Album Review: Rotten Sound - Apocalypse

Rotten Sound - Apocalypse

Season Of Mist - 2023

7.5/10

Having been around since the early 1990s, Rotten Sound are a crushing, earache-inducing Finnish grindcore outfit that continues to keep their momentum moving three decades later. Leaning far into the hardcore and powerviolence end, Apocalypse is their most recent effort. Despite having eighteen tracks, the whole run barely takes twenty minutes, a common feature of this style. It should be no surprise then that this relentless and unforgiving disc blows by before you even realize it.

Drumming that hijacks machine-gun speeds, and harsh, throaty vocals that trade-off tones build the foundation for everything. Crunchy, brutally distorted riffs sneak in, often introduced with a whiny feedback at the beginning, all tropes so far predictable for this style. The drums and vocals will tower over this, however, so keep your ears peeled. Even D-beats will make a prominent presence, most notably in the (only slightly) calmer tracks, such as “Suburban Bliss” where it isn’t only about speed. As a matter of fact, little moments like this are what you’re best off looking for to break it up.

You’ll find plenty of that in the bouncier drive contained within the likes of “Sharing.” “Denialist” is also built on extremely slow trudging, reverberating some serious shakes down the spine, giving way to breakneck speeds nicely. The mosh-friendly motions of “Newsflash” is also a fun touch, something that this genre as a whole is going to rely heavily on. And yes, you get a nice side of songs that are shorter than thirty seconds, such as the neck-puncher “True And False.”

For those who seek the grindy sound leaning more on the brash powerviolence end rather than the gore and guts of death metal influence, look no further than Apocalypse. Rotten Sound is very on the nose, cooking up something quite familiar and hardly original, but what’s here is certainly executed well. You get what you expect for this style, and its kept just brief enough to not get old fast. Fans of Nails or Infest should check it out.