Vehemency Zombiefication, another rather new death metal group from Mexico, hails the 90s Swedish old school death metal scene with devotion. Everything, from the d-beats to the thick and punishing guitar sound, their debut album Midnight Stench reeks of its influences, but hey, not everyone think it’s automatically a bad thing. At least me, and those others who still find pleasure from the same patterns that the innovators crafted twenty years ago.

Considering the consciously stagnant and uncompromising style, there’s no need to go into deep details (and I don’t even know if I could as it’s hard to differentiate some tracks after hearing a ton of albums in this vein recently), but there are some moments when the Midnight Stench does visit more innovative territories. One of these is the slow-paced ”Sleepless Mutter” which vaguely flirts with melodic doom metal, a refreshing highlight in the middle of all the savage killing.

In all aspects, Midnight Stench sounds crushing: the production, that has a slight reverb, sounds massive yet raw, and the instruments are handled with professional touch though it never sounds sterile nor too careful. An album full of ass-kicking riffage, that almost evokes a picture of a primeval, bestial man with its basic instincts, needs no philosophical analyzing. By now, you know that Midnight Stench offers and you know if you’re interested or not. I might personally require something more from an album that would receive the mark of a brilliant record, but at what it does, Midnight Stench is no worse than many of its current European brothers.

J-Man Call me what you will, but I'll admit that I was a bit skeptical when I received the promo for this album in my inbox. A band named Zombiefication with an album entitled Midnight Stench almost immediately screams "we think we're badass and scary, but we really aren't!" Thankfully, I was wrong in this scenario. These guys actually are badass, and Midnight Stench is one hell of a death metal album. Provided that old school death metal is your thing, you don't take it all too seriously, and you want to hear something downright filthy and brutal, Midnight Stench is unquestionably worth tracking down.

Zombiefication plays a style of primitive death/thrash that relies heavily on influence from the early Swedish scene. The heavy, downtuned-chugging riffs just reek of early 90's Swedish death metal. There are even some doomy sections in tracks like "Sleepless Mutter" that hint towards the scene as well. Mexico has a fairly decent-sized death/thrash scene right now, and one could also pick up some smaller influences from that scene as well. The production is also very raw and authentic to the early-90's time frame. The guitars just sound so raw and unpolished! I love it!

Midnight Stench isn't a terribly original album - as a matter of fact, it wouldn't be unreasonable to consider it a clone of the early Swedish death metal scene. But when a "clone" band delivers music of this level of quality, that becomes a bit irrelevant in the big picture. If you're a fan of downright filthy death metal, this is worth further investigation. I'll give Midnight Stench 3.5 stars, but if you don't care about "originality" you can easily tag on an extra half-star. Recommended!