Year: 2026
Label: self-released
There’s some new kids on the block. Finnish death metal has been going through a veritable resurgence in the last few years, with a new, young generation of kids discovering the joys of guttural vocals, down tuned guitars, heavy riffage and pummeling drums. Testament to this are the plethora of bands consisting of teens and barely twenty-somethings one has been able to see at events such as Helsinki Deathfest’s All Ager Rager and the free festival Puska (whose name is a play on Finland’s biggest metal/heavy music festival Tuska) and the latter’s second stage Puskakiska, which in 2025 featured a line-up of essentially only young Finnish death metal bands.
This year’s edition of All Ager Rager was opened by Intubation, a three-piece band (with a borrowed bass player completing them on stage) from Kuhmo, Finland. All members are 17 years old, and yet the band has been together since 2021. Perhaps this made itself heard, because they crushed it on stage with far more confidence a group of underage teens playing their first gig with any right should have. So much so, that I was glad to have already bought a couple of their demos from the merch stand.
Undifferentiated Malignancies is a short, ten minute and two track demo single, and the newest release by the trio. Prior to this, they have released three demos, all available on Spotify. It’s actually worth listening to them (in order), because they clearly demonstrate how Intubation have constantly progressed and improved in every aspect.
Where the earlier demos show promise but are still pretty clumsy and nascent, the duo of tracks on Undifferented Malignancies display a group starting to cash in on the potential. Not only is the sound vastly improved from earlier releases, sounding heavy but still raw and nasty; the musicianship is tighter, the vocals better, and above all, the songwriting has taken a step forward. Intubator sound like a band who are rapidly becoming ready to leave the demo stage.
Stylistically, this is putrefied early death metal. Think something like first album and demo era Sentenced and other Finnish acts, and of course other acts from the turn of the 80’s/90’s – for some reason Rottrevore springs to mind. But you get the idea: heavy, brutal and raw in a primeval style which predates more defined “schools of sound” such as USDM, Swedeath and the likes.
If you’ve been following Only Death Is Real for a while, you’ll know this is just the kind of death metal I love best; death metal that’s establishing a separate existence from thrash metal and black metal, but hasn’t yet solidified and, to some extent, stagnated into the forms and easy nichés it has since then. Especially the first of the two songs, Neurological Brain Carnage, is a perfect example of this with its nastily buzzing, vicious guitar tone, drums alternating between a speedy plod and a headbangable thrashing pace, and cavernous, low vocals. The second track with its slower sections and a tad unusual rhythmic choices is a bit more ambitious, but plays second fiddle in this pairing. It does feature some pretty killer classic Finnish death metal melodies, though.
If Undifferentiated Malignancies is an indication of where Intubation anno 2026 are, and if they have more tracks of this caliber up their sleeve, then if there’s any justice in the world, the trio from Kuhmo won’t be a demo band much longer. Material of this quality deserves to be heard, and published properly.
Only Death Is Real 