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SARCOUGHAGUS
Remnants EP

Rotted Life (2024)
Rating: 6/10

I was in praise of the debut full-length album, Delusions Of The Sick (2021), from Cleveland, Ohio-based act Sarcoughagus, so I’m glad they are back. The message is still the same, death metal, now bolstered further with the addition of drummer Ray Conde, who joined in 2022.

While the production isn’t great here, the trio still manages to dish out a flurry of damaging punches; seven tracks – two of which are bonuses – that are reasonably fast compositions led by the standard cookie cutter vocals of guitarist Nate Fey. However, I’m not as excitable this time round as the EP tends to scurry by and lacks any real impact even after several listens. In fact, Remnants is rather bog standard death metal that has no identity and seems almost out of time with its basic renditions.

The vibe is somewhere between 1993-1996, often fast and veering into Cannibal Corpse territory. Meanwhile, the band throws in a couple reworkings – ‘Cannibalistic Search Party’ and ‘Exanguination’ – as rather pointless bonus cuts. The other five songs are generic blurs, give or take some of the mid-tempo chugs which penetrate the haze, such as on opening track ‘Tempered By Time’. ‘Morbid Ideation’ also meanders nicely with its steady percussion and riffage, but there’s nothing here that really jumps out. ‘Fragments’ rattles in rather mediocre manner as does ‘Volition’ and ‘Hymns Of Death’, but there is a distinct lack of weight here.

I’m now on my seventh listen just to try to find some nugget of joy within the folds of this EP, but I just can’t hide my disappointment in the fact that Sarcoughagus has become so undistinguished in their designs.

Neil Arnold

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