Review by Jeger on January 16, 2025.

Proper death metal should always have a sense if not just a hint of nostalgia. Lest we forget what true DM stands for, and it's never stood for a bunch of flashy guitar doodles, a thousand beats per second blasts and AI cover art. It's about the mood of the album. It should be menacing, oppressive and unsettling. Artists like Trey Azagthoth (Morbid Angel) and Chuck Schuldiner (Death) were able to pull off the technical stuff, because they did it with class unlike much of today's crop of death metal bands. Ears to the underground and into the historic streets of London, England do we now venture: the land of ale, football hooliganism and Mutagenic Host - a contemporary death metal band that happens to have this thing down fairly pat. On January 3, Mutagenic Host released The Diseased Machine via Memento Mori.

Collectively, Mutagenic Host feels like traditional death metal themes fail to capture the essence of what's pertinent to our time, which appears to be corrupt global powers, AI robots and technology as a disease rather than anything beneficial to mankind. However, when it comes down to the music, you can expect a cross between classic Bolt Thrower and old school Obituary: slow-dragging riffs, punishing bass lines and caveman rhythms to see you off into a festering world where nothing is sacred and slavery to technology is the norm. "Neurological Necrosis" - Dying Fetus-level brutality to kick things off, but a step or two slower; giving you amble time to absorb every cranium-splintering breakdown and every world-caving-in riff. Literally nothing technical here. "The Diseased Machine" hits like a massive bong load taken after a shot of whiskey: cortex and gut receiving the impact here.

Entombed - "Wolverine Blues" vibes? All fucking day, only heavier, fucking big balls swinging… You could also call out some "Left Hand Path" influence and you'd be hitting home as well. "Organometallic Assimilation" being a prime example. Dialed up a bit and just hammering those brutish progressions into your big fat head all fucking day. Futuristic T2 war cinematic parts create a movie-like experience during some tracks while segments like the intro to "Promethean Dusk" just ooze early '90's era Deicide vibes as crunching riffs give way to primitive grinds. For the mosh pit! For the swilling of cheap beer and for romping through festival mud is The Diseased Machine - a catalyst to world-annihilation - a futuristic yet primal journey.

Keep those grooves coming all day! And that's exactly what Mutagenic Host does during the entirety of this thing before the experience culminates with "Rivers Of Grief": visual (especially on weed), epic and pulverizing. Just another banger amongst bangers. Mutagenic Host is like Jungle Rot on steroids and they're fucking steamrolling their way through the UKDM scene like it's their job. To the underground, remember? And the soil is fertile indeed; turning up from blood-fertilized earth bounties of global destruction-heralding death metal.

To exist in a technology-driven wasteland of what the world used to be is our inevitable demise. Great conceptualization here. Don't get me wrong, I love some disembowel-them-in-a-basement death metal, but there's just something about this one. I dig the contrast between sound and theme - a brilliant alternation between prehistoric savagery and carbon fiber plasma warfare stuff. Overbearing, bludgeoning death metal done the old fashioned way. Definitely not for fans of modern tech, more like for old school Massacre, Death and "Effigy" era Suffocation knuckleheads. An album such as The Diseased Machine is not created with the achievement of accolades in mind, but instead to honor the genre in its purest form while at the same time covering themes that are pertinent to our hellish existence today and the inglorious future ahead. Not bloody bad at all…

Rating: 8 out of 10