Mexico's heirs to the demented black throne of Abruptum return with a brand new album (their fifth) that is as putrid and psychotic as anything that I've heard from these noxious goatnoizethrashers in the past. I don't use the Abruptum comparison lightly, either. Funereal Moon's brand of black metal is so deformed, so totally fucked sounding that it has far more in common with the formless insanity of Obscuritatem Advoco Amplectere Me than the ripping thrashing blackness that I usually hear from the Mexican black metal underground. Oh, sure, there's plenty of thrash on Rites, but when the two members of Funereal Moon do whip themselves into a furious whirlwind of buzzing riffage and blasting drums, the sound gets so out of control that it sounds like you're hearing two black metal bands playing totally different songs at the exact same time. A total raging clusterfuck. When they aren't ripping through fast paced, alchohol-fueled Satanic mayhem on this album, Funereal Moon staggers through a pungent underground realm of nun-slaughtering black chaos and Mexican black magic rites sketched in bizarre vocalizations and endless echo-chamber screams, extreme reverb-soaked guitar that just wanders aimlessly through thick clouds of sewer mist and grave fumes, weird effects that flit at the edges of your perception, and stumbling, spastic blastbeats. The vocals are a big part of what makes Rites Of Black Putrefaction sound so demented. Wordless screams trail endlessly through the blackness, followed closely by gargling Muppet shrieks and anguished, unearthly groans. Sounds like much of this might have been improvised, the squalls of dungeon guitar noise drowning in black muck, the drugged drumming dragging itself through pools of tar and gore as the songs just flop and writhe around.

As loose and deranged as this is, the band keeps things varied. The first track on Rites starts the album with the Abruptum-style psychosis of "Intro To Hell" that lurches into the utterly septic black thrash of "Posesion Demoniaca", complete with absurd howling vokills that reminds me of Sesame Street's Grover on PCP. Then there's the putrid black blast of "Profana su Carne Virgen" where the guitarist solos forever, slopping his insane shred from start to finish. "Nacido de las Entra�as de un Chacal" is a feverishly hypnotic blast of black drone thrash, and "Moon Trance" opens with weird crooning vocals and creepy guitar ambience before turning into vile, crushing blackened death. Swirling murky effects coat the ripping, spaced out black thrash of "Pleasure in Bestiality", and "Coronacion de la Cabra Negra" combines maniacal black blast with shambling dirgey dissonance. The recording for all of this is covered in slime and black vomit, the sound blown out and low-fi, and utterly wicked sounding. If the damaged, sloppy black skuzz of Hellhammer, Von, Abruptum and Havohej takes up a large chunk of your listening diet, this album is required listening, and it once again establishes the mighty Funereal Moon as one of Mexico�s most vile and psychotic exports.

Limited to 300 copies.