Cult of Putrefaction

Out of Jundiaí, a São Paulo industrial city better known for its sprawling logistics warehouses than its underground noise, Cult of Putrefaction emerged with the kind of bloodied, single-minded purpose that defines the lower rungs of Brazilian extreme metal. The quartet specializes in gore-soaked deathgrind, a sub-current that traces its lineage back to early Carcass and the splatter-obsessed grindcore wave of the late eighties, retooled here with a thicker, sludgier death metal underbelly. The lineup pairs drummer Tonhão with bassist Diogo and twin vocal attackers Thales Gory, who handles guitars and guttural growls, and Pexe, whose pitch-shifted shrieks and throat work supply the cartoonishly low pig-squeals the subgenre demands. Their debut full-length, Cult of Rotten Bodies, arrived on December 3, 2023, tracked the previous month at Sotão Estúdio in the Pirituba district of São Paulo, with mix and master work split between the studio and engineer Simon Nicolas. The result is a record that hews closely to deathgrind orthodoxy: short, hammering songs built around blasted drum patterns, downtuned riffs that lurch between mid-paced chug and full-throttle grind, and a vocal interplay designed to feel less like singing than like two corpses arguing in the dark. Thales Gory also operates a sister project, Trachoma, a downtuned d-beat-inflected pathogoregrind unit active since 2019, which suggests Cult of Putrefaction sits inside a broader Jundiaí goregrind ecosystem rather than a one-off outlet. The band remains unsigned, distributing its work through Bandcamp and Instagram in the do-it-yourself tradition that has long defined Brazilian gore — a country where Sepultura's early records taught generations that filth, urgency and conviction matter more than polish.