Ghoul Comes to Denver Fresh From Creepsylvania With a New EP

Somewhere bubbling beneath California’s bustling Bay Area, in an uncharted subterranean country full of ungodly creatures, lives a band so gruesome and bloodthirsty that its members have never publicly shown their faces.

Ghoul, and the catacombs of sewers that make up the group’s fictional homeland of Creepsylvania, first captured the attention of metal fans in 2001, when the fearsome foursome officially formed. A year later, Ghoul’s debut, We Came for the Dead!!!, served as a rallying cry and mission statement for its brand of splatterthrash.  

Since then, the mysterious members – Cremator (bass), Digestor (guitar and vocals), Dissector (guitar) and Fermentor (drums) – have been making their homeland proud, sharing its gore-obsessed culture with humanity whenever they’re not busy cashing checks and bagging babes.

“The insane amount of money and the high-level women who are attracted to this band, that’s pretty much it. Money and chicks – that’s the only reason we do this anymore,” confirms Digestor (aka Sean McGrath).

The mutant musicians, who perform with burlap sacks over their heads, haven’t surfaced to play new music and tour the U.S. since 2017, but we we’re catching up with Digestor just after the release of Ghoul’s latest EP, Noxious Concoctions. He’s a little groggy after the unexpected seven-year hiatus, which he admits was partly his fault. “There was this pandemic, you know, that kind of shut everything down. I have to apologize for that, by the way. It was not my intention to let that stuff leak out, but here we are. It was an honest mistake,” he explains.

Before that, Ghoul was busy working on a followup to 2016’s Dungeon Bastards and brewed up a batch of nearly two dozen killer tracks. “But we didn’t see each other for about a year and a half. We kind of kept to our own sides of the catacombs,” Digestor notes. “Once things died down – literally died down – within an acceptable population level in Creepsylvania, we started practicing again, got together and started working on a new album.”

Ghoul decided to go ahead and share five songs via Noxious Concoctions that are the most indicative of what eventually will be on the next record – straightforward carnage and chaos.

“Definitely don’t play it backwards, because then it’s going to sound all weird,” Digestor says. “All of the messages are overt and not hidden at all.”

He even puts on his chef’s hat and shares Ghoul’s tried-and-true recipe for the best noxious concoctions: “It’s the same formula as always. It’s two parts Carcass, one part Agnostic Front, one part Kill ‘Em All-era Metallica. Mix vigorously. Drink. Throw up. Pass out. Wake up. And that’s it,” he explains. “That’s what you should do. I guarantee you will come out with a middling Ghoul song after that.”

That’s the essence of splatterthrash, too – a Creepsylvanian delicacy created and popularized by Ghoul. It’s so obscure and unique that not even the boisterous frontman can describe what it is, exactly.

“I guess it’s thrashy, but also it’s kind of crossover,” he muses. “It has death-metal elements and is generally about slaughtering large numbers of human beings and smashing Nazis, who also want to slaughter large numbers of human beings. There are some internal inconsistencies, I admit.”

Hating Nazis is a reference to Ghoul’s 2020 single, “Nazi Smasher.” After you listen to that, go experience splatterthrash in all its throat-slashing glory on Friday, March 1, at the Summit. Headliner Municipal Waste, a thrash band of partying zombies, the self-flaying specialists of Necrot and crossover newcomer Dead Heat are also on the bill.

Ghoul’s set includes some special appearances from other Creepsylvanians, including its ruler, Commandant Yanish Dobrunkum, and a local witch known as the Swamp Hag. Anyone who hasn’t seen Ghoul before should also expect to be showered in fluids, so don’t wear your Sunday best.

At the Summit, there will be “a lot of loud noises, flashing lights, some bodily fluids – perhaps less bodily fluids than you would think, but they’re still going to be present, and not just from us,” Digestor teases. “I’ve seen people in the audience do horrible things. But generally, I think people have a good time and leave smiling, if they leave at all. Even the people on stretchers are usually smiling – it’s that fun.”

Touring and hitting the stage night after night takes a lot out of Ghoul. The Creepsylvanians just aren’t used to the altitude and being aboveground for such long periods of time. But they manage to supplement their usual diet of sewer carrion with more lively offerings on the road. Digestor’s “favorite part about touring is all the humans we get to slaughter and eat. It’s just like a smorgasbord out there. And in America, everyone tastes like bacon,” he says. “The worst part about it is everything else: all of the driving, the waiting, the sitting, the doing nothing, all of that stuff. But we’re looking forward to getting out there and seeing people, because we haven’t toured in a while.”

Ghoul, 6 p.m. Friday, March 1, Summit, 1902 Blake Street. Tickets are $35-$54.