Umbilicus

Umbilicus are a Florida quartet playing straight 1970s hard rock, assembled almost entirely out of extreme metal musicians. Paul Mazurkiewicz has been the drummer in Cannibal Corpse since 1988. Taylor Nordberg plays guitar in Deicide, Inhuman Condition and The Absence, and records the band himself at Smoke and Mirrors Productions in Spring Hill, Florida. Vernon Blake, a long time friend of Mazurkiewicz, plays bass and once filled in for Shane Embury on a Napalm Death run in the States. The Canadian singer Brian Stephenson completes the line up. The project is much older than its discography suggests. Mazurkiewicz and Blake started it around 2000 with then Cannibal Corpse guitarist Jack Owen, wrote roughly fifteen songs, cut a couple of demo tapes, played two shows in a small Tampa bar and then let it die for lack of a singer. It stayed dead for two decades. When touring stopped after Cannibal Corpse finished Violence Unimagined, Mazurkiewicz called Blake, Owen declined to return, Nordberg came in and the old material was scrapped in favour of new writing. The debut album Path Of 1000 Suns followed in September 2022 on Listenable Insanity Records, its reference points closer to Grand Funk Railroad, Lucifer's Friend and Led Zeppelin than to anything on the members' day job records. The five track EP Ambiguous, their second release, arrives on 20 November 2026 on 12 inch vinyl and digital, led by the single Take Off.