Also, with current Blood Red Throne drummer, Emil Wiksten in their ranks, that also give you some basis for Fetus Stench’s sound and while it’s a energetic, tight and deftly played listen, it fails to really grab me or be anything other than a solid slab of US styled death metal.Of course, this type of no frills death metal has its time and place, and I’m perfectly content to listen to Stillborn should it randomly play on my Ipod, but I’m never actively craving it. Much like this years efforts from Deadborn, Fisthammer, Marasmus , Deserted Fear and such, it’s just competent but run of the mill, intense death metal, nothing more, nothing less.

Wiksten certainly has a presence behind  kit, the production is full and clear, the riffs are razor sharp and vocals of Bjorte are a solid, throaty almost thrashy mid range growl making all the elements of death metal here in spades. But there’s nothing that makes Fetus Stench stand out. The songs both structurally and thematically are all culled from Cannibal Corpse with the likes of “Meat Grinder Flesh Obliteration”, “Severe Suffering”, “Bashed, Defaced and Disfigured”  and “By Butchery Divorced” all blasting and grooving by with B movie stylings and a well delivered American tone.  A few squeal-y solos and a couple of slower marches break up the pummeling, but they are nothing too memorable.

In all, a competent if disposable Floridian styled death metal album that does everything it sets out to, but nothing more.

Fetus Stench is a death metal band from Sweden, Karlstad. Formed in 2011 by Andreas Björnson of Slaughterous on guitar and vocals, along with Emil Wiksten from Blood Red Throne on drums, Kristian Karlsson from The Law/Inferior on bass and Christoffer Ilberg of ACDS on guitars. The first recordings were released in February 2011 by the band themselves as a demo and it contains four tracks of relentless death metal. The band’s demo is currently streaming on their official Facebook or Myspace pages.