Pestifer – Age of Disgrace (2010)

Sometimes we are greatly puzzled as why bands like Pestifer don’t have a recording deal, but other shitty ass bands are making crap music and releasing it every year. With the current Technical Death Metal boom, bands are appearing out of nowhere and crushing things up with great musical abilities and solid songwriting.

“Age of Disgrace” is one of those releases that push the boundaries of Death Metal into the technical realm while maintaining the music fundamentals in place. Pestifer is one of those few bands that focus more in the song-structure department than in the high level of virtuosity a band can fit in one song.

After the album titled intro song, the band quickly explodes into a riffage assault combined with an intricate bass guitar line and furious drumming in the song “Contagious”. The solo sections are very nicely weaved in between brilliant bass tapping and complex drumming, creating very appealing songs that showcase the musician abilities but never sound pretentious like other bands do.

Pestifer’s brand of Technical Death Metal can easily be compared to the music of Decrepit Birth, or the all-time gods Death (but with better vocals). As we said before, the band focuses more on song structure than virtuosity and manages to create very catchy songs like “Mind Control”, “Involution Process”, and “Forsaken Fles”. All these songs actually sound different from one another and the overall melody created by the music is very well crafted by the little technical details that each song has infused in them.

Aside from the music, the vocals are a very nice mixture of mid-range growls that nicely add to the ‘brutality’ of the music. When paired with the excellent musicianship of the band, we can’t think of any weak points in the band’s music since it’s so well constructed and flows magically.

Aided by an excellent production, “Age of Disgrace” blows through 40+ minutes of brilliant music that should get the attention of any major label looking for a talented band. We can only expect better things from Pestifer in the future and we will surely be waiting for their next Technical Death Metal onslaught.

Release: May 29th, 2010

Country: Belgium