British death metallers Mutagenic Host have shared their new track “Artificial Harvest Of The Obscene”. The song is the second to be revealed from the band’s debut album, The Diseased Machine, set for international release on January 3, 2025: the album will be co-released by Gurgling Gore (vinyl, cassette), Dry Cough Records (vinyl, cassette), and Memento Mori, with the CD version slated for release on January 20, 2025.
Mutagenic Host are a five-piece band hailing from London, England as part of the New Wave of British Death Metal (see also: Coffin Mulch, Celestial Sanctuary, Slimelord, Vacuous, Mortuary Spawn). The group comprises members from various parts of the UK and United States. With a diverse background spanning the hardcore, black metal, and death metal scenes, Mutagenic Host blend hardcore sensibilities and groove with the heavy, well-crafted sound reminiscent of ’90s Floridian death metal.
Mutagenic Host dive into a technological apocalypse, examining a world overshadowed by hypocritical, insidious, and murderous global powers. The band is deeply disillusioned with the traditional themes of death metal and hardcore, feeling that these subjects no longer capture the urgency of the present. Instead, Mutagenic Host tackle the modern-day specters of complacency, apathy, and the looming threat of AI. Their work is an allegory for the systematic industrialization of humanity’s eradication — whether by human hands or by the machines we create to snuff out life. In this narrative, the instruments of the state use AI to monitor, control, and suppress the population, sounding a warning of impending doom through a fresh, intense lens in the death metal genre.
The Genotoxic Demo, unleashed in early 2023 via Dry Cough, featured four tracks that plunged listeners into a cerebral mulch while simultaneously slashing through them with a ruthlessness found in the streets. Following a year of relentless live performances alongside bands such as Incantation, Fulci, Fuming Mouth, Undeath, Celestial Sanctuary, Kruelty, Portrayal Of Guilt, and Doldrey, Mutagenic Host have now finished writing, producing, and recording their inaugural full-length debut, The Diseased Machine.
Aptly titled, The Diseased Machine is a dark and thought-provoking journey into that post-plague world, which frankly doesn’t feel so far away from present times. As a debut album, it consolidates Mutagenic Host’s myriad strengths – stomping ‘n’ slamming grooves, world-eating heaviness, patient deployment of double-bass movement – and then intensifies them to an enviable degree. To be sure, the band are the proverbial well-oiled machine (but not diseased!) across the album’s ten oft-twisting tracks, the clean-yet-crushing production amplifying their strident execution. And with their fluid shifting between tank-rolling downtempo and galloping bouts of speed, we can confidently declare The Diseased Machine as the epitome of “chug and slug” – Mutagenic Host have stormed the gates to further solidify their ferocious presence in the death metal scene.
Tracklisting:
“Neurological Necrosis”
“Genestealer”
“The Twisted Helix”
“Artificial Harvest Of The Obscene”
“Organometallic Assimilation”
“DIRECTIVE:: [kill_on_sight]”
“Incomprehensible Methods Of Slaughter”
“S.W.A.R.M. (Systematic War Against Restless Machines)”
“Promethean Dusk”
“Rivers Of Grief”
For further details, visit Mutagenic Host on Bandcamp.