In my listening through 2021 releases I felt the need to write something about this album, because it's really one of my favourites from this year so far.
Dipygus are a relatively new band in the death metal sphere, forming around 2013 in Monterey Bay, California and only releasing their first demo and debut full-length in 2016 and 2019 respectively. The style they play however is far from new, it is a putrid and dank tunnel to the filthiest, nastiest death metal the 90s could procure (Autopsy, Impetigo, Asphyx, etc.), and it is clear they have put in great effort to make it sound as obscene as the cover art it holds.
The production on the vocals most notably being very cavernous, sounding like whispers from a beast (most likely ape-like, think sasquatch) echoing against the walls of its cave-den you've just entered (you're fucked btw). To accentuate this dankness most tracks contain horror movie samples, with my personal favourite being off the track "Myiasis in Human Mouth", as well as the whole album starting and closing on... ape noises? No, seriously, the tracks are called "Ape Sounds" and "Ape Sounds II", they've even got some synths on them??? I wouldn't be surprised if half of this was a concept album about Bigfoot.
After the freaky synth-ape intro, "St. Augustine, FL 1896" absolutely floors you with a torrent of blast beats and guitar shrieks cut off by a d-beat (?) drum break that leads into a slimy and groovy as fuck riff, yet again leading into a doomy, plodding section prepping you up for the blast beat slapping it smoothly transitions into before finally closing on a solo and disgusting meat-squishing sample. This is what you can expect from the most of the album. Lots of groovy, brain-dead, must-mosh riffs intertwined with these filthy plodding sections and just complete beatdowns of blast beats and intense death metal riffing.
There's just a ton of great moments on here, some of my favourites could be the creepy bass section on "Osteodontokeratic Savagery" (try saying that five times fast) straight out of a horror movie soundtrack, or the groovy chugging riff off "Plasmoidal Mass (Slime Mold)", or the super heavy chunkiness of "Long-Pig Feast". Overall however, my absolute favourite here is the title track "BushMeat" that mixes in all of the ideas on this record perfectly. Everything from the swamp sample intro, to the chunky smooth-brained riff that kicks it off, to that triuimphant melodic riff that throws you off guard, the putrid plodding section in the middle that geniunely makes me want to throw up only for it to hit me in the balls with a riff that literally makes me stand up to mosh every time I hear those drums kick in. They've just done an absolutely outstanding job on the riffing and songwriting on here and the album as a whole.
You will find nothing new here, nothing innovative or genre breaking, expanding the horizons of the death metal genre! No, just pure, no-bullshit, brainless death metal harassment that honestly could have been a cult classic had it been released in the early 90s. If you like the filthier nastier side of death metal akin to Autopsy and Impetigo as I mentioned at the start do not miss out on this album whatsoever.
TL;DR: Monkeys, together, strong.