Sarcófago hold a special place in extreme metal history, and for good reason, but that reason isn’t necessarily The Worst, which is seeing re-release here through Greyhaze Records (it’s the first time the album has been available on vinyl and cassette). What ended up being the band’s last album, The Worst was originally released in 1996 and found the Brazilian death/thrashers doing a couple things I kinda wished they hadn’t: use a drum machine and explore groove metal. 

Now, it’s not quite as bad as that sounds: the title track, which is the first song proper here, crawls along at an impressive sludgey pace, as does much of the first third of the album, the band sounding like Pantera’s heaviest moments taken down to a crawl—this is good—then filtered through cold production with a drum machine—this is not good. “God Bless The Whores” takes an impressive 7:27 to sludge-meander over to nowhere, a cool middle finger to basically anyone trying to get through this difficult album. “Plunged In Blood” picks up the bpms briefly to a Morticiany pace and place, but then, unfortunately, dives into the sports-bar groove metal. “Satanic Lust” checks all the right boxes, and “The Necrophiliac” is also heavy enough, in a sludgey manner again, but the drum machine and the general impossibility to warm up to this album get in the way of what would otherwise be decent songs. Closer “Purification Process” has the spirit, but the sonics just prevent anyone from really getting close to it in any way. An interesting part of extreme metal history, but not one worthy of spending a ton of time with.