Sanguisugabogg – ‘Tortured Whole’ [Album Review]

By the time I got to the end of “Menstrual Envy,” the first track on Tortured Whole, the new album from gore metal newcomers Sanguisugabogg, my stomach was already feeling a little queasy. By the end of this gloriously over-the-top slab of filth, I was practically swimming in my own vomit. Held by some alongside the likes of Carcass, this rancid collection of songs is one of the most beautifully vile pieces of work you’re likely to hear all year.

Described by main man Cameron Boggs as “a blood-sucking toilet that sucks the blood out of your ass,” the best thing you can do before you plunge headfirst into this filth, is leave your brains at the door. With its gangrenous tongue rammed very firmly in its rotting cheek, this band doesn’t bother with niceties preferring instead to leave you feeling like they’ve rammed your head straight into a mincer. Putrid vocals, horribly sludgy guitars, and some truly rotten song titles make up the core of Tortured Whole while the rest of it is covered in copious amounts of shit, piss, and puke.

Let’s be honest though, with names like “Gored In The Chest,” “Dead As Shit,” and my personal fave “Dick Filet,” there are two things you can deduce a lot from this album before you’ve even listened to it. One, these lads don’t take themselves too seriously and, two, there is very little off-limits where gore is concerned. Inspired by the sewage-drenched sounds of bands like Obituary, Bolthrower, and Morbid Angel, this is the kind of filth dragged up from the bottom of a swamp. “Pornographic,” sounds like the kind of welcoming soundtrack you’d find on something like I Spit On Your Grave, or Cannibal Holocaust, just before somebody gets their dick sliced off or their internal organs chewed out.

Each track is a sludgy, swampy, putrid affair rounded off with a rotten production and a cheeky grin. Brought up on a diet of B-movies, drugs, and extreme metal, that would go a long way to explaining how you could write a song about chopping your own dick off. That’s exactly what Sanguisugabogg does though, with the end result being an album with lyrics too explicit to replicate on film. A rotten, putrid affair, Tortured Whole is the kind of album that will have you scrubbing yourself clean with a cheese-grater after you’d listened to it. And, for that reason alone, we can’t recommend this album highly enough.

Tortured Whole Track Listing:

1. Menstrual Envy
2. Gored In The Chest
3. Dragged By A Truck
4. Pornographic
5. Dead As Shit
6. Tortured Whole
7. Interlube
8. Dick Filet
9. Urinary Ichor
10. Posthumous Compersion
11. Felching Filth

Run Time: 33:54
Release Date: March 26, 2021
Record Label: Century Media Records