PYAEMIA: CEREBRAL CEREAL

PYAEMIA: CEREBRAL CEREAL

   Picture the scene. It's 2001 and the Metal music world is in considerably bad shape. Nu-Metal and groove-Metal are striding across the lands while many other sub-genres are struggling to get back up on their feet, or appear to have lost interest in being heavy completely. In these desperate times, the world needed a hero. Suddenly and seemingly from out of nowhere, Pyaemia released their first and final full-length album, Cerebral Cereal, an album so outrageously heavy and cutting edge, that it left an enormous impression on the Death-Metal world and helped to steer the sub-genre towards entirely new horizons of heaviness. 

   Cerebral Cereal is not just a superb and totally timeless album, it is also one of the most important Brutal Death-Metal albums ever released. It could even be argued that Cerebral Cereal was one of the first truly brutal Death-Metal albums, based on today's standards. Technicalities and pernickety details aside, this album is nothing short of legendary.

   Unsurprisingly, Pyaemia's sound does share certain characteristics and traits with fellow Netherlands based outfit, Disavowed, whom were present at the same time as Pyaemia and also shared or had common members at the time. The opening track and all round bruiser, "Gorging On Mucus And Bile" is one such track, highly reminiscent of Disavowed's sound due to the furious speed, technicality and intricacy of the instrumentals.

   The title track "Cerebral Cereal", is a fine example of how Pyaemia took things just a step further than the rest, sounding like a more streamlined, refined and muscular Six Feet Under in parts. The rather interestingly titled, "Sugar Spiced Anus", is almost a little bit too close to Cannibal Corpse's iconic style of stomping, thick, bass heavy riffing for comfort, but at the same time is enticingly groovy and eye-wateringly heavy.

   "Impaled On Spikes" is a bonafide Brutal Death-Metal masterpiece, comprising of immense amounts of chugging riffage, primitive Slam grooves, excellent gutturals, insane drumming and heaps of blastbeats. This song in particular aired clearly Pyaemia's tight musicianship, credible songwriting ability and capability to make brutal music better than the rest, pushing the accepted boundaries of the extreme Death-Metal scene.

   Blastbeats aplenty, "Carried In Proboscis" is fast enough to make you feel the face-shredding g-force and crammed with prolapse inducing levels of deep, low, rumbling, grinding riffs, not to mention drumming of inhuman speed and quality. "Blood Spewed On My Face" packs a very weighty, Dying Fetus inspired punch, a resemblance emanating from the tracks Slamming grooves, powerful and clearly audible bass tones and deep, mesmerising guitarwork and crackling guttural vocals.

   "Malodorus Rancidity" is almost too delectably crushing and hypnotically groovy for words. The riffs are unloaded at speed and with the kind of chugging distortion that would not look out of place on Carcass' Necroticism... album. Closing the album, "Everlasting Torture" houses utterly pulverising Suffocation-esque technicality and yet more blistering riffs, bass twang and unbelievably fast machine-gun drumming. 

   Overall, Cerebral Cereal is not just a good Brutal Death-Metal album, it is one of the best Brutal Death-metal albums and a magnificent classic. Consisting of 9 extremely fast, unrelentingly crushing and articulately intricate tracks, Cerebral Cereal is one of those albums you can listen to over and over and find something new every time. If you like your Death-Metal filthy, paced with intoxicating grooves, throat-shredding growls and the kind of drumming that most people would think couldn't be achieve without a computer, then this is the album for you.                      

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Listen to the full album HERE