Austrian death metallers Fessus stream the entirety of their debut album, Subcutaneous Tomb, at the Death Metal Promotion YouTube channel: Fessus (Aut) – Subcutaneous Tomb (Album 2025)
Around the end of the 1980s and the first years of the 1990s, bands like Pungent Stench, Disharmonic Orchestra, Disastrous Murmur, and Miasma made a name for themselves by putting out some classic albums. Been Caught Buttering, Changes, and Expositionsprophylaxe were records spawned by Austrian hordes which were globally hailed by devotees of death metal. As fertile a soil Austria once seemed to be, throughout the last 30 years, not one single death metal album was put out that would match the quality of the pioneers. Apparently, it took Brenton, an Australian settling in Vienna, to eventually put Austria on the map again. After having founded Fessus with three other members in 2023, the quartet put out their first demo, Pilgrims of Morbidity, in the same year.Now, two years after the very promising demo, Fessus return with their first full-length. Cryptically titled Subcutaneous Tomb, the album’s six lengthy songs stylistically continue where the demo left off. Whereas other bands focus on hyper-speed, over-technicality, and brutality, FESSUS‘ brand of death metal is mostly played in moderate tempi with outbursts of speed and aggression scattered throughout the album. The songs are foremost characterized by memorable compositions and groove. Every song literally oozes with morbidity and conjures a dense macabre atmosphere. Brenton’s vocals, which are partly reminiscent of Necrophagia’s Killjoy, are one of the highlights of the album. With his performance being equal parts versatile and deranged, Brenton spews vile bile and brimstone like not many lunatics before him.
Although there’s hints of other bands like Autopsy or Purtenance found on the album, Fessus actually managed to come up with a sound that’s distinctly their own. Subcutaneous Tomb is a professionally produced album that those worshipping at the altar of morbid, rotten death metal can’t afford to miss out on.
