SHORT BUT SWEET: SANGUS — “PEDICABO MUNDI”

 

One reason I’m perpetually far behind in my planned reviews is a tendency to unexpectedly and impulsively get caught up and carried away by new music. That’s what happened this afternoon.

I was just about to start writing something I’ve been meaning to write for a long time when I noticed that a friend had sent me a link to a stream of a forthcoming EP entitled Pedicabo Mundi by a band from Providence, Rhode Island, named Sangus. I decided to delay my other project just long enough to listen to the EP’s first song. I mean, that first track was less than three minutes long — how could that hurt?

Man, that first song hit me like a lightning bolt, and with all my nerve endings twitching like mad, I damned well couldn’t turn away, now could I? And so I listened to the rest of the EP, and then listened again, and then began flailing away at this write-up.

 

 

Based on a little research I conducted once I caught my breath after listening to this EP, I discovered that Sangus consists of people who have been friends since their teenage years in the mid-90s, with experience in other extreme metal bands. I also learned that this is their second EP, following 2014’s Saevitia and two demo’s released in 2013.

What grabbed me about the EP (and still does) is the torrential energy that floods the music and engulfs the listener. It’s a devilish, distorted explosion of galvanizing thrash riffs, with pulverizing rhythms that drive like massive pistons, shrieking guitar solos that will leave third-degree burns, and utterly ferocious howls and roars flying through the maelstrom like a demon horde that’s just broken down the gates of hell.

When the band ease up on the gas pedal, as they do at carefully selected moments just so you don’t completely hyperventilate, they amplify the atmosphere of doom and death that shrouds the music even when it’s rampaging at top speed.

In a nutshell, this is a blood-thirsty, thrashing black/death beast that’s just goddamned irresistible. One of the best things of its kind that I’ve heard all year.

Pedicabo Mundi will be released on September 6 via ForzaMorte as a limited edition CD (which will also include the band’s first EP, as well as two bonus tracks) and as a Bandcamp digital release (with a 7” vinyl forthcoming). The band are also planning to release their first full-length album in 2016. Listen to Pedicabo Mundi below….

(Thanks again to my Serbian friend “M” for yet another excellent suggestion in linking me to this EP, even though it made a hash of my writing plans for this afternoon.)

https://sangus.bandcamp.com/album/pedicabo-mundi-ep
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sangus/494864457231431