MORBID STENCH // DOOM METÁSTASIS // ALBUM REVIEW

There are bands that play death-doom, and then there are bands that sound as though they have actually crawled out of the environment that death-doom was invented to soundtrack. Morbid Stench belongs firmly in the latter category. Their music has always carried the sensation of something organic decomposing in real time: slow, suffocating riffs, cavernous vocals, rotten melodies and drums that seem intent on dragging everything towards the grave.

Formed in 2014 by veteran musicians The Master Butcher, Morbid and Purulent, with the members rooted in the Central American extreme-metal scenes of Costa Rica and El Salvador, Morbid Stench set out to explore the intersection between the crushing weight of doom and the uglier, more visceral side of death metal. The trio’s first statement arrived with 2016’s “The Stench of Doom” EP, followed by the “The Bifid Tongue of Doom & Death” split with Necrogod in 2017. Their debut full-length, “Doom & Putrefaction”, arrived in 2019, establishing the band’s primitive but atmospheric strain of death-doom, before the “Ghospels of Necromancy” split with Anarchos in 2020 and 2022’s “The Rotting Ways of Doom” pushed the formula further.

That second album was where the band’s potential really began to feel fully formed. Morbid Stench could move between oppressive doom passages and faster death-metal sections without sacrificing atmosphere, while the band’s old-school approach avoided simply becoming another cavernous death-metal clone. “Doom Metástasis” takes that foundation and, rather than tearing it apart and rebuilding something unrecognisable, gives it considerably more shape.

And that is probably the most important thing about this third full-length.

Morbid Stench have learned how to make the decay move.

Across six tracks and roughly thirty-nine minutes, “Doom Metástasis” feels less like six separate songs and more like one diseased organism slowly mutating. The album’s concept follows a process of transformation from inner decay through propagation, using biological imagery alongside ideas of identity, inevitability and the cyclical nature of existence. It is a fitting concept for music that is itself constantly changing state.

The trio remains brutally simple on paper. The Master Butcher handles the vocals, Morbid provides the guitars and bass, while Purulent sits behind the kit. But simplicity in personnel doesn’t translate to simplicity in execution. Morbid’s riffs are the central nervous system of the album, moving from blunt, crushing death-doom patterns to more melodic, almost mournful guitar passages. Purulent understands that the drums have to do more than simply make the riffs heavier; they provide the pulse that allows these enormous sections to breathe. Over everything comes The Master Butcher’s subterranean growl, a vocal performance that sounds less like somebody singing about death and more like death has developed a voice.

Opening with “Necrotic from Within”, Morbid Stench immediately establishes the scale of what is about to unfold. The song doesn’t rush towards its destination. Instead, it builds its weight piece by piece, allowing the guitar work to establish an ominous melodic identity before the full force of the rhythm section bears down.

There is a real sense of movement here.

The slower passages possess that familiar death-doom suffocation, but they aren’t allowed to simply sit there. The arrangement gradually shifts between dense, oppressive sections and moments where the guitars open up, giving the melody enough space to emerge from beneath the filth. One of the album’s strongest characteristics is this ability to make heaviness feel dynamic.

The main musical idea returns later in the track, giving the opener a circular quality that works particularly well with the album’s conceptual theme. It feels like something returning to consume itself.

It is also an excellent introduction to the improved songwriting. Earlier Morbid Stench material could feel deliberately primitive; here, the roughness remains, but the underlying architecture is considerably stronger.

“The Morbid Waltz” picks up the movement without abandoning the album’s oppressive centre of gravity. The title might suggest something elegant, but there is nothing particularly graceful about this waltz. It lurches, stomps and drags its feet through the graveyard.

The death-metal influence becomes more pronounced here, with heavier rhythmic momentum giving the track a sharper edge. The guitars retain that murky doom character, but the riffs are more immediate, allowing the song to hit before the listener has fully adjusted to the opener’s darkness.

This is where Purulent’s contribution becomes especially important. The drumming doesn’t simply follow the guitar. It creates the sensation of the song breathing, accelerating and then sinking back into the mire. That contrast between momentum and collapse becomes one of the album’s defining dynamics.

Morbid Stench understands that doom doesn’t have to mean permanently crawling. Sometimes the best way to make a slow section feel crushing is to surround it with something faster.

As the first single, “Hyperbolic” is one of the more direct introductions to “Doom Metástasis” and demonstrates exactly why the band’s blend of death and doom remains so effective.

The riffs have considerable physicality, but there is melody buried inside the violence. Rather than covering everything with an impenetrable wall of distortion, Morbid allows individual guitar phrases to register. Those details are important because they give the heavier passages something to emerge from.

The Master Butcher is monstrous throughout. His vocals possess the familiar cavernous quality associated with old-school death-doom, but there is also a sense of articulation and control. The performance has more character than simply producing the lowest possible growl.

“Hyperbolic” is also a good example of the band’s ability to balance immediacy and atmosphere. You can grab onto the riff almost immediately, but repeated listens reveal more movement underneath it.

If “Necrotic from Within” establishes the album’s atmosphere, “Bizarre and Beyond” arguably represents one of its biggest moments.

This is where Morbid Stench’s songwriting feels particularly confident. The track is not simply constructed around one gigantic riff and left to rot. It moves through contrasting sections, allowing the guitars to become more expressive before the rhythm section pulls everything back into the darkness.

There is a particularly effective relationship between aggression and melody here. The riffs can sound almost triumphant for a moment before the vocals drag them back down into the dirt. That tension is central to the album: there is always something trying to rise, and something else trying to bury it.

The Master Butcher’s performance is especially savage, with the vocals feeling less like a layer placed over the music and more like another instrument occupying the same rotten space.

The result is one of the album’s most memorable tracks, and one that demonstrates how far the band has developed since their earliest material.

“Narcissistic God” takes a slightly different route.

Rather than relying purely on brute force, the track allows the melodic side of Morbid Stench to come to the fore. There is still enormous weight in the riffs, but the atmosphere becomes more introspective and sinister.

This is probably where the conceptual nature of “Doom Metástasis” becomes most apparent musically. The album isn’t simply interested in sounding disgusting; it is interested in making that decay feel psychological as well as physical.

The central guitar work is particularly effective because it is memorable without becoming polished. There is something almost hypnotic about the repetition, but the surrounding heaviness keeps the song from drifting into traditional melodic doom territory.

The Master Butcher sounds suitably enormous here, but the guitars are allowed to carry much of the emotional weight. It becomes less about immediate violence and more about inevitability.

And inevitability is exactly what Morbid Stench understands.

Closing with “Crawling Out of the Swamps”, the album returns to the imagery that has surrounded Morbid Stench since their formation. The swamp isn’t simply a visual backdrop; it feels like the natural habitat of the music.

There is a satisfying sense of continuation here. The album has spent its running time moving through decay, transformation and propagation, and now the final track feels like something emerging from the environment that created it.

The band’s death-metal instincts remain firmly intact, but the doom influence gives the track its sense of scale. The riffs don’t merely attack; they linger. They leave a residue.

That is perhaps the greatest achievement of “Doom Metástasis”. It understands that the atmosphere isn’t created simply by slowing everything down. It comes from knowing when to accelerate, when to hold a note, when to let a riff breathe and when to bury the listener beneath it.

Four years removed from “The Rotting Ways of Doom”, Morbid Stench haven’t attempted to reinvent themselves. They have done something considerably more useful: they have refined what already worked.

“Doom Metástasis” is still unmistakably Morbid Stench. The death-metal ugliness remains. The doom-metal weight remains. The vocals still sound as though they have been exhumed from somewhere beneath a Central American cemetery. The guitars still carry that filthy combination of crushing riffs and rotten melody.

But the songwriting has matured.

The six songs connect naturally, the transitions are more considered, and the dynamics give the album considerably more depth. Fast and slow, violent and melancholic, direct and atmospheric: “Doom Metástasis” works because Morbid Stench understands that these qualities don’t have to be at odds.

They can feed each other.

The result is a record that feels simultaneously ancient and alive. There is plenty here for listeners who crave the old-school spirit of death-doom, but there is enough songwriting discipline to prevent the album from becoming little more than an exercise in nostalgia.

Morbid Stench have spent more than a decade building this particular strain of rot, and “Doom Metástasis” sounds like the point where all those years of experience have finally begun to crystallise into something bigger.

It is heavy without being one-dimensional, melodic without becoming pretty, atmospheric without losing its teeth.

Thirty-eight minutes of decay, mutation and suffocation.

And once it gets under your skin, the stench is difficult to wash away.

Review: Joseph Mitchell

“Doom Metástasis” is out on October 2nd through Nuclear Winter Records and Putrid Cult