Stabbing - Extirpated Mortal Process

Angry Metal Guy

December falls upon us, each day the sump pumping less, but to my surprise out flumped Extirpated Mortal Process, a glut of death metal excess. Alas, spit-roasted and splattered, tired and tattered, I no longer urge for any of this expired mess. You see, I tried Stabbing on a plane and Stabbing in a car. I tried Stabbing in my office and Stabbing while afar. Whether cranked directly into my ears or pumped loudly through speakers, it was clear to me that Stabbing would land firmly as a stinker. Bleeding fleeting snare snap over incessant and directionless riffs, not a tool in my kit could save this, neither drink nor gummy nor spliff. As winter sets upon us and lists quickly set—a must—Stabbing aims low and hits lower. Truly and unfortunately a bust.

With only an EP to their name, 2021’s quick and dirty Ravenous Psychotic Onslaught, Stabbing has little but a tease of brutality to go by. Dry and fervent drums collide often against recycled Suffocation riffs to form their predictable and pit-stirring sound, a strain of brutal white noise punctuated by nary a groove nor a melody. On this new full-length outing, they haven’t changed much at all—a couple of tricks like the understated whammy warble on “Inhaling the Dead” or the slow-mo chug down of “It Ends in Flames”—serving us twelve epidermal intrusions that don’t even require the faintest dab of super glue to seal. The forgiving DR6 may spare your head a mighty ringing, but thirty three minutes with Stabbing will still leave you wondering what the in the hell just blew through.

Extirpated Mortal Process by Stabbing

Frustratingly, Stabbing has all the right tones for a band in the amorphous pool of goregrind, brutal death metal, and slam. Marvin Ruiz’s guitarwork leans on the frenetic and technical side, often showcasing fragments of knotty compliance through burly tremolo runs (“Southern Hacksaw Execution”) or pinch-syncopated staccato cuts (“Visions of Eternal Suffering”). “Inhaling the Dead” displays quickly how the slight attention to detail in the high end allows Rene Martinez‘s cymbals to splash about with full presence. Bridget Lynch provides fervent and properly porcine mic abuse that really goes a step beyond what less polished acts can muster. I can tell I’m listening to a well-curated gallery of choppy tones and ugly squeals, but I just can’t manage to care.

Regrettably, there’s absolutely nothing that holds these songs together—not amongst themselves nor amongst each other—other than that Stabbing keeps making recognizably death metal sounds. Particularly in brutal death metal, a mighty groove holds together the skronkiest of off-kilter chord stabs or the most unwieldy of throat-abused breakdowns—modern acts like Logistic Slaughter or recent Defeated Sanity output shows us this is possible to do in a sophisticated but wild manner. However, if you were to stitch together a 15 second clip of “Razor Wire Strangulation” with a 30 second clip of “Leishmaniasis” and lead into the slam from “Southern Hacksaw Execution,” you’d end up with any other song from Extirpated Mortal Process, and it’s not a good one. Gore Scrabble names aside, nothing differentiates one bag of riffs and drum practice from another. Well, except for the scream and saw filled sample that closes “It Ends with Flames,” which should also end the album but doesn’t.

This year has not been kind to fans on the more brutal and bloody side of the death metal spectrum, and Stabbing doesn’t change that a bit. They’ve chosen to play a haphazardly laced, gruesomely titled, yet wholly uninteresting form of a genre that should inspire frothing mouths, flailing arms, and cookie monster karaoke. Each member of Stabbing has talent—hell Lynch’s guttural prowess alone almost pushes this a half-point higher—but they all simply refuse to play in a manner that makes the efforted seem effortless. Groove is the spewing artery of brutal death metal, and while these journeyman butchers wield their cleavers with a reverent grip, they can’t seem to find that special sound that pierces through grime into glory. Stick a fork in me—it would hurt more.

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Comatose Music
Websites: stabbingtxdm.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/stabbingtxdm
Releases Worldwide: December 9th, 2022

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