Monthly Archives: February 2008

HACKSAW SURGERY (aus): “D-Composition” split Cd with EMBALMING THEATRE (che) 2008 Grindhead

Embalming TheatreThis is the first time I hear Hacksaw Surgery, and even though they are sharing ground with such a mild offering as Embalming Theatre, I still remain pretty much unfeeling all through the five tracks. The singer’s style has some light year distant resemblance to the Corpsegrinder, but the music bulk is just some disturbingly average drum machine thing with touches of grind and routine bedroom cybergrind. I am not sure how to describe this, but might be a collection of riffs discarded from Gigantic Brain minus all the speed and freakiness of that otherwise funny project.

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.

EMBALMING THEATRE (che): “D-Composition” split Cd with HACKSAW SURGERY (aus) 2008 Grindhead

Embalming TheatreI still believe the best thing coming out of Embalming Theatre is their vocals. deep, grotesque, powerful… real piece of cake. However I am not really into their hybrid form of grind/gore, as there is a touch of melody mellowing the whole receipt in a way I don’t really understand. It’s not about the mischievous harmonies of early Swedish Death Metal, but more about an effortless display of DeathMetal with no aim. Sometimes they are capable of putting together a bunch of powerful riffs, but then shortly afterwards they manage to ruin it all with some tremendously routine chugs and cheap happy guitar leaks (let’s not talk about the last track on their side… it’s fucking terrible). I don’t really want to put another nail in the rotting coffin of this review, but songs, too, are surprisingly alike… 60% of this album is decent death metal without special praise, the remaining 40% scores slightly below however…

EBOLIE (aus): “Fuck Ya Ears and Drink Ya Beers” split Cd with MAXIMUM PERVERSION (aus) 2008 Grindhead

ghr18.jpgOk, 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.

MAXIMUM PERVERSION (aus): “Fuck Ya Ears and Drink Ya Beers” split Cd with EBOLIE (aus) 2008 Grindhead

ghr18.jpgNew round from Australia’s premiere grindcore label Grindhead. Damn these guys are as prolific as rabbits.

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.

News

Actually I have made one further upgrade to WordPress 2.3.3 today, mainly for secuirty reasons. I have opened and configured neatly my Flickr account as well, you can have a look at some Stockholm Treblinka/Obscurity/Uncanny pics here. I am not into doing a review of the concert right now, I won’t be able to write anything interesting… it just was there, I was there… nothing much to add. I had a great time.

I have filmed all 3 bands, but I am still working on some software to shrink the videos for Youtube. I’ll surely post something here.


I am also tweaking the look of the blog into a version 2.1, and fixing some plugins that didn’t work anymore. Should be fine soon.
I had the courage to grab 15 Cds from the review queue and make a vow to review one each day for the next 2 weeks, the blog hasn’t been updated for too long. I have tons of cool shit like Anatomia, Noiscore Freak, Lincoln Love Log, Kiju, Profanatica, Seraphim Slaughter, Eyetofuk, Victimizer etc.