After forming in ‘13, Contaminated, then a one-man band comprised solely of Lachlan McPherson, began discharging their toxic effluvium a year later with their demo, Pestilential Decay. Over the next year McPherson enlisted a full line-up and recorded a second demo tape. In March 2015, Contaminated unleashed their noisome waste for the first time upon a live audience. From there you can just follow the trail of gurgling, corrosive sludge.
Rather than plastering the halls of Instagram with their pseudo-flinty expressions, Contaminated dwell in the dank and dripping depths of modern death metal, releasing short-run demo tapes, playing shows, being ugly, and focusing solely on death metal. So it should come as no surprise when Contaminated’s debut full length, Final Man, ends up being your low key favorite death metal album of the year. If you can imagine the senseless brutality of early Abhorrence, Cenotaph infected with whatever noxious contagions fostered the birth of bands like Rottrevore, Nuclear Death, and, lately, Tomb Mold. Now beat that combination senseless and leave it for dead in a vat of nuclear waste where it can not so much heal as regain strength in the name of vengeance.
Check out “Desolate & Forlorn,” one of Contaminated’s earliest song, now gnarlier than ever thanks to the production job the band got at Goatsound Studios. “Desolate & Forlorn” is a dizzying ride on a raging, reanimated headless bull you’ll need to jam a few times to fully understand what’s being done to you.
Says McPherson: “‘Forlorn and Desolate’ was chosen to be re-recorded as it is definitely a track that benefits from a full band playing and tracking it—compare it to its original appearance on Pestilential Decay and you’ll immediately notice how much more savage it is this time around. It also functions well to preserve some of the original overt Finnish (Abhorrence, Demigod) influence this band started with, while certainly borrowing enough from 90s dark US death metal (Incantation, Morpheus Descends) to fit well with the new tracks on the full length.”
Get Final Man July 7th from Blood Harvest.
