Artist: FesterDecay
Country: Japan
Label: Relapse Records
Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD
Year: 2026
I can’t remember the last time I reviewed two good albums from Relapse Records in such a short space of time as the latest Exhumed album and this compilation LP by FesterDecay. Relapse Records was the label to keep an eye on when I was first getting into Extreme Music; not only did they have good Death Metal on offer, but their Grindcore selection in particular was always outstanding. From around the mid-2000s, things went rapidly downhill, mainly when they smelled the big money with bands like Mastodon and delved into all sorts of nebulous Stoner/Art Rock and whatnot. Although they never completely turned their backs on Grindcore and Death Metal, at some point I pretty much lost track of the label altogether. It’s telling that the good records from their back catalogue were reissued by Hells Headbangers Records rather than by the label itself.
But I was all the more delighted and surprised by the announcement that the company had taken the Japanese band FesterDecay under its wing. The first signs of a return to their roots were already evident in a series of reissues by bands such as Incantation, Exhumed, Nile, Nasum and the shockingly underrated Hemdale. That was certainly more encouraging than a new album by Coffins, yet another exercise in rehashing that no one should really be interested in anymore. Unfortunately, ‘From Demo To Rot’ is not a new FesterDecay album, but, as the title suggests, a compilation of older material. Hopefully, it will serve as a prelude to a new album from the Japanese band and, at the same time, a fresh start for Relapse Records.
‘From Demo To Rot’ compiles the ‘FesterDecay’ and ‘Carcass Revenge’ demos from 2016 and 2017 respectively, and also comes with a live set on the B-side that was recorded on December 14th of 2024. The live tracks were already made available by the band through their own digital channels, so technically, nothing on this LP is new or exclusive. However, it is the first time both demos appear on vinyl, after being reissued on both cassette tape and CD earlier. That alone warrants the release of ‘From Demo To Rot’, not to mention the much wider reach of Relapse Records in terms of distribution and promotion.
On a musical level, there’s not too much to tell if you’ve heard the original demos already. For listening convenience the tracks are remastered, making it sound a little smoother in terms of having levelled out the volume discrepancies, but other than that both the demo songs and live recordings kept their original ruggedness. That doesn’t only mean that this is a great piece of wax for those who still love their old Japanese Grindcore classics as well as the records of those obvious genre giants as Carcass, Exhumed, Impetigo, General Surgery, Necrony and Regurgitate, but maybe even more so feels like it fits perfectly in the Relapse Records roster of the early 90s.
