I have no clue how much did it take to write these 4-5 tracks, but that mustn’t have been a difficult task. 6 scarce minutes of absolutely useless music. How could one sign a band like this is beyond me.
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.
Once more we have a split recording between two Australian bands. The first one, Maximum Perversion sound new to me, but I cannot swear I never heard them before, my memory is losing track lately. Might be, because I haven’t found anything particularly memorable on their side. This stuff is quite Ok I guess, I mean, neato Death Metal with double vocals a la Exhumed/Macabre and some grinding/crust vibe, but they never blast out to frightening levels, and this mid tempo groovy chords are definitely not bad, but far from raising wet headbanging desires either. The Aussies have good taste with riffs for sure, that must be genetic somehow, yet sometimes thing don’t click even when every thing’s in the right place.
The recording is of my personal taste, chaotic but balanced well enough to distinguish every single move. There is one really good song in the end, called “Wizardgrind” go for it if you need some recommendations.
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!
On the music side, Afgrund hasn’t changed much since the split with Relevant Few that I reviewed not long ago. I might say something like “that’s how Rotten Sound might sound if they were Swedish”, but the truth is that there is something slightly different going on here. We can take a band like Gadget for prototype, but the sound here is only moderately dissonant, slightly darker, and with some extra range in vocal style. These guys are young but pummel hard at their tools, in particular the drummer has some stamina to display. I am appreciating the production of this work too, but when one talks about Swedes on this field of music you can generally count on quality. The sound is balanced, and thick even when blurring in faster riffing. The songwriting is solid too, actually there is really little one can complain about on this album, except maybe those few annoying mid slow tempos in songs like “Afgrundssjal” (che palle…). My personal opinion? Well, this stuff is fast and powerful, with just a few distant hints at trendy “dissonant” melodies that plague the genre (as in the song “Katarsis”). I believe this is one of the best bands in their biz, some riffs sound even like they were taken from old Extreme Noise Terror. That’s a plus. Honestly speaking however I prefer a slightly rawer and more unrefined kind of grind, as the one advocated by bands like Skitsystem or Retaliation, or even better some of the oldest straight in your face kind of English proto-grind or noise core bands… this is really a bit far from my field, even though i am able to appreciate it.
One neg thing: I had the chance to see the band live a few weeks ago and I have to say it was quite a boring and unpleasant experience. Nothing really memorable, there just was no real punch and things just seemed to slip out of the stage without much mark left behind. This is a way better band to hear on Cd than to see live.
