Joliet four-piece Molder know what’s awesome about classic death metal—and that includes its deliberately disgusting aesthetics. “I think some of it goes a little overboard and it’s a little silly, but to each their own,” guitarist and vocalist Aaren Pantke told Invisible Oranges last July, when Prosthetic released Molder’s second album, Engrossed in Decay. “It’s all about death, gore, decay,” he said. “Your typical run of the mill death metal topics.” Pantke, drummer Kyle Pooley, bassist Dominic Vaia, and guitarist Carlos Santini focus on what makes death metal exciting and gross—and demonstrate how even the grossness can be played up till it’s exciting too. Throughout Engrossed in Decay, Pantke delivers visions of slimy viscera in inhuman belches while the band relentlessly plow through morbid, sludgy instrumentals whose circular-saw guitar riffs could gut an alligator. Molder don’t even try to reinvent the wheel, but when death metal sounds as delightfully putrid as the pummeling “Ghastly Mutation,” it doesn’t need to be innovative to rip.
Molder Obscene, Detherous, and Cryptual open. Fri 3/31, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2109 S. State, $15, 17+