Review by Carl on December 24, 2025.

Yup, it's that time again. Time to review another one of those pathology-obsessed albums from around the change of the millennium, so throw open a couple of windows to let out the smell of raw meat and formaldehyde, because we're about to get clinical here.

To cut right to the bone, Patologicum is pretty much a Mortician clone. From the mercilessly downtuned chainsaw riffs to the fiercely blasting velocity employed for a generous part of the runtime, we've heard it all before on albums such as "Chainsaw Dismemberment" and "Domain Of Death". You know the drill: short songs that combine raging blasting ferocity with punishing slow stomping parts with way too many horror movie samples in between. The one thing that sets these Polish sicko's apart from Mortician is the fact that the vocals here do not try to ape Will Rahmer's deep vocal rumblings, but instead utilize a kind of vomitous, burping approach more in line with what goregrinders like Regurgitate or Dead Infection spewed upon their audience. Not that this technique makes any of the vocalizations more intelligible, you still can't make out any of it, but it makes for a nice variation in between all the Mortician worship/plagiarism. To complete the picture presented here, the percussion sounds like a drum machine, although there is a drummer credited in the liner notes. I guess electronic pads were used, presumably to mimic the programmed drums on those classic Mortician albums. And it will probably not surprise you that the production here is close to that of albums like the ones mentioned earlier, with the rattling percussion and oozing vocals well up front in the mix, and the fuzzed-out bass and guitars lying over it like a warm blanket. Kinda like Mortician sounded on their recordings, but a bit cheaper, more like the store brand version of it.

High art this ain't, but this is the kind of stuff I personally can't get enough of. It oozes filth and fury while delivering gore and grime all through the runtime of this vile and revolting slice of grinding death, and that is something that gets my motor purring anytime. I'm just a sucker for this type of blunt force death/grind, you know. Despite the production being somewhat on the cheap-ass side and the huge amount of movie snippets getting a bit tiresome towards the end, I'm down with this. Hey, I can stomach these things in the case of Mortician, so it would make me a hypocrite to cause a stink about it in the case of Patologicum, right?

If you like any of the bands mentioned above, you won't be disappointed by this one either. Original it ain't by a long shot, but I said it before and will do here again: as long as Mortician themselves are sitting on their hands when it comes to a new album, a slice of downtuned brutality like Hecatomb Of Aberration will help fill that silent void for the time being.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Review by El Viejo on April 3, 2020.

Pandemmy is a band I will never forget after writing this review. There are a couple of reasons in this amateurish sounding music, first, the mess behind everything and second, the song 'The Illusion Of Suffering' that drilled my brain and stayed forever for reasons that will be pointed out further on this review.

First, the song structures are extremely naïve, going nowhere, improvised, miscalculated and all over the place generally. There is not a single song that they don't overextend something, add a change abruptly without any reason and without flow, messy and sloppy feeling all over everything.

Writing this review made me realize how much I want for these guys to study two things in particular, as makes me sad that managing to release so much material, perseverance and hard work to end up in more crap like this. First to study musical structure urgently!!!, and second to think before composing in the concept, and intention behind each individual song and the album as a whole. The guitar solos are well done, but that's pretty much it.

This band could have a so much better sound without this turmoil approach to composition that I can't simply understand at all. Doesn't cause in me nothing more than wasting my time and wanting to listen something else instead as soon as possible (except for the solos). Each song, one after another is painful to listen and go through, tiring and repetitious, and my brain goes like crazy with all this mess, its stressful.

Production wise is below average, the guitars sound ok, the bass is buried on the mix, and the drums sound horrible, as the snare sound like a paint plastic bucket (also influences that probably the drummer is tapping them instead of playing with proper strength). The vocals are ok in their volume, but I find so awkwardly placed some clean vocals (that are nonetheless interesting) from some guys, that made me cringe instead of joining the chorus.

The third song has some Suffocation and Deicide inspiration, but not well done. The drums are just mindlessly going with the “tuca tuca” beat, that doesn't stop or varies in any way more than when the double bass comes. It's monotonous, unaesthetic and without any sense specially when blast beats come, that are extremely sloppy. The choruses are cringy, vocals dreary but much, much better than the last split with Abscendent.

The most interesting song is 'I Choose My Blood' because of its simple structure, and that doesn't mean that the song is good, because is not, but at least has some order, and can be digested somehow better than the rest.

In my opinion the second-best song here would be 'Terror Paranoia', as it sounds way more polished than the rest of the songs. Still has same problems as the rest, but much less. This is a good song, maybe the only one worth listening (together with the last one), not brilliant but good enough that made me play it again.

On the other hand, the worst of the worst would be 'The Illusion Of Suffering', believe me is not an illusion, you will suffer all what suffering means through every single moment of this crap. It’s the shortest song, with 1:40 minute long but every single second is a struggle for the listener, an actual psychological torture, that causes massive cower in me every single fraction of a second that passes through my ears, that I would never ever want to hear something like this in my life. I would rather listen 'Wrecking Ball' by Miley Cyrus on loop than this shit gladly (no joke). The vocals are the most horrible thing in this world, without being physically painful to listen, but my soul is the one actually suffering through this abstract nightmare. Especially sad is that the bluesy guitar leads are quite good, but nothing special anyways.

Finally, the last song, 'Charlottesville', has a bass solo, that took my attention, as sounded fun and I could finally realize there was a bass. This track would be the best of the bunch, but maybe a little bit long for its own good, and the recorded voice over (of a politician, probably Donald Duck) sounds pasted with chewing gum (doesn't belong). The musical investigation makes it much more interesting than the others, almost sounding like a completely different band in a good way, and this could be the direction the band should follow.

Brazil is a country that has managed to make out of themselves a really important place for metal in general. And I have faith on this band as this album also manages to sound different in some small parts, adding traditional sounds inspired from batucadas, and Brazilian drumming in general that makes me realize that there could be potential behind all this. That doesn't mean that is needed to be like Soulfly, but at least to make order and highlight and embrace those traditional influences instead of focusing so much in whatever they are doing. There are still some influences from the Gothenburg sound, but much less than before which is good.

Not Recommended, unless you want vengeance and torture somebody with the eighth track.

Rating: 2.9 out of 10