Burial Extraction: Rotting Flesh | Head-On Collision With A Truck
(2025 – The Charon Collective/Nordic Mission)
Listening to this Burial Extraction EP is kind of like standing in the middle of the road waiting for a massive truck to run you over—and actually enjoying it. Five tracks are all Burial Extraction needs to blow minds and leave even the toughest listeners deaf. With “Rotting Flesh,” they don’t need to experiment too much or add any weird stuff. It’s a pure display of power, decay, and raging blast beats.
Having drawn from the well of Old School Death Metal, Burial Extraction are capable of delivering a work with enough imagination, originality, and variety to entertain the ears for quite a while—and yet, you might find yourself hitting the “repeat” button more than once with this album.
In reality, more than an album, “Rotting Flesh” is merely an EP, which ultimately serves as something of a successor to the 2024 EP “Expelled,” and, looking further back, to the 2023 album “A Shadow Of Things To Come.” It’s clear that the band has recently decided to focus purely and exclusively on short-form releases, as is indeed the case with this EP.
Even so, “Rotting Flesh” leaves us wanting more. Five tracks seem too few for what Burial Extraction delivers here. To start with, “Blood-Soaked Robe” blows our minds. You can’t attack like that right from the start! Well, Burial Extraction does. With truly killer riffs, bouncy drumming, plenty of thrashing, and a touch of grindcore, you could say this is the key to this work: knowing how to balance each influence and capture it in a track as interesting as the guitar solo that complements it.
Next up is “Pestilence,” with a calmer vibe that briefly takes us down a heavier or thrashier path, reminding us a bit of early Mortification’s style, with plenty of melodic flair and a guitar riff that defines the track from start to finish.
“Rotting Flesh,” as you might imagine, is the title track of this EP, featuring guitar riffs and solos that might seem a bit out of place in a band like Burial Extraction, but here they fit perfectly with the overall concept. Nothing sounds out of place—that’s the reality—nor is it random. One of Burial Extraction’s main strengths is precisely their ability to manage the pacing of each track. And that’s no small matter.
And for even more surprises, “The Overseer” appears, with a nod to Black Metal, yet essentially maintaining the spirit and style of Burial Extraction, featuring an interesting melodic foundation. Finally, we have “Where Creatures Dwell,” which serves as yet another gratuitous display of brutality, grounded in the most visceral Thrash Metal.
Without a doubt, “Rotting Flesh” is an excellent work from every angle—and listen. It has the right ingredients to be considered a standout within the genre. Perhaps the only downside is that there are only 5 tracks! In any case, Burial Extraction deserves a full-length album. This EP proves it.
Their style revolves around Death Metal, but we could easily label it as Brutal Death Metal, and there are even some sonic elements reminiscent of Black Metal and even Thrash.
Naturally, their Metal foundation provides that hallmark of quality, with short but intense guitar solos that mesh exceptionally well with the extreme foundations Burial Extraction employs.
On the other hand, the songwriting is excellent. In that sense, each of the five songs included on “Rotting Flesh” takes us through a massive barrage of heavy riffs, blast beats, and guttural vocals in such a balanced way that it leads us to believe we’re talking about one of the best things I’ve heard in the genre lately.
As for the sound, the production and mixing are another key strength of “Rotting Flesh.” There’s a balance between the raw edge characteristic of the genre and the clarity needed to appreciate the foundations and the various sounds Burial Extraction employs. The percussion hits are felt in every blast beat, and the guitars really soar. Not to mention the vocals and the bass distortion. It’s a beautiful invitation to sonic crushing.
The cover says it all. It’s one of those illustrations that help us grasp the content of this EP, and in that regard, Burial Extraction opted for the simplicity and generic style characteristic of Death Metal. No grandiose images in an era where AI reigns supreme. Basic but clear. Just like the inner sleeve, which actually doesn’t exist since this edition only features the aforementioned cover art, and on the back, the necessary technical details, and nothing else.
Burial Extraction is sending out a warning. “Rotting Flesh” is a sign that perhaps the best is yet to come. This band is coming at full speed, and you don’t want to miss it. At least we believe the path they’ve chosen is the one that suits them best. The future and death metal will be grateful.
To get this EP, here’s where you can find it, along with the links to follow Burial Extraction on social media, and of course, a short clip to give you a taste of “Rotting Flesh”….
https://www.thecharoncollective.com
https://www.facebook.com/thecharoncollective
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089411520679
https://www.instagram.com/burialextraction
