Stench – “Road” (Stereogum Premiere)

Stench - Venture

Stench – “Road” (Stereogum Premiere)

Stench - Venture

The Swedish trio Stench feature two members of Tribulation — guitarist Jonathan Hultén and drummer Johannes Andersson — a band I made mention of just a few hours ago in a writeup of the new Horrendous song, “The Stranger.” Both Horrendous and Tribulation, I opined, make music that might fall into a hypothetical subgenre called “The New Wave Of Progressive Old-School Swedish Death Metal.” Stench could conceivably be categorized in that group, too, but where Tribulation’s last album, 2012’s breakthrough The Formulas Of Death, was so expansive that it ventured into jam-band territory, Stench are almost deconstructionists, distilling their influences’ sonic signatures into something much more minimalist and immediate. Their upcoming sophomore album, Ventures, contains a short seven tracks, and each of those tracks builds around its own central riff, swelling and shrinking those progressions to achieve a hypnotic swirl. Hultén, Andersson, and vocalist Mikael Pettersson (as far as I can tell, there’s no bassist) formed Stench in 2007, after which they released the 2009 EP Reborn In Morbidity and the 2010 debut LP In Putrescence. It’s fitting that the title of each subsequent Stench release contains one fewer word than its predecessor: This music has been cut to the bone, and hits all the harder for it. We’ve got Venture highlight “Road” for you to spin right now. Do it.

Venture is out 10/7 via Agonia.

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