Eyetofuk is a cyber grind duo hailing from Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. Their music is mostly Ministry-like sampled metal guitar riffs with heavy use of samples. Personally I think there are good ideas on this side even though the sound is a little bit thin and dispersed. I believe this kind of music gives its best when immersed in some extra chaos. Actually the vocals are quite deranged and constantly changing, shifting from toilet flush to shrieks and moans of pleasure from some random porn movie, but the underlaying instrumentation is very far from “crushing”. Even if I like bands like SMES or Womb Goo Gai Pan, this is some sort of hybrid ground between total rave/scat party foolishness and true goregrind which I difficultly like in its entirety. Nice to hear once, but with all this huge offer of sick goregrind we have todat, I’ll move to something way more intense and sicker.
Category Archives: Goregrind
EBOLIE (aus): “Fuck Ya Ears and Drink Ya Beers” split Cd with MAXIMUM PERVERSION (aus) 2008 Grindhead
Ok, Ebolie’s at the same time better and worse than Maximum Perversion for my ears. That happens when a band is so varied. I have appreciated the goreripping bursts of energy and these guys definitely know how to maintain the same level of quality all through the record, but sometimes the funky bass slapping and small in-song talk get a bit annoying. But I guess you cannot do anything for that, when one artist feels like inserting this shit in a song to create variety you have to give up ah ah!
Honestly speaking Ebolie has gotten better and better with time, with some arrangements and ideas that are nicely unpredictable. Lots of different stuff going on, but with some serious chemistry. Influences from drone to math-grind just stain the whole songwriting all across the tracks. I am not one to appreciate innovation but these guys know how to do that in a very un-trendy way. Their former lack of punch finally solidified in something more than concrete – tenacity finally rewarded Ebolie. Pretty much interesting stuff.
VV.AA. (n/a): “6 Way Split” compilation Cd 2007 Show Me Your Tits
This “6 Way Split” (don’t ask me why they didn’t give a proper title to this Cd) includes tracks from a couple of grind-noise bands named Epileptic Fist Fuck, Grumo, Phlegm Thrower, Satsugai, Malignant Germ Infestation and Bukkake Violence Kommando. Roughly linked by the theme of porn (which seems to be a way too recurrent topic on the more recent shit-grind) musically these bands differ more than sligthly on their approach.
Epileptic Fist Fuck cannot definitely be described as a goregrind band at all: their complex guitar work, triggered double bass and double vocal style that comprises a more froggy, controlled approach sets them on a ledge closer to strictly “brutal death” bands in my opinion. Not properly Devourment nor Lividity, we’re talking about something a bit more modern. I guess this could easily be a Lacerated Enemy release if you know what I mean. The lyrics are not present but the song titles are a bit in the vein of Incestuous, Retch or Waco Jesus, just to name one of the more acclaimed bands of the moment. I am not particluarily enthusiastic about bands where the drums sound like morse code, but it would be unfair to say they also blatantly suck. They play a decent brand of Brutal Death with multiple vocal layers, a clicking drum sound wchich is defintely not the best, and some miscellaneous ideas thrown in. I hate the funny bridges like “never had a blowjob”, this thing is getting quite boring don’t u think?
I already knew these Grumo songs, this band keeps playing their simplicistic, bare, punkish high-school semi-goregrind with some signs of improvement in the field of song writing, but it seems the ideas a re a bit stale. The recording is still quite bad, the sound way too thin for a sludgy goregrind band, but in the end I appreciate the noise bursts of rage a la Anal Cunt. I would personally hack away 80% of the riffs and crappy shouts and change the recording to something way more massive, and we could get something fun to hear. I still cannot bear Italian lyrics but I am slashing at an open wound ehe.
Phlegm Thrower is so far my favorite in the bunch. Totally crazied, sick goregrind with machinery like vocals and a sound so sick and dirty it makes the headphones fizzle. Not ad bulldozing as Carnival of Carnage, but definitely a good shot of insane noise-gore-grind with super intestinal vocals. It always seems as if this guy is about to puke big chunks of vomit. I heard this sound on a japanese movie I saw once, when this girl was filling a vat with retch and drank it all back. This band is damn sick, I will make an exception to the rule of being sick of drum-machine bands, as this is actually fun. Everything here is casual, but in a deranged way, not for amateurish efforts. Cool.
Satsugai are not doing anything very special. They sound a bit like a cheap version of Gonkulator with extra high-school grind thrown in. There are hints at the Meat Shits, but mostly it’s a bunch of riffs roughly sewn together. They squeal, they shriek, they croak, but when things get interesting a new French intro gets between the balls, and well, that’s not what I personally expect. The recording gome and goes, and it really sounds little more than a rehearsal. Not rough and not sick enough. And those Sikfuk like vocals are not very fitting the songs either. I step further, thanks.
Malignant Germ Infestation is nice.They remind me a bit of Anal Probe Android. Very artificial sounding, even close to rave music, but with bullfrog-like vocals. The drum machine is definitely cold, but this time it fits the scheme quite well. Here we have curious hybrid of heavy disco electronics and sludgly goregrind which I somehwat liked. This is probably not something I will hear often, but the whole thing has a sick reason to exist. I don’t even know how to explain. This is however much better than stuff like the latest Gut or Space Shiters – by a fucking score. Very weird, and possibly the strangest of the 6 bands contained herein. I still prefere Phlegm Thrower, but this comes definitely second.
Bukkake Violence Kommando is also a known name here at the Nuclear Abominations headquarters. With their Meat Shits-esque 1 second songs, frequent porn samples and furious roaring noise they make up for one of the most interesting bands in Italian ground. They could probably put even less silence between the songs, as there are a lot, but I won’t complain. They have a good, nasty, sick, sound and personality and get my full support. This is noise-shit with an eye towards the past when noisecore was retransmitted through hand made tapes. Good shit.
The layout is, as usual, routine 3 minute Photoshop work, with stretched band pics and unreadable data. But what the fuck, one day we might as well miss these days of genuine artistic incompetence ah ah!
SPLATTER WHORE (USA-Mo): “Kaviar Die-Hards” Cd 2007 Rotten Roll
Here we got Splatter Whore hailing from Saint Louis, Missouri Edwardsville, Illinois just like old crusties bogging my dirties memories like Anacrusis and Psycopath (besides, what the fuck happened to those bands?). To be told in advance, the tracks recorded on this album are well over one year old now, precisely recorded last summer. In any case the band has not been idle all this time, they seem to have an upcoming 7″ out soon on Rotter Roll records.
Basically we’re talking about porn grind here. You got the chick with dirty panties on the cover and all the lyrics about gang bangs and caviar and all the package. But to call Splatter Whore a canonical Porno-gore band would be honestly unfair. Punk and Stoner Rock seems to have filtered quite prominently in the new goregrind scenario, who knows, maybe it was Dead or some othe German band that had roots in the eighties – but surely punk is here, evident in Splatter Whore‘s cantankerous strink cuddling. All this just to forewarn you that the guitarwork on this album is far from routine sloppy power chugging – you got a real metal/rock twist on the album with vague influences like Bolt Thrower, Kyuss or Slayer. All aptly served with a generous dose of grunts, screams and heavily pitch-shifted gargles, that is. I admit I have come to like the band tiepidly, but I am pretty sure German and upper European listeners would go nuts for this stuff. It has that ironic twist which honestly I have come to find a bit boring on the long run (gimme serious faced Mexican splatter-goregrind anytime) but more than all, that light-hearted punkish sound which fits drinking fun parties like a glove There a re a few brief incursion into fast blasting but mostly this album is about stoner-like drones with wicked gurgles and some completely useless shouts in the background.
Once exhausted my rants on things I don’t like on this album I must also say that the songs are structured quite well, with some sort of coherence, and not just a concatenation of riffs – you know what I mean. The sound is solid, and the packaging well above average. The cover art and layout are nice, even though I need to point out that I had to draw the band’s origin from their MYSPACE fucking page because the booklet just gave information on fucking websites and email bollocks. Man, I find it annoying when a band does not print lyrics, but to even avoid to print a snal mail address – that really disappoints me.
Conclusion: decent stuff. Definitely not routine, nor a bedroom project. Not my kind of goregrind, but nice for background when drinking and fucking.
Edit: Just got a message from the label. Just to make me even happier, the band is not from St. Louis but from Edwardsville, IL (28 miles away). Cool. Now can you fucking put the band’s address on the fucking boooooklet????
SEMEN (mex): “Deposito de Semen” Cd 2005 Half Life
This new Semen Cd I got from Half Life stuck me real hard. It’s a fantastic example of real goregrind the kind that seem to have disappeared in the last few years, with all that huge hedgepodge of mid paced cyber-bedroom projects. It’s really relieving to hear once more real grind shit, without super productions a la Nasum and shit like that Semen plays down to earth goregrind, and plays it with real fucking instruments and no fucking harmonizers or other shit – just plain gore porn hysteria. The riffs are not really bone crushing but the general sound is so sick and putrid that you can really go over it. The vocals are deep and gurgling, and the whole recording so dirty you can hear crackling all the time due to the poor sewage bintage recording that however manage to keep the sound full and powerful. Just like goregrind used to be you know, very early Malignant Tumour and stuff. The layout of this album doesn’t really shine, but stays in tune with the general goregrind attitude, a bunch of lesbians and cum filled cunts, and a scattering of terrible fonts butchered with tons of cheap filters. Disgusting and sincere, I really like this stuff.
VV.AA.: “3-Way Penetration” compilation Cd 2007 Rotten Roll
Germany’s Cunt Grinder surely give a lesson in perseverance to all those bands impatient of getting a contract on some random label (not that today it’s such a difficult thing). They have self produced 5 (or 4, depending on the source) full length albums so far (!!!) before hitting this 3 way split on Rotten Roll (I am 100% sure this is the second label that I know with this name, the old one was from South America or something – I need to check my archives). Apart from a funny G. G. Allin cover “Kill the Police”, their 8 song share consists in solid, phlegmy Death/Grind with a lot of cool vocal overlapping. I was not able to understand all these fucking German intros but I guess they have to do with some misogynist talk which I always share (ehe). Bitching apart, here is a good dose of classic porno-gore-grind mid tempo chug, the cool thing is that instead of using the standard Dead/Gut sick grunt formula, here we have several sick vocals that overlap and give an overall feeling of bestial orgy. There are actually some faster beats but I won’t define them as blasting. All these tracks are quite cool actually, sludgy without sounding a CBT clone, and enough Death Metal to have a concrete structure. I’d give them a 7.
Satan’s Revenge of Mankind (always from Germany) instead didn’t impress me much with their previous full-length album, so dangerously close to the plainness of the routine goregrind of Space Shiters. These tracks, however are somewhat cooler. The snare drum has now a sound so damn clanky that it makes Pungent Stench sound like Sepultura, but I still like it. The sludgy, slow parts are deliciously German in style (CBT, Bitch Infection etc.), and actually there are real fast blasts ripping the songs away from a perennial mid tempo. The vocals are grace and damnation of ths side however, sometimes decently frog-like, but at times they really sound a bit struggling -gone are however, the real terrible barks a la Bestial Devastation – thanks Satan! There may be no really memorable moments in this SROM side, but these tracks are nonetheless cool German mid paced fun – optimal for slamming rhytmically the arms in the air like an idiot at a beer fest. Good shit to hear when drunk, even if even I have to admit this stuff is a bit inflated these days. 6.50 in my book.
In my opinion Hymen Holocaust (Holland) hits the right spot a bit harder than the two disc mates. Their sound is so sick and sewage, the distortion fermenting with rot and grime, I cannot but feel some sympathy for this son of a bitch. The riffs are actually a bit boring taken singularly, but the song flow is reinforced by the messy sound and a super sick array of gargling vocals. This is a band that plays Goregrind the way I see it, with a disgusting vocal style that really sounds as if the singer is about to puke anytime. I have no idea how artificial they are, but the final effect is quite good. To tell the truth, I am not a huge fan of Cliteater, and to me this Hymen Holocaust project sounds a bit better than the main band. Contrarily to the previous bands also, there is no sign of bulldozing German chugs, but have instead a more omogeneous Brutal Death/Grind sound with some slow chunks of slam galore scattered in. Seven fifty, sir.
The layout of this Cd is cheap beyond belief, main weak point of this release. As normal for recent goregrind releases, it just looks cheap. The choice of colors is appalling, and even if for once all the images seem to be the right resolution, the way the elements are placed are almost as bad as old Necroharmonic Cds. I guess it’s time for goregrind to start curing a bit more its looks.
DOWN THE LINE (Ita): “Apotheosis is Decline… Decline is Apotheosis” Cd Ep 2004 DTL-Ickno-Grind-Corporation
It is fun to read how prolific and compact the scene from Sardinia is. I was first introduced to Sardinian grind with my long time friend Wally ‘s band Ass Ache still in the 80’s (!!) and then with a bunch of other bands which appeared in the “Ugo Story” compilation tapes. Let’s tell it straight: this Cd is just made up of 5 minutes of real music plus a bulk of intros and a very long (and a bit sleepy) concatenation of electronic loops. But those 5 minutes of real shit are intense enough to raise a brow. Very few, extremely basic crusty riffs with a bit of Agathocles feeling, coupled with unintelligible liquid vocals in pure gore-grind style. I especially like the metallic sound of the bass distortion. In short this is genuine dirty to the point goregrind with some courageous experimentations in the electronic field. I just wonder why they’re still promoting 5 scarce minutes of material which were recorded 5 years ago (!!) and released only 2 years later. Songs like these are generally mass produced by the dozens – one riff, one song. The cover art is okay too, even if it spots a photo which was already used on Meat Shits‘ “Sniper at the Fag Parade”. Not a mandatory “demo” but fun.