Funerus is one of many underground death metal bands that have been around since the early 90s who’ve recorded a few demos, but never really went anywhere. The band formed in 1990 as a two-piece with drummer Jason Foust and guitarist/vocalist Brad Heiple, and later added friend Jill Daily as bassist to the line-up before splitting after Brad departed the group. Shortly after the band split, Jill married Incantation’s John McEntee and he, along with fellow bandmate Kyle Severn, encouraged Jill to get the group going once again. With no initial support from the founding members, she continued the project herself and enlisted the help of a few friends from local bands to do a one-off show. Brad found out about the group being revived, was asked to join the band full time and, to conclude this episode of As The Corpse Turns, he accepted. With no steady line-up, John and Kyle agreed to join Jill and Brad to record the band’s first full length effort, Festering Earth. Upon listening to the album, you’d probably expect the band to sound exactly like Incantation, but that’s where you’d make your first mistake. John and Kyle are, essentially, in the group as studio musicians with Jill and Brad composing most of the material, and the music stays true to the style of the demo material; slow-paced, down tuned, Entombed-influenced old school death metal. You won’t be bombarded by kamikaze guitar solos squealing left and right, this is just straight solid riffing through some incredibly catchy tunes. The feel of the album is reminiscent of bands like Bolt Thrower, Asphyx and Grave. If you’re looking for something to simply "rock out" to, this is an album to do it to. You won’t be killing people in retard-on-speed windmills but you will be doing plenty of head nodding and subdued orgasmic "Yes!"es. Brad’s vocal style is similar to those of past Incantation vocalists and fits the overall musical style perfectly. I have to admit I’d only heard a dubbed copy of one of their old demo tapes once about 8 years ago, but it did stick in my mind, so to hear a full album of music with a decent production makes me want to hug John and twist Kyle’s moustache. What? Did you think I could go a full review without commenting on his moustache? Just look at it, I think all men should strive to have facial hair as glorious as his! Bottom line is Festering Earth is a solid piece of old school-flavored death metal that fans of the style will go crazy for. If you can find it, I’d definitely recommend picking it up, I’ve probably listened to it about 50 times so far, and will probably listen to it another 50 times more!

Written By: Teufel