Bog Wraith

"Nice name… reminds me of endless Magic The Gathering sessions with my pals back in 7th grade. Due to my macabre nature, I always had a soft spot for the black cards of MTG (Bog Wraith and his undead friends included). These Lansing, Michigan revenants are extremely good and pretty damn fresh sounding to these old man ears. As you’ve probably gathered by now I’ve had a tumultuous relationship with deathcore as a genre. I’ve only recently begun to find bands that excite me. By in large, just hearing the words still triggers an automatic eye roll and anticipation of the worst. Bog Wraith manage to transcend the genre’s trappings and have brought forth an inventive cross pollination of styles incorporating death and black metal with their special brand of swampy weirdness to impressive effect. There are plenty of deathcore bands attempting to incorporate black metal but falling flat on their stretched-eared faces. Bog Wraith thankfully know how to do more than just mindless crappy tremolo picking and they’ve heard more black metal than just Dark Funeral and Dimmu Borgir. They get that being blackened is more than wearing Black Craft Cult shirts and having lit candles onstage. These dudes are the masters of that “spiraling downward" feel. It’s as if you are descending lower and lower into a pit of black slime grossness with each passing moment. The vocals here are a big selling point for me, I love the villainous wet creeper style that has been opted for. Dude sounds like a freakazoid covered in lily pads and pond scum that probably soiled the vocal booth with his swampy swag. I can just imagine a trail of wet footprints leading out of a studio. Well done. Give these hideous harbingers a go, you won’t regret it!"

-TREVOR STRNAD - Metal Injection

"Formed only in July this year I am surprised yet somewhat impressed that Bog Wraith were capable of releasing their debut EP titled 'Viscera'. The Michigan quintet's aim is to combine several genres of the more extreme elements of modern metal such as brutal slamming death metal, and black metal. The outcome is quite pleasing for a big modern metal fan like myself, as the EP delivers from start to finish.

Haunting intros creep up to almost each track, which helps elevate the black metal atmosphere that Bog Wraith desire to create, and whilst this isn't something new to the genre, it is done so well that it may come across as an almost new breed of bands, and let's face it something has to top the down-tempo deathcore craze that's been buzzing these past two years.

With the band's gnarly artwork comes great production despite the band's four month life; Clearly hard at work and determined to push themselves, this is what the metal community thrives on. The instrumental side to the band is not technical at all, but driven by catchy thick and sludgy riffs that aren't difficult to follow. They are backed with the black metal backbone structure that Bog Wraith have nailed here, ultimately molding the EP's character.

Alex DeRose's vocals are as inhuman as they come, at times taking inspiration from Travis Ryan of Cattle Decapitation, whilst also sounding like a more death metal style, and slightly more serious and grizzly version of Scorpion from Nekrogoblikon. Fused with the ghastly overtone throughout the EP combines to a successful release of a band that will soon become much more well known than they currently are. "

-Max Barter - Brutalism

"Bog wraith are a really cool deathcore outfit of Lansing Michigan. I know “really cool” and “deathcore” might be an oxymoron to a lot of you, but here, let me explain my case. First of all, these guys can really play their instruments, they don’t rely on single string chugging all day or bullshit quantized blasting and played out “my first tremolo” riffs. Bog Wraith exist at an interesting and modern crossroads of extreme sounds. How they’ve managed to combine death metal, deathcore, and chunky slam sounds fairly original to this old geezer. It may not look that exciting on paper, but these guys tower far above much of their brainless brethren. The Mire exudes an atmosphere of total dread. It slithers into the ear. There isn’t a moment here where you wont feel like you’re being dragged down into the muck this dark, dank ep. Damn those killer harmonic rakes! They get me every time. The vocalist guy uses a bit of that high “fry” vocal but it’s thankfully not monosyllabic or annoying as a lot of them out there. He’s actually got a lot of different styles that he pulls from, it’s fucking nasty. As I said when talking about their last release, he has a very villainous delivery that is very believable. He is the slime covered Bog Wraith you seek when you hear their awesome Magic The Gathering derived band name. There is a real sense of synergy between band name, sound, theme and artwork here that’s quite impressive. Quit being a cop and give these sick young bastards a try, you won’t regret it."

-Trevor Strnad - Metal Injection

I hate deathcore. It’s usually cookie-cutter as fuck and betrays a complete lack of respect for the intelligence of its audience. Metal-adjacent drivel for roided-out meatheads to blast their biceps to. Absolute garbage. Not for human consumption.

So believe me when I say I did not expect to fall in love when I came across this one and saw it categorized as “blackened deathcore.” But fall in love I did. Bog Wraith are polished in the right ways and wholly unpolished and grotesque in all the ways that matter most. This EP oozed and gurgled its way into my heart with gnarly, surprisingly intricate riffs slathered in a thick film of rotten gore vocals. Picture the best efforts of Job For A Cowboy chained in a dark room and fed a steady diet of Deathspell Omega until overpowering their captors and escaping into the bitter Michigan winter. Mire presents a coherent, terrifying vision, and the strong song structures highlight the band members' ample talents. If I close my eyes I can easily imagine being drowned in fetid mud by an angry swamp creature for the 16-minute duration of the EP. I feel it, guys. I get it. You have my attention.

As good as this release is, I really hope we’ll be seeing a full-length from Bog Wraith soon. - Metal Elitist