GOSUDAR – Morbid Despotic Ritual / VINYL LP

Princely tyranny from most reviled Third Rome, shadow brutality set upon the unwitting cult ensures there will never be a fourth — This Moscow, Russia based trio formed just a few years ago in 2018 but that should not indicate they’re green, having coalesced as consummate pros with similar resumes in hand. Vocalist/guitarist Vadim Ivanov and co-vocalist/guitarist Sergey Milenin are both easily recognized as members of The Occult, an impressive extreme hardcore band that eventually leaned towards an HM-2 driven death/crust sound on their second album ‘Necropolis‘, and we’ll have to swerve a bit deeper underground to find incredibly skilled former Tarpan drummer Renat Kurmakaev, who’d played a more raucous and brutal style of punk structured death metal, hopping over to this crew soon after ‘The Abyss‘ released. So, these guys assuredly have a solid foundation of groove and change-up heavy modes of death metal infused hardcore punk and grindcore in hand but they’ve aimed for a more sophisticated, or, detail heavy style of classic ‘old school’ death metal here in Gosudar. Birthed from nowhere and without quarter ‘Morbid Despotic Ritual‘ is, above all else, the hard work of proper death metal delivered without shortcuts or trend-scumming dryness.