Last year, multi-national death metal group Serocs delivered a scorching album called And When The Sky Was Opened, that both myself and Trevor Strnad of The Black Dahlia Murder heavily praised here at Metal-Injection. Earlier this year the founding member and main architect behind Serocs, Antonio Freyre, decided to fire up a new death metal project called Punished. Like Serocs, Punished isn't based in one country and instead consists of members from multiple countries. Their debut EP, The Absent, also features some sick vocal guest spots by Josh Smith (Serocs) , Phil Tougas (Chthe'ilist/First Fragment/Serocs/Zealotry/etc), and also some from legendary Demilich vocalist Antti Bowman!

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While the music on display throughout The Absent is indeed quite complex and technical, the music isn't quite tech-death in the same sense that Serocs is. The music Punished deliver has more to do with the cold howling fury of death metal bands like Ulcerate and Gorguts, but with its own twist to it, as this hardly comes across as a watered down clone of either band. Regardless of what you want to call it, the music on The Absent is damn impressive, but I leave the final conclusion to you out there reading this as to whether you're down with dark and gritty death metal in the way Punished perform it. So stream The Absent early below, and if you like what you hear, you can pre-order it over at the bands Bandcamp page, and pre-orders for the album art shirt are available here too! The band informed me that physical cd versions of The Absent will be coming, but are not yet available. Be sure to follow the band over on their Facebook page as well if you dig the music. Punished-The Absent officially drops this Friday, July 29th.