Corrupted is a Japanese sludge/doom metal band, formed in 1994. Their sound is characterized by incredibly downtuned guitars and bass playing slow, minimalist riffs under deep layers of feedback. The vocals are harsh guttural grunts, and the music alternates between long instrumental sections and sections with vocals which go for long periods of time without rest. They are considered by most familiar with the genre to be one of the heaviest and darkest doom metal bands of all. However, they sometimes have long acoustic sections, spoken-word interludes, and other breaks in the style, even other instruments, as on their album El Mundo Frio, a 71-minute song which contains long sections of harp. To this effect, they invite a keyboardist, and a harpist, on some recordings.
Corrupted has a few notable idiosyncrasies which seem to create an air of mystery around the band. Although they hail from Japan, and their members on most releases are all Japanese, they sing almost exclusively in Spanish, though some songs contain sections in Japanese or English. In addition, the band has never taken promotional pictures nor do any of the albums contain group photos. The only known existing photographs are taken by fans at concerts, and they refuse to give interviews.
Corrupteds albums typically contain extensive liner notes in the form of bleak black-and-white photographs, which add to the gloomy atmosphere of the music.
The band is known for its ability to produce songs of almost any length; their longest song El Mundo Frio is substantially longer than an seventy minutes, while their shortest song, an untitled track recorded for a homeless benefit compilation, lasts less than two minutes.
After their 2011 album 'Garten Der Unbewusstheit', singer Hevi and guitarist Talbot left the band. The loss of Hevis voice, a key of the bands sound, caused the band to struggle for years while trying to find a replacement. During these years Corrupted only rarely performed live. In spring 2015 it seemed for a moment as if the band overcame this trouble and they produced their first release in years with the 7" "Loss". The singer did not join, Corrupted stopped performing for a while and Chew concentrated for almost a year on his solo project begottened. Though in March 2016 Corrupted toured Japan alongside Noothgrush and the 2018 release of an album, a continuation of the band's work is not expected by most followers any longer.
Members
- Hevi
- Masato Yokota
- Talbot
- Jose
- Chu Hasegawa
- Sougyo
- Ippei Suda
- Monger
- Taiki
- Oda