Artist: Woundead
Country: Italy
Label: Unpure Records
Formats: Demo Tape
Year: 2024
‘Breeding Depravity’, subtitled as ‘Demo II’, is the successor of the short 2-track ‘Festering Death’-demo tape that was released in summer of 2024, both independently and through Iron Fortress Records. It showcase Woundead as a band that is true to the basics of the Death Metal genre. Not only are these Italians true to the rather simple and rotten way of writing songs, especially their overall authentic sound makes their music hard not to like.
This second effort is slightly longer, but still clocks in well under the 15-minute mark. Yet, that only adds to the compelling aura that’s surrounding the music. Good things come in smaller portions, and that certainly goes for old and putrid Death Metal. While nothing has changed from the approach on their first demo, things fall a little more into place on ‘Breeding Depravity’. Not quite in terms of “musical maturity” or productional values, but more in the sense of slightly stronger song material.
Basically this is still just a rather flawless mix between pre-‘Mental Funeral’ Autopsy and Necrophagia. It might not surprise that this second demo ends with a Necrophagia-cover in the form of ‘Embalmed Yet I Breathe’, taking from Necrophagia’s impeccable 1998 ‘Holocausto De La Morte’-album. Maybe that one cover song sums up best what Woundead is about, horror-drenched, rugged and ugly Death Metal in the one and only old school way. A sort of Death Metal that is based on actual riffs and a horrifying atmosphere, rather than down-tuned walls of sound.
This demo was released in only 33 copies under Unpure Records’ “Ungodly Underground Series”, a name that, of all that has been released under that denomination, definitely fits Woundead best.
