Japan’s Amputated Vein records has planned two new releases out today! Malodorous‘ “Amarathine Redolence” and Vulvectomy‘s “Putrescent Clitoral Fermentation”. Get this stuff straight from the label.- Earache has just released a deluxe version of Napalm Death’s classic “Utopia Banished”. Don’t ask me, I prefer the first two (as usual) but that was a great album nonetheless. Comes with an extra DVD!
- Brutal truth is recording a new 7″ for bones brigade. A limited amount will be printed on white vinyl (300 copies). The title is “Machine Part +4”
AFGRUND (Swe): “Svarta Dagar” Cd 2007 Life Stage
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.
NECROS CHRISTOS (Ger): “Triune Impurity Rites” Cd 2006 Sepulchral Voice
Well first off I’d like to say that “Sepulchral Voice” is my favorite Sodom song ever – the choice of using it as a label name is brilliant (well, we’re on the lines of Deathlike Silence but when we talk about songs like those, we cannot criticize) – not much but that’s the most clever thing I can think of as of now. Do you have the idea of how fucking good this is? Seriously speaking, this music is Evil with capital “E”. I’d like to hear what politicians and religious people that found the Devil’s speech in albums by the doors or led zeppelin albums would think of something as dark as this. There is surely a lot of Celtic Frost hovering among the tracks, and a tidbit of earliest Mortuary Drape‘s theatrical evocativeness – but most of all, there is class, the class of a deranged painter covered in sperm, dried blood and drool drawing the lines of his own insanity with the colors of fucking hell. In every field real artists know how to weave a masterpiece with just a few strokes, and this album reflects this concept on music. You don’t have overly complicated guitar riffs. Actually most of them are quite simple yet arranged with such a taste and elegance that everything flows like black blood running smoothly from an altar of sacrifice* – simple fragments of dedication to the cult of evil arranged with meticolous taste. I love the vocals – the last time I heard ones so malignant was in Immolation‘s “Dawn of Possession”, but they’re just the right complement to a balanced macabre ballet of death and putrefaction. Ave to the lord of Flies, Asmodeus rex.
*Curse of the damned / Confronting the evil you dread / Coalesce into one your shadow and soul / Soon you will meet the undead
DIORRHEA (Ita): “I Give You My Heart” split Cd with FETUS EATERS (USA-Ca) 2007 Grindmind
FETUS EATERS (USA-Ca): “Da Vinci Core” split Cd with DIORRHEA (Ita) 2007 Grindmind
PSYCHONEUROSIS (Pol):”Dead But Not Forgotten” compilation Cd 2007 Red Devil/Grindfest
In general I like the freshness and spontaneous simplicity of this primitive brand of grind, with its basic riffs and occasional bursts, but I admit it honsetly lacks some energy when compared to Swedish and Finnish bands from the same period – not to mention the pure filth of South America. I have enjoyed going through the whole Cd for historical reasons, but I admit I’d probably put the new Bombstrike Cd from Power it Up instead next time I need some “grind”. Straight 7 for honesty and the nice packaging that includes cover artworks, discography, bio, and a nice big collage.
SPLATTER WHORE (USA-Mo): “Kaviar Die-Hards” Cd 2007 Rotten Roll
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????