I’ve replayed Ingested’s Denigration an unhealthy amount of times now, and I genuinely can’t tell how much of this album is “actually incredible” and how much is me hearing the sound of a band trying not to completely implode in real time.

Probably both.

Because this album is angry in a way that feels expensive. Like you can hear the cost of making it.

The whole backstory should’ve buried them. The vocalist gets fired. Allegations explode online. They apparently re-record basically the entire vocal side of the record late in the process. That’s usually the point where bands disappear for two years and come back with grayscale artwork and a statement about healing. Instead, Ingested somehow made the ugliest thing they’ve done in a while.

And I mean "ugly" positively.  Not polished-heavy ugly. Not cinematic ugly. Not “this breakdown was optimized for reaction channels” ugly.

And thank Christ for that.

I mean, the riffs sound pissed off. There are parts on this record that feel like they were kept specifically because they’re a little too blunt and dumb. Which is good. Deathcore gets worse when everybody starts trying to sound enlightened.

“Watch You Fold” especially hit me like old Ingested again. That disgusting bounce where the riff just keeps stomping on your head long after the point has been made. I actually laughed the first time the groove switched because it was so excessive. Like alright, man, relax. We’re already dead.

That’s the feeling I’d been missing from them.

Not technicality. Not evolution. Weight.

There’s this section in the middle stretch of the album—around “Beaten Beyond the Veil” into “Cold Sun”—where the record starts feeling less like songs and more like accumulated hostility. The production helps too. It’s big, but not squeaky-clean. You can still feel texture on it. The guitars don’t sound like they were assembled in a laboratory by men who own eight-string spreadsheets.

Also, tiny thing, but the snare on this album is nasty. There are moments where it sounds like someone smacking a metal garbage can with a cinder block.

I don’t even mean that as a joke.

And honestly? The re-recorded vocals, being a little rough around the edges, kind of saves the album for me. If they had replaced everything with some hyper-perfect studio performance, I think the record loses its teeth. Instead, there’s this desperate energy hanging over it where you can practically feel the band trying to drag itself across the finish line out of pure spite.

That matters. Because a lot of modern deathcore feels weirdly emotionally empty to me now. Hyper-clean. Hyper-edited. Everybody is trying to become the next arena band while still pretending they’re underground psychopaths.

Denigration doesn’t sound healthy enough for that. It sounds like a band backed into a corner.

And maybe that’s why it works so damn well.

Ingested’s Denigration can be found here ’s Denigration can be found here or wherever the best slabs of metal are served.