SilentScream213 You put two genres like Drone Metal and Sludge Metal together, you gotta expect something pretty rancid. Dissonant, noisy, repetitive, lethargic… those were some traits that come to mind, and they are also traits I tend not to like when combined.

The short of it is, the album sounds exactly as you might expect (at least, exactly as I did), and it’s just not my thing.

The longer story though, is there were some great details to this album I did appreciate. The density of numerous guitars in the background creating a twisted cacophony with feedback and bent notes was quite great. The atmosphere here is destructive; there’s no real emotion to it, but there is a terrifying emptiness, like the heart of a cold killer, long since surrendered to insanity.

I’m not sure what the lore behind this Japanese band is, but writing the whole album in Spanish is a very odd choice. Google translating it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

UMUR "Paso Inferior" is the debut full-length studio album by Japanese doom/sludge metal act Corrupted. The album was originally released through Frigidity Discos in 1997.

"Paso Inferior" consists of one 41:46 minutes long track. The music style is brick heavy and repetitive doom metal featuring a bleak atmosphere. The crushingly heavy riffs and almost funeral doom paced rythms are complimented by the omnipresence of guitar feedback throughout the whole track. As you can maybe imagine "Paso Inferior" is as a consequence quite the punishing listen. The vocals on the album are beastly growling. The vocal performance is very convincing and definitely one of the greatest assets of the music. I´d like to mention the organic sound production as a great asset too. I absolutely adore the sound on this album.

The track is structured with about 3 minutes of feedback before the drums, the more "regular" heavy riffing and the vocals kick in. This then almost goes on for the duration of the track until about 2 minutes before the end of the track. Then we´re back to a feedback only finale. It´s overall an extremely punishing listen as there are no real climaxes on the album. The bleak atmosphere, the crushingly heavy riffs and the brutal vocals just keep playing and playing and I´m left with a feeling of dread and at times even physical and mental discomfort. The feedback squealing occasionally provides sections of the track with an epic touch, but those moments are brief and are never allowed to develop further.

"Paso Inferior" is an atmospheric and hypnotic listen and it´s doubtful music like this has a broad appeal even within the heavy metal community. Personally I find the album fascinating albeit a bit too long for comfort. About half way into the album I begin to wonder when it´s over, but somehow I´m still intrigued by the disturbing emotions the music stir up in me and I can´t help to listen until the bitter end. As a musical experiment "Paso Inferior" succeeds greatly. As an enjoyable listen I guess it depends on the ears that hear. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

renkls Corrupted were a simple band once upon a time, albeit still incredibly good at what they did. Their debut full length album, Paso Inferior, is one 41 minute long dirge of a track, one of, if not the heaviest sludge metal albums I've heard in my time.

What makes this album both their purest sludge album and their most inaccessible? Aside from the one track, it's also basically one riff, flayed to bits, akin to a feedback laced drone injection, whirring razorblades and baseball bats around inside your eardrums. A sandwich of screechy, livid hate. A cacophony of pitch black doom.

It's an intense listen, and that's the impression I got before I heard the vocals. Man, Corrupted has a great vocalist. You know, it's strange to hear death metal tinged vocals in sludge, but also great. A japanese band that sings in Spanish? Well, that's Corrupted for you. Sure, I don't know what the band is really singing about, Spanish is not my forte, but judging by the musical accompaniment, I doubt it's anything too upbeat.

There's no real climax to the piece, but then there's no real structure, aside from a three minute feedback intro that leads straight into the dirge, then a similar outro. One long journey of darkness.

Doom/sludge music is rarely this uncompromising, and in creating an atmosphere and sticking it out to the bitter end is noteworthy. Is it a good listen however? Depends how much doom/sludge you can handle. If you're not an avid uber-heavy music buff, listening to this could be a form of torture. I'm listening to it now, and if you're not initiated, it can turn into background music, despite how aversive it is.

In conclusion, if you seek nihilistic and near deafening sludge - and you love Corrupted's later work, come see where they began, with this dirge journey into hell. You may well love it.

renkls It's really hard for me to figure out exactly what the appeal of this album is, or for me to even understand why I, and so many other people like it so much.

This is the fourth full length album by Corrupted, and is arguably their most fully realised and varied. That said, what we are dealing with here is a single track giant, 71:40 of sludge/post metal. At least, that's what the genre tags it as.

You wouldn't think so by the ten minute mark, at which point you have heard some dark ambient, mixed in with minimalist classical harp and drums. Suddenly, just as you're dosing, the sludge hits at 10:40, and you're hooked into the meaty part of the track, a long, minimalist sludge intro, which takes us into the 20th minute, at which point there are still no vocals in sight. The drums and guitar settle into a groove here, and we're finally given the first vocals at 23 minutes.

This is pretty restrained stuff for the sludge giants renowned for their uncompromising sludge power, in Paso Inferior for instance - but as the vocals work up the rest of the band to build - we see this is a premeditated piece; it makes us work hard for the payoff. At 27 minutes, that payoff comes, as the vocals roar forth, and the instruments wrap themselves around them, pummeling forward to the thirty minute mark.

While this is a high point in the song, we're not even halfway done. Soon after this early peak, the song returns to the minimalist post-rock style from whence it began, grooving along slowly, weaving in the beautiful strums of the harp along the way. It's this middle section which confuses me as to how it keeps me hooked - as it's more then 15 minutes of minimalist post rock, with very subtle developments as it goes. Somehow, the epic walks a fine line between minimalism and boredom - and even here, for some reason I cannot explain, it works wonders.

At the 48 minute mark, the album picks up the pace again, which is a pretty broad statement, seeing as it's still a super slow development. We're back with the 20 minute mark groove, and soon the lyrics follow again. Here, the lyrics sound like a reprise of what came before, but investigating the lyric book, they tell a different tale the second time around. I'll let you read up on that for yourself.

At the 55 minute mark, we are back with the thunderous vocal roars and heavy riffs oncemore, and this leads us on and on, until we're just under the hour mark, and the vocals let out their last and fade away.

Then, to close the album, like a book cover; a ten minute outro to match the 10 minute intro. And like a good book, it's also very satisfying.

I can't really explain the appeal of this album, but it works on its own terms, and is quite the experience if you ever find 72 minutes to sit down and listen to the whole thing. It's not like a typical sludge piece, as you can see, but there's enough here to pull in fans of minimalism, ambiance, metal and post rock alike.

A great album, but only if you're the patient kind.