I Got a New Sickness. I Got a New Favorite. I...Got...Jungle Rot!



I know it isn't glamourous and, even as out-of-the-metal-loop as I am, I know they're not offered much respect from the snarkier side of metal fandom, but I got a bad case of Jungle Rot. And by bad, cool as I am, of course I mean "good." And by good, I mean, "I bought one CD, banged my head and then turned around bought five more."

I know this much: Jungle Rot gives us death metal. About death. Specifically, death in wartime. In great detail. They are brutal in their simplicity. And they do it over and over. They cannot be troubled with solos. Jungle Rot are basically a rolling riff, death metal Motörhead. And, my God, they're so good.

I started with the most recent, 2009's What Horrors Await. It opens with "Worst Case Scenario:"

impact, earth cracked

megacities attacked

contrary to fact,

our enemies react

Counterattack

It ain't Shakespeare. But it may have been if he had the foresight to write a musical about a nuclear holocaust.

It's all that heavy. And, frankly, downright fucking charming in its unassuming, tried-and-true approach to heavy metal. You get more of the same across fourteen tracks and it doesn't get old. Technically impressive? No. Incredibly inventive? No. Overly creative? No again. Does it sound great when you turn the volume way, way up? Hell, yes.

The same day I first listened to What Horrors Await I went right back and ordered five other Jungle Rot CDs. A cover of "Jesus Hitler" from the Darkness Foretold EP from '98 confirms my initial assessment - these dudes are direct musical descendents of Peter Steele's (R.I.P.) Carnivore. There's no noteworthy progression or change in style from the commercial debut, Slaughter the Weak, through the present though frontman Dave Matrise, again like Lemmy, has remained the one constant.



the band circa 2009, L-R:
James Genenz, bass,
Geoff Bub, guitars/vocals,
Dave Matrise, vocals/guitar,
Eric House, drums
from www.metal-archives.com



I only stumbled across Jungle Rot while browsing metal blogs and seeing an announcement for their upcoming Kill on Command (June 21, 2011 - pre-order this monster from Victory Records and get it with a t-shirt for $18). Their name struck me as the best I've heard since Pungent Stench (who I am sure I saw with Entombed and Amorphis at my first metal show ever but I cannot recall a note of) and I had to hear what Jungle Rot sounded like. Luckily for me and you, it sounds just like it should. I'm watching their Facebook page closely for tour dates and pray I can catch these guys live soon.

Now, I have a new favorite and, believe me, in my little world it's mine, all mine. The music snob across the hall at work walked into my office to see what the racket was, picked up What Horrors Await, opened the booklet, read the lyric Neurologically fucked!, gave me a snide "really?" and minced back to his cubicle full of Happy Mondays.

Mission accomplished, Jungle Rot, mission accomplished.

(also available and highly recommended: Dead and Buried (2001), Fueled by Hate (2004) and War Zone (2006))