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VV.AA. (n/a): “6 Way Split” compilation Cd 2007 Show Me Your Tits

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6 way splitThis “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!

AFGRUND (Swe): “Svarta Dagar” Cd 2007 Life Stage

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Afgrund - Svarta DagarThe first thing that ‘s hitting my eye right now is that this French guy at Head Split Design is without question quite good. His design works tend to look a bit similar but the job he’s done on this release is really worthy of note – flawless design, excellent artwork, choice of colors, placement of text etc. Real nice from every angle. Uh, Swedish only lyrics, nice.

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

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Necros ChristosWhen I hear albums like this one, I really find it arduos to connnect. I have difficulties choosing where to start, coordinating my fiongers, trying to come up with the right words, becouse 99% of my brain just wants to sit back and listen, being dragged within the wounds of christ to drink and bathe of his pain. The room where I am typing was cold, but even colder – unnaturally so – is the miasma of Death that now fills it. Absence of life. Decomposing life. Pure necromantic spells that drain warmth and happiness.

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

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DiorrheaMuch better we go with Diorrhea, even if i wouldn’t have dared to say so judging by the pictures alone, ahah, what a lame ass I am sometimes. Actually Diorrhea deliver a powerful grind attack with the occasional idiot speech inside but not as pervasive as in Fetus Eaters (I don’t know hos is it in other countries, but in Italy if you play grindcore you have to make funny faces and speak about idiot stuff between the songs, that’s routine). Diorrhea is actually quite a bastard beast and play straight to the face old school grind with whacked ultra fast chords and shit, I definitely like it. The vocals are not very powerful, but the shrill sound isn’t bad either. You got some extra growls but they’re just a marginal thing. The riffs are basic, there are a good share of blasts as in the old school tradition yet we’re quite far from the Swedish mates. Fast, cutthroat grind with double vocals and no super-polished bollocks. Get this stuff if you’re into grind, it’s quite good.

FETUS EATERS (USA-Ca): “Da Vinci Core” split Cd with DIORRHEA (Ita) 2007 Grindmind

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Fetus EatersCool, a band from Brubank (California), home of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Fetus Eaters. It seems some demented humour has spilled out the Disney Studios down into Fetus Eater‘s rehearsal room somewhen in the past… their blend of crackbrained free grind is actually funny, but not annoying. some of the spirit of Schnauzer, Minch and Pissed Off Orgasm definitely has migrated here, although the music seems a bit more controlled than in the early days of noisecore cassettes. Fetus Eaters have broiled a solid bunch of crazy songs all about free screaming, nasty cartoon-like shrills and a bunch of grunts mixed with Green Beret-like grind and some Metal as well. While I like the spontaneity, I admit I have grown a bit bored of this kind of approach to grind, might it be that I hate Mr Bungle and similar “weird but with intelligence – hey man, I study philosphy in Bologna, please give food to my dog while I fix my dreadlocks” projects. Who knows. The good thing is that while savage and schizoid, the band doesn’t seem to lose ground in regards of brutality. Some tracks have actually really cool bridges, yet the continuous yells tend to a be a bit unnerving on the long run. I have some complaints on the packaging too – first off I generally don0t like greyscale booklets, they just look cheap – I think you could do a much better job with simple black and white and with the same money – but that’s fuss, ignore this comment. Second, reading the booklet was an agony. Not cryptic with style as in Demilich… more like let’s grab a cheap front from a random website, scatter the text around and let’s write nonsense shit like “some people actually like Manowar”… oh come on, I found that kind of humour cheesy even in 2nd grade school. While the dorection is good, I was expecting something more. But that might just be me… I am not much into experimenting lately.

PSYCHONEUROSIS (Pol):”Dead But Not Forgotten” compilation Cd 2007 Red Devil/Grindfest

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PsychoneurosisAh!! It took me some minutes to actually realize this Psychoneurosis is the same band that released a 7″ with Brutal Insanity back in ’00 (I figured the logo was familiar, though!). This Cd is a complete discography of this “cult” grindcore band from Poland, not an extremely old one (their earliest stuff is just from ’92 even though the band was formed in 1991) but it seems it was quite prolific and respected during its lifespan. Musically, we’re talking about grindcore in its very broad sense. The music is not as noisy and disharmonic as early Napalm Death or Heresy – the first tracks sound very, very Thrash Metal oriented to me, gently sloping to a contaminated brand of grind that gets blended with punk and some average quality metal. As the discography goes on, you get all kind of recordings taken from splits, tapes and live shows – including some recording of trmolous quality – but that’s quite normal, I believe. The vocals of this band are generally a sort of muffled grunt, a bit in the vein of Nausea, Extreme Noise Terror, Violent Headache etc, even though the Donald Duck “high” screams that burst in at times are really fucking horrendous and terribly stupid, you could as well get a good song without those retarded “laa laa laa”. Fucking unbearable. As the singer changes and the Cd progresses, we have even vocals that remind me of Celtic Frost (?), go figure – but the drum blasts become even more chaotic and tight.

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

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Splatter WhoreHere 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.

Jefferson Memorial

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????