Drawn And Quartered are a band residing from my hometown in Washington State and to me, these guys don’t get discussed very often in the old school death metal world compared to the heavy hitters say bands such as Immolation, Incantation, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Hate Eternal, Suffocation and many more whom we all know love and respect all these bands for their hard-working contributions. This time around, Congregation Pestilence is the eighth full-length offering by these Washingtonians and is the follow-up to 2018’s The One Who Lurks which was a album that really showcased the band that they aren’t to mess around and have created such monstrosity start to finish. Fast forward to 2021 we have Congregation Pestilence which is a 9 track, 38 minute album in length and is released on Krucyator Productions.
Drawn And Quartered play a style of murderous, anti-religious and death themed sound of old school death metal. Their music is much more than merely solid, and while they debuted many years after the likes of Immolation and Incantation, this record demonstrated the newer wave by as much as a decade or so ago. Drawn And Quartered are known only to a small subset of people, who under different circumstances, would place them in one of the stages of contemporary USDM, remains an unexplained phenomenon. From guitar tones feeling a sense of dread and depravity, darkened and dripping styled signatures giving a cavernous touch and instrumentals feeling tighter and cohesive, these musicians were able to provide a thought-provoking, doomy and hypnotic at times.
For example, songs such as Dispensation (Rise of the Antichrist), Rotting Abomination (The Cleansing) and Proliferation of Disease have this mindless atmosphere and the compositional work displayed here is subtly stuck inside the mind of a listener’s brain but nevertheless not too repetitive to understand the band’s musical approach. Drawn and Quartered have been writing songs for the quarter of a century and it shows how far their career has been bringing out intensive levels of catastrophic goodness. Congregation Pestilence took me by a instant surprise and if you’re fans of old school death metal, you need to hear this beautiful art piece of dark art and one of the absolute best releases in 2021 all around.
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
