Looks like Steel is in the infectious bacteria cultures again! And what do I find among the stained petri dishes but Sweden’s Filth. This upstart death crew may be young, but their style is old and decayed. Forsaking the formulas fatal to the flesh preferred by most Swedish acts (AKA DisEntombed shenanigans), the sound of their Time to Rot debut is all about slime-sucking morgue lickers like Incantation, Autopsy, and Disma. That brings it closer to Rotpit than any Left Hand Path you might make a wrong turn on. What Filth offer is scabby, cavernous hellscapes with beastial caveman riff violence oozing over all your weeping sores and into your maggot-infested ear sockets. This is why you came here, right?
Filth introduce themselves in savage fashion on opener “Odious Obsession.” This is the obvious album highlight and demonstrates why you need to worry about what Filth can do. It’s a swampy death chestnut with mucilaginous, basement-level vocals, punctuated by ridiculously fat, beefy power chugs that shake your foundations and loosen your bowels. There’s a goodly similarity to Rotpit, but all the infamous sleaze merchants of yore are honored in these grotesque body mulching sounds. This is what I need MOAR of, so pump this diseased cadaver goo right into my veins. The title track is less aggressive and more about a creeping, crawling mid-tempo slither with mucous-encrusted riff tendril slapping all within reach. There are also some wonderfully eerie, ice-cold, and atmospheric leads to make you feel alone and uneasy. It’s a bit too long in the snaggle tooth, but it’s effectively riffy, rotten, and rancid. “Live in Agony, Die in Pain” is also quite fierce, blasting and thrashing your ass into the dust before transitioning to shambling power grooves and then bringing out the doom hammer for some Incantation-esque dour dirgery. It’s all over the damn map tempo-wise, but it hangs together.
Unfortunately for Filth, when you offer up a short, under 30-minute debut, the songs need to hit above their weight to leave a bone impression. While nothing on Time to Rot could be considered bad, several tracks fall in that nebulous decent-to-good slot where there are cool pieces, but also some generic recycling of things you’ve heard many times before. I think “Flesh Dress” is entertaining, but it isn’t the kind of track I’ll be dumping onto playlists or forcing Madam X to endure on repeat. Closer “Emaciated” is another tune that has the goods at certain moments, but ends up feeling a bit standard issue when all is said and dead. This leaves Time to Rot with definite highs and a few middle-of-the-roaders with a semi-flat tire. I like what Filth are doing quite a bit, I just need them to operate closer to the level heard on “Odious Obsession” to really stand out from the cavern crowd. At a slim 29 minutes, you expect 6-7 bangers that stick to the roof of the skull, and the bulk of these creepers just miss that level of shitfun.
Riff-wise, Sebastian and Ismael come to kill and bring a respectable collection of nasty bits to the autopsy. The leads often feel like a slithering abomination from an H.P. Lovecraft pulper, and there are some effective efforts to pattern harmonies and solos on old-time horror movie soundtracks. That said, the concrete deforming power stomps on “Odious Obsession” are tough to top and you keep waiting for more of them as the album shambles along. Per handles both vocals and drums, and does a fine job at both. His death vocalizations are appropriately inhuman and seem to be emerging from some unholy crevice in the earth, and he’s scummy enough to sell the material properly. The talent is there for Filth, they just need to elevate the songcraft a few notches to get deeper into the body cavity.
Time to Rot is a brutish opening salvo by a young act with potential. It’s not always in high gear, but when it is, you’ll be impressed. The fact that even the lesser cuts still have enough gnarly to keep you from skipping them is a positive, and I don’t think Filth are too far off from taking the next step toward badass ass-kickery. I’m rooting for them to get even more filthy next time. I like it real dirty, baby.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Rotted Life
Website: mesacounojo.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: July 18th, 2025
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