“Born unto nuclear remedy.”
While an increasingly rare occurrence in the modern scene, a cursed spawn intermittently emerges from the murky depths of prototypical death metal. Corporeally wrought with genre staples; drenched in the blood of class-adjacent influences. You’d be hard-pressed to find any contemporary act that echoes death metal rudiments in sonic singularity. Rather, most groups of this designation tend to smear the bile of outside inspirations upon their distorted makeup. Time and time again, it’s proven to amplify an already crushing sound. Maryland-based Bludgeoned by Deformity appear to be the next apostle sent by the primordial death metal God Hand to wreak complete havoc on the underground scene. Their weapon of choice? A jarring sledgehammer of late 1990s and early 2000s Florida death metal riddled with the corroded sprigs of hardcore and grind. Epoch of Immorality stands to be among the best debut EPs brutal death metal has seen in quite some time and will hopefully be the first step in Bludgeoned by Deformity’s path of destruction.
A lean, fifteen-minute torture fest hardly leaves any room for missteps in execution. Bassist Ethan Buttery (Jivebomb, Sinister Feeling), drummer Adam Jarvis (Pig Destroyer, Misery Index, End Reign, Fulgora, Lock Up, Scour), and guitarists Bradon Studebaker (Immortal Torment) and Andre Pickens (Tsuris) waterboard us with foundational death instrumentals that pack a hardcore-knuckled punch. This, combined with Devin Swank (Sanguisugabogg, Tomb Sentinel, Earthburner, Immortal Torment, Ablation) on vocals, makes for an intersective crushing of the skull. For lack of a better and vast number of comparisons, if you were ever curious what Cannibal Corpse and The Acacia Strain would sound like if Satan decided to mash them together into a disfigured wretch, you have come to the right place.
Epoch of Immorality moves at a primarily marathonic pace from front to back. Any decrease in tempo is merely a reprieve to chew the hunk of flesh it just ripped off us as listeners. “Immorality”, “Intestinal Suspension”, and “Extirpated Human Existence” perform warp speed, cheese-grater disembowelments before backing off for brief moments to allow their infectiously grindier sections to ferment. Conversely, “Invocation of Suffering” and “False Deliverance” maintain a constant velocity of expedited flaying where any chance for respite is superseded by sadistically mangled blast beats. Whether you’re a seasoned hardcore two-stepper eager to spin-kick someone into another dimension or an aging greybeard vying to hear Internal Bleeding on homicide-inducing steroids, Bludgeoned by Deformity have brewed the blasphemous formula necessary to do so.
Perhaps even more impressive is how Bludgeoned by Deformity have managed to achieve cross-sectional equilibrium from the standpoint of balancing motivating resources. In the very same juncture, across the entirety of this EP, you hear battered shades of Death, Pyrexia, and Scattered Remains in a uniform manner. No single entry in Bludgeoned by Deformity’s bibliographical repertoire overtly stands out above others. Ascertaining this degree of stability is an exceedingly rare feat, and Epoch of Immorality demonstrates it in spades.
Epoch of Immorality is deliciously vile, technical, and heavy as incantated hellfire. This is what happens when the unstoppable force of progenitive death metal meets the immovable mass of hardcore grind: a quick burst of violent inferno that burns long enough to leave an eternal scar. It’s truly anyone’s guess whether Bludgeoned by Deformity crawled from the jagged pits of brutal death to deliver this belabored thrashing upon us as a one-time reminder of how the fuck you do this the right way or simply provide us with an appetizer for what’s to come. While here’s hoping it’s the latter, Epoch of Immorality is nonetheless a series of entrail stompers that anyone who has ever so much as felt the prevailing strikes of death metal needs to hear.
9/10
Epoch of Immorality has been released today, June 6, 2025, via Iron Fortress Records and can be purchased here.