The UK’s Ingested was the latest in a concerning, long, and consistent run of deathcore vocalists being douche-y, with Josh Davies, who replaced original vocalist and co-founder Jason Evans in 2024, being promptly removed from the band after barely 2 years for the allegations of …now stop me if you’ve heard this before….being a shitty human being. I hope I’m not denigrating him with that statement.

Unfortunately, the new album Denigration had been recorded, but the band decided to redo the vocals and replace Davies with new guitarist Andrew Viruetta, and OG guitarist Sean Hynes co-handling the vocal duties for the re-recording. Honestly though – I mean, it’s deathcore vocals; they have all the deep growls bellows and screams that are now required for the genre, and they both do pretty well. I doubt anyone can really tell.

Musically, Ingested seems to have mirrored Whitechapel’s more introspective forays (The Valley, Kin) with the last couple of albums, especially 2022’s Ashes Lie Still. But as with Whitechapel’s last opus, Hymns in Dissonance, Ingested has returned with arguably one of the more brutal and direct albums of their career, imbuing the likes of Level Above Human and Where Only Gods May Tread with simple, bludgeoning, breakdown-heavy deathcore.

The focus on Denigration is massive, almost down-tempo lopes and lurches, and boy, do they deliver. The Nicolo Beninato (Worm Shepherd, Art of Attrition, Hate Within, Immortal Disfigurement) production is absolutely devastating from opener “Dragged Apart” to closer “Cold Sun”.

Every single song here punches you in the fucking face. And while there are blast beats scattered around (i.e., “Beaten Beyond the Veil”, “Dredge The Dark”, “Cold Sun”). But like say, the last Signs of the Swarm album, they are just transitions until the next lumbering, grooving breakdown as heard on the huge opener “Dragged Apart”, “Watch You Fold”, standouts “Stitch by Stitch” and “Steel Toe Truth”, stammering “We Are All Inherently Evil”, and lumbering “Oaths Betrayed”. Don’t get me wrong, the pummeling gait is pretty similar throughout, but it’s oh so satisfying. And there are no ‘personal’ or introspective moments that Evans introduced on the last two albums, which were fine by me. This is just bruising, hateful, shoulder bobbing heft.

As is the norm nowadays, there is a host of guest vocalists from Skyler Conder of Cell, John Gallagher of Dying Fetus, Kyle Medina of Brand of Sacrifice, and PeelingFlesh‘s Damonteal Harris. But picking them out or the bits they do, don’t really jump out or add much to the burly, bludgeoning material.

In a slow year for killer, big-name deathcore, Denigration is going to be one of the top deathcore releases of the year, and kudos to the band for doing the right thing.

Well, the second stage of grief is anger, and here Evans has channeled the loss of his father into a far angrier album than Ashes Lie Still, as Ingested seems to have veered back into a sound more akin to 2020 Where Only Gods May Tread. That is to say, there is still a progression from the band’s early “Intercranial Semen Injection” days but this album has less keyboards, less clean singing, no female vocals, and just seems more brutal and less bleak than Ashes Lie Still.

What there is plenty of though is mid-paced, shoulder swaying, head bobbing grooves and loping breakdowns in spades. as if to announce the band’s return to a little more of a brutal sound in massive fashion, album opener “Paragon of Purity” sets the tone out of the gate, the exact opposite of the opening title track from Ashes Lie Still. “Endless Machine” slightly more moody “Where No Light Shines”  and pummeling mid-paced bruiser “Expect to Fail” continue the album’s early bludgeoning pace.

Just as the album starts to get a bit repetitive, as the pace and lurch of the Ov Sulphur-ish “Starve the Fire” starts to sound a bit familiar, the band throws the album’s first curve ball with the melodic,  atmospheric instrumental number “Numinous”. However, “In Nothingness” and savage “Pantheon” return to the burly, lumbering throes of the album’s first few tracks.

The album’s last 2 tracks are the longest, with “Kingdom of Sand” at 5 and half minutes delivering more of the album’s now familiar mid-paced stomp and the 7-minute closer “A Path Once Lost” finally an Ashes Lie Still-like number with clean crooning and a more ballad-like prose and pace that ends the album on a more introspective note.

The Tide of Death and Fractured Dreams is another solid addition to the band’s growing discography that sees the band continue to sit atop the UK deathcore/slam heap, even with some subtle changes to their prior sound.

And you can tell from the album artwork, album title, and song titles like “From Hollow Words”, “All I’ve Lost”, “With Broken Wings”, and “You’ll Never Learn” that have left the likes of “Intercranial Semen Injection” and “Anal Evisceration” fully behind. Ingested has delivered a very personal, mature album dealing with loss, addiction, family issues, shedding negativity, and such. And indeed, the title track deals with the death of Jason Evans’ father during the pandemic and the inability to say goodbye properly. Powerful stuff.

And the album reflects this. As started on 2020s Where Only Gods May Tread, Ingested is developing quite nicely into more than just a burly, all-brawn, broodle deathcore slam band, which they certainly still are at their roots. But simply go to the opening title track to hear female vocals (courtesy of  Julia Frau), keyboards, and a brooding sense of sadness befitting the subject matter. And that development features throughout the album, though the band can still rip it up with crushing breakdowns when they see fit. Just listen to the next track “Shadows in Time”.

The rest of the album follows the same trend of just enough experimentation via keyboards and atmospherics  (“Tides of Glass”, “Sea of Stone”, “All I’ve Lost”, “With Broken Wings”, and notably super moody closer “Scratch the Vein”- which I initially thought might be a cover song) to keep things interesting and the band’s still heavy AF, if more brooding, full-on slamming brutality (“You’ll Never Learn”, “Shadows in Time”, “Echoes of Hate”) that will keep fans happy and mosh pits heaving. And as with the last album, few guests make an appearance with Trivium’s Matt Heafy ( “All I’ve Lost”) and Aborted’s Sven De Caluwé (“From Hollow Words”). That said, I would have liked to hear Juila Frau more, not just one song.

Ashes Lie Still is a logical development from Where Only Gods May Tread. It carries the same stern, heft, and polish (again from Cryptopsy’s Christian Donaldson mixing/mastering) but there is just enough development and progression to show some impressive growth, and not just by simply adding Latin choirs and keyboards and ripping off Lorna Shore. Nice one lads.

However, after seeing them on tour before the lockdown happened with Last 10 Seconds of Life and Visceral Disgorge, I came away impressed with the band’s energy charisma, and certainly, their ability to whip a pit into a frenzy with their breakdown filled metal that treads the perfect balance between slam heavy, modern death metal brutality and bro-entric deathcore (the crowd at the show was certainly more deathcore).

So I thought I’d go ahead and check out their latest effort, the confidently named Where Only Gods May Tread, replete with Dan Seagrave artwork, some surprise guests and massive Christian Donaldson (Cryptopsy) mix/master, signaling the band was truly ready to be big time.

Well, it’s certainly an Ingested album. It’s big and burly, VERY big and burly, to the point of being overproduced, but it certainly allows the band’s focus on monolithic grooves and slams to be rendered with devastating, speaker shaking precision. And while the band adds piecemeal blast beats (i.e. “No Half Measures”) and some occasional ‘maturing’ experimentation here and there such as keyboards on “Impending Dominance”, more doomy passages like “The Burden of Our failures” or “Another Breath”, where Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein awkwardly shows up (other guest appearances include The Acacia Strain‘s Vincent Bennett and Kublai Khan‘s Matt Honeycutt) or the album’s final ambitious, 9-minute track “Leap of the Faithless”, it’s still all about the huge,  loping breakdowns and slams that pummel the listener into oblivion.

And there are plenty; from opener “Follow the Deceiver”, through “Impending Dominance”, “The List”, pummeling favorite “Dead Seraphic Forms”, muscular  duo of “Black Pill”, ( with an opening riff that reminded me of Dyscarnate) and “Forsaken in Desolation”. And all of them certain to get pits back into bloody frenzies again once concerts start happening again.

Unique Leader is having a monster summer of 2020 with Katalepsy, Cordyceps, Cytotoxin, Stillbirth, Exocrine, Ahtme and this which while certainly a predictable Ingested album, has enough development to show the band is growing bit by bit, album by album into an international powerhouse.

Finding a home on none other than the behemoth known as Unique Leader records, this one had all the makings of a killer album, and it doesn’t disappoint in the least.  Their slamming, groove heavy sound still sounds fresh in a genre that has been dying for an injection of some new life.  Vocalist Jay Evans bounces all over the vocal scale, growling when need be and going for a higher pitch when called for.  Drummer Lynn Jeffs (who some might recognize from Annotations of an Autopsy), absolutely slays behind the kit with some (thankfully more organic but still triggered) light-speed double bass work.

Sean Hynes and Sam Yates, who handle the guitar work as well as backing vocals, bounce between slick grooves and slams, while also mixing it up to avoid monotony.  One of the things that has no doubt helped this band is that it’s all the original members since their beginning in 2007, with that continuity really helping the cohesiveness of their sound.

This is just an absolute crushing album, and a welcome return for one of the best in the genre.  It clocks in at just under 45 minutes, which is definitely on the longer end but highly enjoyable when it’s done this well.  If you’re a fan this is an absolute must listen, and anybody with an open mind just might find themselves liking this one as well.

Lynn – We started in about, I think, summer 2006, the four of the lads had been in a band before that, they changed their drummer and got me in and changed the style a bit, we basically wanted to write the heaviest death metal we could write. There were good bands like Amputated, Desecration that had been around for a long time and we wanted to take it to the next level make it heavier and even more crushing.

Nice, so what were they doing before you joined?

Lynn – they were in a band called Age of suffering, it was the same four lads but with a different drummer, I was playing in a band called Crepitation at the time which was from Manchester also, and we we’re all good friends, their drummer left and I started doing sessions for them and that’s how it started, I was meant to play a few shows but it got more comfortable so we said, let’s make a go of it.

Nice, in fact, that’s the first point I wanted to go through with you, what’s the deal with Crepitation?

Lynn – We’re all good friends, with Mark, the singer, all of them in fact. Basically I and Sean left, about 2 and a half years. One of the members of Crepitation wasn’t into what we were doing and he sort of fell out with the rest of us, but we didn’t care, we were still friends with all the rest of them. Obviously it comes around on the internet all the time that there is beef between us but we don’t care, people make up that shit.

That’s the impression I got, that people are reading a bit too deeply into it.

Lynn – It’s like forums, I don’t post on them, I read them now and again but I don’t post on there it’s full of wankers most of the time.

It’s true, usually its people with too much time on their hands and no other real interests

Lynn – That’s how it is innit.

So have you played live with Crepitation lately?

Lynn – Nah, we aint played with them for years. I think that we’ve played 2 or 3 shows since we (Lynn and Sean) left 2 years ago. They got a lot of members in their band, their singer is in Amputated, their guitarists are in Neuroma, and their drummer was in infected disarray, I think it’s a side project kind of thing more then anything.

Ah ok, because they also have a couple of guys that were in Days of Perversion, Adam.

Lynn – Ah yeah, from Blasphitized, he’s a cool guy. I went to see Desecration about a week ago and Blasphitized were playing .

So that comes to my next question, there is a view that the direction you were taking your sound was viewed as somewhat “blasphemous,” what are your thoughts on that?

Lynn – I mean we take a lot of influences from different music, we don’t try to coin ourselves as one kind of genre, I mean we are death metal and we try to play the most brutal death metal in the UK. There’s a lot of bands in the UK, the more modern ones anyway that have a cleaner production, where those in the underground are a lot rawer, and basically all we want to do is write the music we want but have a clean production that sounded heavy, that’s it really.

Again, that leads to my next point, then, how pleased are you with the album?

Lynn – I’m very pleased, I mean whenever you do anything, you always look back on things that you could change, and obviously for this, that’s the case, I mean we love it and for a debut it’s great but we’ve already started writing for the next one and we are saying we can do that better and this better. Everything’s a learning curve and look to be more innovative on your next one.

And to keep moving forward, because that’s something I usually discuss with people, in that I always prefer it when a band improves what they are rather then abandoning what they are and going onto something completely different.

Lynn – A lot of bands do that. With us, we all love similar things but we also listen to different music, I might listen to Coldplay or Radiohead, Sam might listen to Madonna, but we it comes to death metal we all like the same bands so its good when we write together because we have those similar interests.

How do you feel the album compares to the split with Crepitation and Kastrated?

Lynn – I think it’s a massive improvement, the production is better, the song writing is more grown up, we’ve grown up within ourselves and as songwriters. It’s like the older bands like Slayer, who get to a certain point of comfort and keep improving their skills, even if people say they’ve been writing the same songs for 25 years, it’s not true. For us, it’s just the beginning and we want to keep improving as songwriters which we feel we have done from the split to the album and we hope to for the next one.

We’re you tempted to re-do all the split

Lynn – No, I don’t think, I mean it did cross our minds, but I think it would have made the split a bit pointless. We like to keep the old songs as they are.

So from here Lynn, where do you see the band going (musically)?

Lynn – We just did a show in Southend and we were talking about this and where we are going to go. Sean writes the main structures and he’s already wrote about 10, then he’ll come to me and I’ll add some further tuning and we’ll keep layering it but in the end we want it to be as heavy as possible and also catchy to make a memorable album.

Great, I think that’s the best way to go! So what made you start playing drums?

Lynn – My dad was a drummer, he played in drums in the 60s, 70s, for old rock bands playing Led Zeppelin and Thin Lizzy covers. I got a drum kit, started playing, listening to drummers like John Bonham from Zeppelin, kept playing and playing, getting into heavier stuff when I was about 11 or 12, stuff like Slipknot, Slayer, Pantera, from there Cannibal Corpse, Sepultura , Deicide, Nile, you just keep playing, keep finding new things.

So when did you start playing?

Lynn – When I was about 11 or 12

Jeez, so you must be conditioned

Lynn – Yeah (laughs)

Now, I have a question here, my favourite styles are real particular, I can even go beyond the boundaries of metal or hardcore and identify something even more particular, so what stands as my real favourites are bands that play the 90s, new school hardcore, so Earth Crisis, Morning Again, Day of Suffering but that, and proper slamming death metal, Devourment, Prophecy, Viral Load

Lynn – Music with groove.

Exactly, and then from there, tough, heavy hardcore.

Lynn – When I was reading your review, the comment about UKHC struck me and us as a whole, because nobody ever says that, Sean and I listen to bands like Terror, Knuckledust, Hatebreed, it’s not a main influence, but the bands you listen to invariably influence your playing.

Right, it’s just when I was listening to the full length, and hearing the breakdowns and the chugs, I was thinking, “god this is pure LBU fodder,” I mean if you played with LBU bands, it would go off in a big way, because when I hear it I’m thinking BDF and Ninebar in some instances, not in such a direct way but it’s there, more so then some of the American influences, at least to my ears.

Lynn – I mean, at the moment, you have people trying to divide the scene, at the end of the day, metal is metal and hardcore is hardcore, but, take slamming death metal, it wouldn’t be what it is without hardcore, so it’s kind of pointless to cut the scene up, there should be cross pollination and mixing of styles, it just breeds better music in the end.

Gotcha, and I definitely am with you on those points. Right, my next points are to do with Annotations of an Autopsy (AAOA – who Lynn was a member of until recently when he stepped down from the band). When I got the Annotations full length, I have to say I was slightly disappointed, for me it didn’t really live up to the promise of the EP. I am not saying that to be a cocksucker, for me, it’s just the honest truth, now, with your full length (Ingested), that’s what I was expecting from AAOA, I have played that so many times, whereas with the AAOA, I think it’s the production that ruins it for me.

Lynn -You know I didn’t drum on that album?

Of course, it was a completely different line-up. The only original guy now is Steve no?

Lynn – It’s Steve and Jamie.

So clearly they’ve gone through a lot, maybe that’s why the album didn’t sound as it should have done, because to me it doesn’t sound like they were really there, because the songs are good but it lacks something.

Lynn – I really don’t know, from what I gather Jamie wrote all of it with Steve with little or no input from other members, coupled with the fact that they were fighting against a deadline. Not to mention that it was so hyped up and everyone was waiting for it, so I think that was a factor, but above all, the fact that they had no other input from a drummer, or other members, but still, I think it’s a good album.

I mean it is good, but compared to what I was expecting and especially after the EP I was thinking “Jesus, the band is killing it, they’re on it,” so from there I expected the album to be like the EP but X 100, which is what I got with your (Ingested) album, but not with AAOA. It’s still a good album, but I don’t play it as much, maybe when the new one comes out, that will change. That being said, I am really interested in the new one, when’s it due?

Lynn – It’s due in January, I don’t know the exact date.

It’s going to be on Nuclear Blast no?

Lynn – Siege of Amida in the UK and Nuclear Blast for the rest of the world.

Cool, now, do you think (and this may seem like a crazy question), Ingested can reach the same level of hype as AAOA?

Lynn – I don’t see why not, I just think it will take more time, when AAOA bought out that EP, everyone wanted to hear that, whereas what we were doing was more extreme but I think now that all the kids that were into that will like us now. Take all the kids that were into Funeral for a Friend, now they are into heavier bands, then you have kids that were into Bring me the Horizon discovering Whitechapel and then Devourment and Cannibal Corpse, so now everyone is listening to more extreme music so I think we’ll get there.

Great, thank you, now my next question is on UKDM, in my eyes its gone bloody bananas in the last few years, why do you think it has mushroomed in this manner?

Lynn – Personally, I think it’s the best its ever been for a long time, especially since the days when Napalm Death started to play DM and Carcass were in their prime, and then UKDM was dead for such a long time, nothing was happening at all (for about 10 years).

However, even then there were bands you could cite as being good, but now, there are so many amazingly good bands that really understand what they are playing.

Lynn – Not only that; they are getting younger.

Too right! And even more talented, so do you think it’s got the staying power?

Lynn – As long as people stay dedicated then yes, the problem with a lot of UK bands is that they give up if they fall at the first hurdle. I really don’t see why it can’t happen because the UK is a small place so it has a lot of potential, especially compared to say the States which is so huge.

Or even Germany.

Lynn – Right. People don’t think to tour all the smaller towns and just stick with Glasgow, Manchester (BDB – no need to mention London, that’s a given), so when we did the Trigger the Bloodshed tour in June, we were playing all these little towns like Torquay, Exeter and the shows were sick. I think that’s how you get out there more, and that’s what the underground Death Metal bands need to start doing.

Cool, so who do you think are the best bands in the UK right now?

Lynn – Dyscarnate, Dead beyond Buried, Trigger the Bloodshed obviously, Embryonic Depravity, Infected Disarray, Fleshrot, there’s so many, Man Must Die is another good band.

You could go on all night.

Lynn – Amputated is another one.

Of course, they’ve got a new album out soon haven’t they?

Lynn – Yeah, I stayed at Mark’s house (vocalist of Amputated) and I heard it, it’s really, really good.

Wicked, how’s it sounding, is it more slam?

Lynn – Definitely more slam, it’s wicked, it’s got a gore-grind influence in the vocals, Mark’s off his head and comes out with some sick shit.

I am looking forward to it, it’s going to be a good one. Right, last question, where do you want Ingested to be in a year’s time?

Lynn – Keep on touring, we’re doing Bonecrusher in January, hopefully that will be a forecast of things to come, we might go to America next year but we’ll see. We want to find new fans, show them what Ingested is about!

Are you excited about the upcoming European Bonecrusher tour with 3 Inches of Blood, Necrophobic, Obscura, The Faceless and Carnifex,?

Lynn – Really can’t wait.

The bill is insane.

Lynn – It is, when we first got the bill, we were amazed, it’s such a mix with brutal Death Metal, and then Black Dahlia, which is just Black Dahlia and then 3 inches of Blood, Necrophobic, should be really good.

I should come along, it looks good and I hope you don’t have to endure any nonsense like the recent Hell on Earth tour in London which had a grand attendance of about 100 people (in a 800 venue).

Lynn – Jesus, I hope not.

Should be ok, what with Black Dahlia headlining, I just hope people come and see you.

Lynn – We’re on quite early, a bit later in Europe, but in the UK it’s half 5, but we don’t care; we’ll go nuts either way.

Cool, let’s hope so! Right, last, last point, favourite records this year?

Lynn – This year so far, Despised Icon has been a great record, new Job for a Cowboy, just go the new Nile album and listened to that, really good (he had an advance copy), new Dying Fetus is amazing, the Abysmal Torment. Loads of good stuff, but you know, I was saying to the lads the other day that it’s so difficult to keep up with everything that’s coming out.

It’s almost impossible.

Lynn – Bloody Marduk is bringing out a new album this year, I didn’t even know that till yesterday, there are so many bands, it’s hard to keep track. However, it’s better now because it was the case that there were so many bands and lots of them were shit, but now, it’s the opposite.

Too true, what did you make of the Devourment album?

Lynn – I was a bit disappointed to be honest, I think it’s a good album, but Mike Majewski was saying this is going to be the best Devourment album ever and that they were going to bring new elements to it but it’s the same shit really.

Great, that’s it then, thanks very much Lynn, that’s my lot!

http://www.myspace.com/ingesteduk

Ingested are a hallmark of that factor.

There’s absolute no pretence here, the name, album title, artwork, song titles, the whole aesthetical package, suggest and affirm one notion, slamming death metal, and Ingested are simply that of the highest calibre. ‘Skinned and Fucked,’ could not set it off any better, its just utter perfection, a rattling barrage of blasting beats backed by Jay’s guttural shriek. That serves as the foundation for the transition to a glorious, albeit brief chug before picking up change again as they shift the gears and lock into fast picking and buzzing, piercing riffs akin to the more classic, mid 90s style of DM. At two minutes it begins to get nasty as they seriously dig into that chug going down a sub frequency lower each time it seems.

In all honesty the opening gambit reveals what you can expect for the next 30 minutes, but its all gravy, albeit a gory, blistery one reeking of misogynistic/misanthropist putrefaction. Each piece follows in ruthlessly clinical fashion and seriously, I don’t know what gear they rolled in for the recording sessions, but the chug is seismically deep (not Sunn O))) like levels, but pretty damn low), its sumptuously captured and its highly, highly addictive. It unfolds most tectonically in the opening of ‘Cremated Existence,’ in which again, the chug seems to be digging so deep into the frequencies that the guitars of Sam and Sean seem to resonate more like spades then regular musical instruments.

However, despite this level of quality in terms of songwriting and playing there are several factors that would be and more the likely will be raised to be pick at Ingested and again the slamming death metal epidemic/phenomenon (delete as best you see fit).

Firstly, most will argue that if you own the catalogues of Suffocation, Dying Fetus and Devourment, then why the hell would you invest in a band that worships at all three of those demigods. Next is the vocals. Jay shifts easily from gutturals to shrieks and to a more decipherable bark that most purists will cry as being too “core.”

This brings us to the final and most tangible talking point, the “core,” element that is rooted in Ingested’s sound. For instance, all the breakdowns to be found on Surpassing are the kind to incite riots at hardcore shows, what’s more, the playing style and tempo is distinctly core sounding (I definitely hear a UKHC influence in some of these breaks). Yet, you cannot deny the fact that this band, is death metal, pure and simple, and not a horrid myspace creation tailor made to conquer hot topic with more colourful merchandise the music.

Lest we forget that not that long ago British metal was a totally horrid embarrassment. I’d much rather be snapping my neck to this racket and seeing Ingested and their peers/contemporaries sticking around and making more music, especially when you consider the shite that was passing for British Metal 10 years ago (Kill II This, Pulkas, Defenestration, Raging Speedhorn? No thank you).

Seriously, if you can’t find anything to like in the likes of ‘Condemned to Rape,’ and ‘Arial Evisceration,’ (aside from the former’s awful title) then stop reading and stop listening to death metal.