Saprogenic - The Wet Sound Of Flesh On Concrete
I remember when this album came out there was a lot of fanfare over it, and for a while after its release it looked like Saprogenic was going to be the new king of modern brutal death metal. Then their second album came out and apparently the band’s crown got prematurely pushed off. I haven’t heard it, but I guess it sucks because that’s what all my friends are telling me and I listen to my friends more than my own opinions.
Alongside Wormed, Saprogenic (on this album at least) is one of the main contenders for what I call the ‘Wayne Brady Award’ (where an individual of a typically reviled group is singled out and held up as ‘one of the good ones’) in brutal death metal. Wormed is in its position because the band uses ’smart’ lyrical and conceptual themes and apparently their wackiness is just wacky enough to push them beyond ‘mere’ brutal death metal and into something acceptable for ‘real’ metalheads, and Saprogenic is widely enjoyed because they concentrate on audible and relatively catchy tremolo riffs, so it sounds like Morbid Angel or Cryptopsy viewed through a modern brutal death filter, minus the odd slam section or two. A lot of people see Saprogenic as a slam death band, but I don’t really get the feeling of low brow thuggery that I enjoy in my slam so I’ve unilaterally decided that they’re not part of the genre. The closest comparison that I can make musically is ironically another band that uses Toshihiro Egawa art: the somewhat less than mighty Leukorrhea, who play a similarly riff-centric style of BDM. Other than that, think of earlyish Cryptopsy minus their bombast and narrative song structures and musical genius and you have a decent idea of what this sounds like.
The production on this is pretty cool and reminds me of doom/death stuff: thick and claustrophobic, gives some room for the riffs to bounce off of and resonate more. The guitars are way in the front of the mix, which makes sense considering that this is way, way more riff-based than more brutal death metal. When you get down to it, brutal death as a whole is a pretty rhythmic style of metal where the riffs are often quite secondary to the holistic sound of the piece. With Saprogenic, though, it’s all about those riffs, which are right out of the old Cryptopsy or Morbid Angel style with a bit of modern touch from bands like Origin. They’re almost all tremolo and darkly atmospheric, sort of like Incantation or Immolation or any one of those other New York -ation bands (except for Suffocation). It seems that Saprogenic goes for more of an occult feel than hack’n’slash vibe, which is a nice change of pace. Has a bit of Morpheus Descends vibe from time to time, though I bet it’s unintentional.
The vocals are pretty typical guttural growls and the drums are primarily notable for being terribly off time throughout most of the album. Seriously, the guy can’t hold a double bass run to save his life. It’s like ‘Battles In The North’ goes BDM. Anyway, both those elements are just supposed to add to the rhythmic base which the riffs ride upon. There’s the occasional slam, but they’re weirdly de-emphasized (the exact opposite of most slam) in favor of the uptempo parts. Hell, it almost sounds like the guys were just fans of Devourment and decided to toss in a periodic tribute. They don’t mesh very well with the songs and are just sort of random breaks in the midst of all the speedy death metal.
‘The Wet Sound Of Flesh On Concrete’ is a very single-minded album. It could be said that it’s very much a death metal album for a death metal fan. Unlike Wormed, it lacks any sort of instantly memorable elements or weirdness for weirdness’ sake, so it demands a bit more study than other brutal death albums that are more widely accepted. As an album entirely about riffs, it does have a lot of great ones, being subtly melodic and atmospheric, probably due to a great Sunlight type guitar tone, softly buzzing yet sharp enough to cut through the misty production. At the same time though, it’s hard for me to think of an album being entirely carried by its riffs. It almost seems like Saprogenic could have made this album nothing but guitars and the end result would have been roughly the same. The other pieces are fairly static and you could make an accusation that this is nothing more than a riff slideshow.
That being said, these are some of the best riffs in recent memory as far as brutal death goes, and the whole thing’s under a half hour, so it’s hard to really get tired of such straightforward music. I can’t think of any death metal bands really NOT liking it, and while I have sort of taken a red pen to this album, that’s coming from a fairly critical perspective. I do like this a lot and I listen to it frequently. It’s not as in frequent rotation as Devourment or something, but it’s good for a quick listen every so often. The riffs are good so the album’s good.
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