Courtesy Disgustingest
Audio By Carbonatix
Blegh! That’s the metalhead way of saying there’s a new supergroup in town, and anyone who considers themselves a Denver underground die-hard needs to check them out asap.
Disgustingest properly announced itself as a full-fledged band last month, when EP Coagulating Putrescence dropped, but the project was initially animated by one Kendrick Lemke — one of the city’s busiest, and nastiest, metal movers and shakers who needed a reset while working on another one of his recent creations, Pedestal for Leviathan, a year ago.
“I was starting to lose steam, and I took a break and wanted to write the stupidest, heaviest stuff I can write that was still in the realm of music I really liked,” he says of the Disgustingest birth. “I wasn’t trying to make music I didn’t personally fuck with, but I wanted to take everything to an extreme. Do a brutal-death-metal-slam-type thing. I’ve never tried to right straight as-heavy-as-I-can-get type of stuff.”
That random reprieve resulted in the release of debut Disgustingest EP, Purging Suppuration, over the summer. Pedestal’s first full-length, Enter: Vampyric Manifestation, followed in October.
“I spent six days writing that first EP, once I got all those ideas out, I was able to go back to doing the Pedestal stuff,” he recalls. “Since then, it’s become more than just a palette cleanser. Honestly, it’s some of the most fun stuff for me to try to write.”
His latest deathgore direction caught the attention of several players within the scene.
“When he put out the first Disgustingest EP, I thought it was pretty sick,” says Collin Galloway, drummer and vocalist of FoCo ragers Aleister Cowboy.
“From my perspective, it kind of just fell out of the sky,” adds Kian Fotouhi, vocalist-guitarist of Denver slam crew Consanguinity. “I woke up one morning, and the EP was just out. I was like, ‘Fuck yeah.’”
Little did they know, about six months later, they’d both be in the band as guitarists in preparation for the first-ever Disgustingest appearance, after Lemke agreed to be part of a benefit show in November under the banner. The group also includes drummer Travis Hatley, notably of local metal buskers Insipidus, and bassist Landon Burch, who nearly recruited Lemke back in 2022 when he formed his current band Rotting Earth.
Courtesy Rose Simpson
“I had a note on my phone of ideas for who would be good. Everyone who is in this band now was the first people I put on that list,” Lemke, who only handles vocals in this one, explains. “It’s sick that every single person in this band is in other sick bands. They can all stand on their own merit, but we were all united by the love of rocking and gross death metal.”
Purging Suppuration is Disgustingest at its putrid peak, dripping with gut-wrenching bangers such as “Primitive Lobotomy” and “Digital Cyst.” The five-piece put out a live album through Aurora music production biz 140 Audio, too, but the best way to get down and dirty is checking them out in-person. The band is playing a DIY show at House of Dead in Fort Collins on Saturday, March 21. Consanguinity, Shot2Pieces and Release The Gimp are also on the bill.
Plus, Disgustingest has unmatched aura, slamming in sunglasses and hip-hop long-sleeves.
“That first show I wore my Project Pat long-sleeve,” Burch, who grew up in Arkansas listening to Memphis rap, says. “I was like, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to wear my sunglasses, too.’”
The style caught on with his bandmates. “It looked so fucking sick,” Lemke adds.
Sounds fucking sick, too, and there are plans to spew even more gore.
“I thought of these first few EPs as being phases of a scab, essentially,” Lemke, who also plays guitar in athousandangelsandseven, shares. “Purging I was thinking of when the puss starts forming. Then you start coagulating that putrescence [rotting matter, FYI]. I have this idea of doing the four phases of scab creation and removal. Then after the fourth EP, the scab comes off, and we do an all-out full-length.”
The “supergroup” tag is more of a tongue-in-cheek inside joke, but if you are already familiar with what these dudes are all about, then it’s pretty spot-on, and Disgustingest is a different beast than any of the other bands they’re in.
“Not only is it fun to play, but when you get locked into a super solid groove live and you look out in the crowd, they’re just destroying each other out there, and that’s how you feel in your head,” Burch says.
“Having a burning wrist is pretty badass when you’re playing some crazy riffs,” Galloway concludes, “especially when you’re playing with other people who can keep up.”
Disgustingest, with Shot2Pieces, Consanguinity and Release The Gimp, 7 p.m. Saturday, March 21, House of Dead, Fort Collins (DM for address).
