|Oral Mutilation strikes back after a couple of months from their other demo, and this time things are getting slightly more in order, but not necessarily much better. The medium is still Cd-r and this time it has a somewhat horrible but otherwise colorful cover – honestly the other one in black and white was much better. This one looks like Macromedia Flash cartoon but I guess it’s ok for a cybergrind project.

Oral Mutilation strikes back after a couple of months from their other demo, and this time things are getting slightly more in order, but not necessarily much better. The medium is still Cd-r and this time it has a somewhat horrible but otherwise colorful cover – honestly the other one in black and white was much better. This one looks like Macromedia Flash cartoon but I guess it’s ok for a cybergrind project.

The vocals here are still very deep and gurgling, and the recording level is good enough , but the music itself is extremely unripe, and not just as far as composition goes. The sound is good enough to tell the riffs but it seems it’ only made of medium frequencies without any bass or treble vibes, and it sadly gives the whole work a “live” effect which spoils most of the moshing goregrind fun. Imagine Cock and Ball Torture or Plasma with a recording sound like this. It just doesn’t click. The problem is that recording quality is really mandatory in this genre and if you strip it away you get just a bunch of sloppy redundant riffs. This is not Death Metal, and it’s not even grindcore – it’s much closer to pure electronics if we have to make a comparison and I know you know what I mean when I say filth is Ok but the sound has to be FAT and not FLAT.

That said, training and practice have done their work, even if I still really cannot rate it anything more than a political average. Structures are taking form, and you even get a SOLO on song “Zombiegrinding Braineater”. But that said, this is really little more than frog croaks and repetitive chugs halfway from extremely barebone death metal and goregrind. Let’s see where this band is leading to…

|Power It Up has been a surprisingly active label of late, I have gotten ahold of several interesting releases by them, and this excellent singles collection by the band Haemorrhage is a real high quality thing. That’s what you manage to do with a collaborative band, a serious label and a honest artist to assemble the whole thing (curious thing is this collection cover features the original artwork that should have been used on their split with Christ Denied – am I only one who doesn’t like Luisma’s cartoonish drawing style?).

Power It Up has been a surprisingly active label of late, I have gotten ahold of several interesting releases by them, and this excellent singles collection by the band Haemorrhage is a real high quality thing. That’s what you manage to do with a collaborative band, a serious label and a honest artist to assemble the whole thing (curious thing is this collection cover features the original artwork that should have been used on their split with Christ Denied – am I only one who doesn’t like Luisma’s cartoonish drawing style?).

In biology haematology is the name of the branch that studies the behaviour, coagulation and flow of blood, but in this case it’ stands for the complete dissection and reconstruction of the Spanish band’s long list of excellent Eps. Apart from a couple of covers from Dead Infection, Carcass, General Surgery and a less famous Spanish punk/ska band called Kortatu (which I honestly didn’t know), all the rest are Haemorrhage songs taken from various album recording sessions. But even if one already has all the singles, you have some added vanilla: one bonus track, liner notes (hell yes, these are MANDATORY in every re-release) and a completely remastered sound. This is one of the nicest recollections I got so far. Even if vinyl is still the real shit, it’s good to have this on Cd for car stereo purposes. But don’t miss the Eps if you find some of them, they all look quite killer (IIRC the first one was on blood red vinyl, I always thing of the old Atrocity logo – the one with the eyes – every time I see that cover).

It’s also very interesting to hear how the sound becomes more and more claustrophobic and heavy with every release, and how the short haired singer gets more and more confident with the vocals, starting from basic harmonized roars but moving inclreasingly towards malignant phlegm filled ripping snarls.

There is no point in describing how Haemorrage sound like maybe, but for those who don’t know… they have started out as a Death Grind band highly influenced by the Carcass – Xysma – General Surgery movement (hear “Decom-posers” for a good sample) but then developed in something definitely more groovy and somewhat less purely grinding. Their latest works are full of crusty moshpit riffs and a more definite overall structure with more Death Metal but also more punkish reflections – but the blood obsession remained intact all the time, thanksfully, and so did the vomiting vocals and all the rest. You get a good spectrum of the band’s abilities by getting this Cd. Good shit.

|Wow, this Cd looks really nice, this is the best layout work I have ever seen on a Bizarre Leprous release. The layout has been built on the concept of atomic-robot monsters films of the 50-60’s such as tose of Plan 9 and it looks really spectacular. I guess that’s what many Razorback releases also want to look like. Actually the booklet is really bare (no lyric, no pics etc.) but it’s effective.

Wow, this Cd looks really nice, this is the best layout work I have ever seen on a Bizarre Leprous release. The layout has been built on the concept of atomic-robot monsters films of the 50-60’s such as tose of Plan 9 and it looks really spectacular. I guess that’s what many Razorback releases also want to look like. Actually the booklet is really bare (no lyric, no pics etc.) but it’s effective.

Roman doesn’t really deserve to get free publicity on my fanzine since he’s been promising to send a promo of this Cd for months and in the end I had to buy it on a distro stand – but this Cd is soooo good I am reviewing it anyway. But labels consider spending 2 euros for sending a promo for some exposure that maybe could result in selling some extra of your releases, damn. It’s the cheapest advertisement you could ever get. Sell one Cd from yor store thanks to a good review and you are getting back the shipping costs 3 times. Isn’t it simple?

Anyway back on Plasma. I have always been a big Plasma fan and seeing them live was a refreshing bath of bile. They’re among the purest, sludgier, dirtiest bulldozing grind gore you get in Germany today. The style is totally German (1-2 tempos and toilet flush vocals), but absolutely not boring. A solid recording and a lot of clearly distinguishable riffs make this album one of the best out this year. I couldn’t get how heavy it is on the car stereo, I had to put headphones on at home to really appreciate it’s slimy heaviness. Great watery vocals and mosh pit chugs makes the experience real neat. Not very original per se but at least we have some good replacement for Bitch Infection, Gut and CBT which lost some shine with time. And this time we got a real drummer as well, goddammit. Ground stomping vulgar shit of the best kind.

|It might sounds as if it doesn’t make sense to buy a record you already have on both vinyl and Cd. But this special edition Relapse re-release of “Onward to Golgotha” was really impossible to miss. Things have been done in great style as with all these recent incredible exhumations of jewels such as the Disembowelment box and the Repulsion double Cd. Something just clicked in my damaged brain when I saw this on Relapse’s store website and well, I had to have it. Except for the HUGE typo in the booklet (“Profination” in big silver fonts??), the release is extremely accurate: the booklet is similar to the original one except for some Pantone silver colors, with added hi-res pictures and the jewel case holds this additional DVD disc. But hey, everything is absorbed by the spectacular cover by Miran Kim, a real fucking masterpiece of art. This painting really drags you in a vortex of madness. As said this 15 year anniversary edition of “Onward to Golgotha” (holy shit, already 15 years!) comes with a bonus DVD picturing three great shows with the McEntee/Deo/Roe/Pillard line up.