl.
Although this is a British band, their musical style is completely dedicated to what we today call American Death Metal. With a strong grinding edge and based on the fundamentals laid down by Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse, Desecration can be mentioned along such acts as Broken Hope, Dying Fetus, Pyrexia, Skinless, Brodequin, Deeds Of Flesh, Gorgasm, Cinerary, Malignancy, Lividity, Fleshgrind, Putrid Pile, Mortal Decay… Just basically every band that has its roots in the mid- to late 90’s and has some Grindcore strongly embedded in their DNA and with a clear penchant for technicality and musical complexity, at least to a greater or lesser degree.
The production of ‘Gore And Perversion’ is surprisingly clean too. There certainly is a good amount of crunch on the guitars, but every instrument is clearly audible and it doesn’t come at the expense of the heaviness of the music. Something that was a common thing at the time, lots of albums from those years between, say, 1995 to 2005, lack punch and effectiveness. Just listen back to these early Dying Fetus albums and you’ll know. But that is definitely not the case here. Heavy, crunchy and memorable in terms of musicality and production values.
And, for some good measure the album comes with some gory artwork (befitting its title) and a few mandatory movie samples. That makes that you can basically check all the boxes when listening to ‘Gore And Perversion’ now, exactly 30 years after its initial release.
