Although they may have only been active for little over five years, Portland’s DRIPPING DECAY have swiftly risen through the US’ death metal underground to become one of the scene’s most impressive new acts. Their sound, which draws heavily from old school death metal for influence, is done so well and possesses enough imagination that the band’s material, and most notably their 2023 debut album Festering Grotesqueries, feels a lot more fully formed than many relatively new acts, with very little in the way of fat to trim from their sound. Their latest EP, Ripping Remains, is yet another creative triumph for the Oregon quartet, and showcases that even on shorter form releases, they are still a force to be reckoned with musically.
Ripping Remains kicks things off in monstrous fashion, with the haunting, synth-based intro very quickly giving way to angular, blistering death metal with punishing percussion, rabid guitars and coarse vocals. It has one foot firmly planted within the genre’s early 90s sound, with a few slower, brooding moments shifting to a more doom-laden sound to make for an impressively diverse start to the record.
Emanating Necrosis, a short, sharp shock of a song, follows a similar formula, with frenetic drums and guitars serving as a great backdrop for the throaty vocals, with some leaner, thrash-inflected rhythms lending a focused and belligerent quality to the music that makes it even more ferocious. Lead To Kill, with its more measured tempo and slicker leads, provides a meaty juggernaut of an effort, with the slower pace and subdued musicianship allowing the aforementioned soaring leads to take centre stage, adding another powerful layer to the band’s imposing and visceral sound and showing that even at their most reserved, they are unflinchingly intense.
Wormridden Piety -one of the album’s stand out offerings – takes the more animated guitar style of the previous song and pairs it with the energetic aggression of the first two tracks, creating arguably this record’s most searing and domineering number, with the biting guitars complementing the bestial vocal deliveries and caustic precision of the drums. Oppressive Repulsive is another brief burst of brutality with chunkier guitars, dense, rumbling bass and noticeably thicker gutturals, which, along with disjointed melodic riffs, make for another excellent slab of imaginative and eclectic death metal that manages to incorporate a plethora of ideas in a very short space of time and leave an impact on the record as a whole in the process.
The EP’s closer, a brilliant cover of Trick Or Treat by Detroit-based heavy metal act HALLOWEEN, captures the playful, dancing hooks and overarching bombastic side of the original, whilst adding a rabid, extreme edge to proceedings, being a fairly faithful rendition of an underrated gem whilst injecting some of the band’s own flavour into it.
Although it’s often tempting to measure a band’s talent based exclusively on what they do one their albums, sometimes the best way to go about it is to look at their smaller, shorter releases, their demos, EPs and splits, and see if the material on them is on par with what features on the full-lengths. Ripping Remains possesses the same sort of variety and impressive, punchy musicianship as some of the band’s best work, and it’s clear that the music on here wasn’t intended for a throwaway release. It’s every bit as tight and focused as the songs that appeared on Festering Grotesqueries, with each of its six tracks feeling distinct and standing out for all the right reasons, the very definition of “all killer, no filler”. With the feverish pace at which DRIPPING DECAY have been putting out records since 2021, it will hopefully not be long until the band’s second album sees the light of day, and if this EP is anything to go by, it could well be their magnum opus.
Rating: 8/10
Ripping Remains is out now via Satanik Royalty Records.
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