Been impressed by Slimelord’s distinctive take on death-doom since their debut 12” for Dry Cough, and with ‘Chytridiomycosis Relinquished’ it feels like they’ve reached their sticky, mire-slicked apotheosis.
Things starts unsettlingly enough with what sounds like the worried honking of geese before dragging you down into the foul-smelling mud of their spirit: a mix of beslimed, mangrove-root riffs, queasy ambience and warring, near-psychedelic guitar solos.
The mix is potent and the atmosphere they conjure near-physical. You can almost taste the sweet-sour tang of leaf mulch in the air; the vegetal stink of gas as it bubbles to the surface; the insistent squirm of things with sucking mouths desperately seeking access to your warm, live skin.
Things move at sluggish, nightmare pace but with a definite sense of purpose. There’s narrative here, and a ghastly desire to share strange, rotted visions. And while the sights they seek to show you may not be pleasant – muck; decay; the pale, upturned bellies of drowned things – you have to admit that there’s also a certain startling, elegant beauty at work amid all the oozing greens and browns of decay.