UMUR "Festering Flesh" is a reissue demo recording by German death metal act Fleshcrawl. The demo was released through Xtreem Music in July 2021. Fleshcrawl formed in 1987 as Morgöth, but changed their name to Suffocation and released a couple of demos under that monicker before changing their name one final time in 1991 to Fleshcrawl. "Festering Flesh" is a reissue of the second demo recording the band did in February 1991 while still called Suffocation, but now re-released under the Fleshcrawl monicker.

All four tracks from the 21:27 minutes long demo would be re-recorded and included on Fleshcrawl´s 1992 debut full-length studio album "Descend into the Absurd", which of course provides this reissue under the Fleshcrawl monicker with a bit more credibility. These are actual demo versions of songs which would later be Fleshcrawl material.

The quality of the recordings is decent but pretty raw and rough around the edges, which of course isn´t unusual for a 1991 death metal demo. They probably even cleaned it up a little, so the original probably sounds even more raw and lo-fi. Stylistically Suffocation/early Fleshcrawl were pretty interesting as they played both fast-paced brutal death metal but often also took their music down the doomy depths. The versions of these tracks found on "Descend into the Absurd" are arguably better recorded and a little more mature, but these demo versions are still worth a listen simply because this is some really good quality old school death metal. A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.