ROTTING – crushed – CD

One of the great “what if?”s of ‘90s death metal, Canada’s ROTTING released three demos during the years 1993-1995, but it would be 1998 before they’d release a debut album – and it turned out to be their final recording. However, what ROTTING left behind with that record, Crushed, is a testament to the eternal forces of ultra-brutal DEATH METAL brewed in an underground largely unrecognizable from the present one.

The second release on the sorely missed United Guttural Records, ROTTING’s Crushed was too perfectly titled. It had all the hallmarks of BRUTAL death metal of the time, particularly in North America – tons of blasting, tons of breakdowns, deep-but-articulated growls, and revolting cover art – but its utterly massive and CRUSHING guitar tone was almost more Swedish than most Swedish death metal back then, which had largely turned toward more melodic expressions. As such, ROTTING’s sole full-length retroactively became a cult classic with denizens of death metal’s deepest and darkest extremes, made all the more legendary by the band breaking up years later without any follow-up album.

Now remastered by the legendary Dan Swäno, ROTTING’s debut album sees new undead life on CD and, for the first time ever, vinyl. Freaks for Sweden’s Carnage, Fleshcrawl, and early Grave are hereby summoned to get Crushed!