Category Archives: G

GULGUTA (Fra): “XV” full-length Cd 2013 Rock Cd

Foto 09-04-14 16 53 40I got this promo Cd a couple of months ago with a letter that stated “we play goregrind”. Actually I think the band is certainly brutal but I won’t rate this music as pure goregrind, despite the hyperblasts and the super-guttural vocals, as the metal inlfuence here is definitely too big. Would you rate bands like Enmity as “goregrind”?

In any case let’s start with the packaging: I really dig the twisted cover art that looks like some deranged mix of Miguel Ángel Martín and Turkka G. Rantanen, it certainly sets the stage for something sick. The booklet is non-existant as it’s just 2 pages and the inner fold contains just the logo, but I think overally this minimalistic style is OK. What’s interesting is that there is no tracklist whatsoever, just like our old beloved Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition.

Like I stated before, here we are in front of some experimental kind of extreme, chaotic grinding Brutal Death  in the vein of Enmity or Intense Hammer Rage. While the meaning of the term grindcore certainly shifted during the last 20 years, I still figure of it as a genre that should have a combination of very raw and dark sound, and borderline dissonant riffs, and most of all, being totally unaware of what’s going on. Despite the speed and multiple layers of sound the musicians here seem to always be in control of what is happening. I like the whirlwind guitarwork as well as the furious blasting however, as these guys really know how to fill all the corners of sound. Mix in some heavily distorted vocals and you get a bleeding carcass mutilated by a million razords for the lovers of the genre.  All of the songs are very short, between 1 and 2 minutes in length, but they still manage to throw in some interesting variations.

G.O.R.E. (Cze): “Stand up sexy ladies, the Boogie Band is here!” full-length Cd 2013 Khaaranus

gore-standup

Among the various albums I got for review lately this must certainly be the absolute worse. Basically everything in this album is wrong in my agenda, everything. Once I recovered from the shock of seeing this is not the Brazilian Gore (as I expected, my hopes were crushed by the cover art the very second I picked the Cd out of the envelope) it took me just a few seconds to stare at the Cd, a digipack so glossy it looks oily. You got a scattering of pictures about sexual perversion scattered on the layout going from dildos, latex-wrapped whores, blasphemous images of Jesus, streaks of blood and so on. Not only however the Cd doesn’t come with lyrics but the very titles of the songs are in broken English.

While the overall layout is harmonic and certainly a result of some professional designer  it is the music that is just tragically bad. G.O.R.E. plays a disastrous patchwork of death/grind with among the worse vocals I have ever heard since Caninus or Anael (eheh). The growls are little more than dog barks, and in a pitiful attempt to quote Macabre they even manage to make it worse with Mickey Mouse choruses. The songs themselves have some decent groove in them sometimes (remind me a bit of late Neuropathia) but just as some good massive riff comes in another sloppy one intrudes and then those terrible, terrible vocals just spoil everything. I will not mention the last track, some sort of disco-remix that probably will make someone laugh. But – me – I personally think I just lost some minutes of my life.

How could a band like this get signed is really beyond me. If they ever managed to somehow kick out the vocalist(s?) and truncate all these shitty moshpit chugs in between, something good could be harvested from this shit, but I have little hope in that. Sorry, it was a pity since the label has been producing good stuff in the past, and this is probably the only updated review you are seeing in a long time. But stay away from this stuff, very FAR.

GRAVEYARD (Spa): “Into the Mausoleum” demo Cd-r 2008 s/p

GraveyardNow we’re talking, baby. While it’s true nobody can clearly state when the Death Metal phenomenon came out, I guess everybody would agree the peak of it was just cross 1990 (year more, year less). That’s the time when it attained its clear identity, still freshly rooted in the carcasses of other musical genres soon to be dead like punk and thrash metal. It is in that rotting, dark, gloomy and worm infested environment that we first perceived Death Metal was getting a status as a genre on his own, instead of being just an adjective for other forms of metal. I gave up long time ago any hopes that the spirit would come back again, but at least I hoped that people could understand a glimpse of how magic that period of my youth was. Even if there are several things I don’t like in reunions of legendary bands and teenager revivals, I admit the Death Metal scene has never been so healthy in over 15 years.

All this bullshit to introduce one of the best results of post-2000 retro-Death Metal phenomenon. Graveyard from Spain are just playing with the same convincing spirit of the real founders of the genre. I have dug deep in my lexicon to find words to describe this music, but I realized there was no need to describe it, it is just Death Metal with capital “D”. Obscure, murky and grotesque as early Finnish demo bands like Depravity, Abhorrence or Funebre, yet with a few bursts of the galloping ride frenzy of early Unleashed (curiously this is limited to a few riffs, you just can’t hear that kind of songwriting all through the songs).Even if I adore this shit, I have to admit other bands like Dead Congregation or Crucifire are preparing the same dish but with a much improved recipe. In other words, you probably have to do something more to stand out of this new wave of old school bands flooding the underground. Much appreciated by me however, since the sound is flawless. Great roaring, slightly echoing vocals, crunchy super distorted guitar sound, and an eerie, disturbing melody all over make this band a must have for a good collection, I hope someone does it on vinyl one day. I can live without the melodies however, if you know what I mean.

No comments on the packaging today, since it’s just a home made Cd-r with xeroxed cover. I find the cover art a bit too ironic too.

GOSPEL OF THE HORNS (Aus): “Realm of the Damned” Lp Cd 2007 Invictus

Gospel of the HornsI am not sure why sometimes my tastes just change from one year to the other. I used to consider Gospel of the Horns a good band, with a retro thrash touch which was simple but honest. The songs on this album however have managed to bore me heavily even before reaching the 20th minute. The sound is deliciously “Celtic Frosted” and just none of the guitar riffs here is a let downer. Yet something is definitely missing, and that’s the total lack of bursting rage… it’s like a perennial intro that never ends, a kind of constant mid tempo that erode me. Surely you can headbang at this stuff, thanks to choruses and epic riffing and all the classic Asutralian stuff. Yet the total lack of bestiality is heavy here.

Once upon a time I used to pass through the whole discography of a band before hearing a new album, and I admit I didn’t do it this time, but I have the strong impression that the previous releases were a bit rawer and heavier than this one. Sometimes this “Realm..” just sounds like plain Metal without the heaviness, and that’s not something I dig much in a band. Thrashing riffs abound, but none of these have the same intensity of the real ones from the good old eighties. If you want good Thrash Metal get “Power and Pain” by Whiplash, not a band from 2008. And too bad the vocals are just plain bad. Raspy but quite weak.
Best thing on the whole release must be the booklet: the cover art is inspiring and the lyrics are just as powerful. Excellent work has been made by the studio who worked on the layout. This looks damn professional. Not my kind of Metal, even if not disastrous. Sufficient to stir some attention here and there if you ask me. Definitely didn’t deserve an Lp version, or such popularity – though.

GONKULATOR (us-ma): “Second War in Heaven” Cd 2000 Fudgeworthy

GONKULATOR Second War in HeavenWhoa! Gonkulator is a band that makes Revenge sound as polished as Oasis. No kidding, I seriously doubt you can find something as filthy and unrefined as this band – it should not surprise Charlie also plays in a band generally associated to punk/grind sonorities. For unrefined I do not mean just badly recorded as in early Burzum or Striborg – as if someone poured water on the speakers – nay, that’s filthy but also weak. Gonkulator is filthy to the core, as if GG Allin tried to play Black Metal with a cheese grater. With all this shit going on, how could one not like them? You must be open to really bad production and extremely basic music writing, but I personally found this Ep entertaining. Drumming is just little more than violent beating, and the riffs just a noisy scattering of chords, but hey man, the spirit is alive here. The vocals are a bit too filtered maybe, but they just blend to perfection in the chaos vortex that crackle and fizzles all beneath. I really don’t know how much tongue-in-cheek humor there is in Gonkulator, but they’re among the coolest Black Metal bands around these days, just crazy and chaotic, and uncontrolled like the art of the Devil should be. Too bad it’s several years I don’t hear of them. The packaging is decent to my appeal, and includes a good fold out artwork by Scott Lewis. All in all super cool shit. Respect!

GAURITHOTH (Fin): “Huoravasara” 7″ Ep 2004 Fudgeworthy

Gaurithoth - HuoravasaraFudgeworthy records from Massachusetts (label of Charlie Infection of Psycho and Gonkulator fame) released a couple black metal Eps in the past one of which being this grey marble colored 4 track by Finish band Gaurithoth. Considering the proclaims of playing extreme Satanic Latex Perverse Metal, I was expecting some fucking bomb lacerating the whole fucking house I live in. As already happened with its previous release Pest however, I admit this is really not up to my expectations. I haven’t heard the recent full length, but this demo material has two big flaws: too much melody and strident witchlike vocals. Personally I don’t even Like Grand Belial’s Key for their over excess of heavy metal harmonies, and this time the problem is similar. Mid tempo ballad-like riffs with a couple harmonic “cold” tremolo chords are not really my cup of tea when we talk about Black Metal. Some riffs are outright happy hunting choirs – brr, no thank you. The vocals are randomly scattered on the recording, with little or no punch at all, and well, they don’t even sound evil to me. The only thing I appreciate is that the recording is excellent (rough but not thin), ad the drums filthy and crude as they must be in this genre. Huoravasara contains the same tracks of their 2002 demo, plus one unreleased song cut just for the vinyl version. This stuff might appeal fans of all things called Black Metal from Finland. Since a few years however, I decided to be a little bit more selective.

GRUMO (Ita): “Karne” Cd-r 2007 s/p [demo]

Grumo - KarneReviewing this demo has been a difficult task I had it spinning several times before formulating a truthful analysis. First off, the positive aspects are several: I sort of liked the cut and paste cover and aesthetics, and honestly speaking – compared to the home dubbed tape I got 3 years ago, a HUGE step forward has been made. Now all the songs are clearly discernible, a definite personality has been reached and the vocals have a nice raucous range that go from spittle to roar.

That said, the bad things are hopelessly outnumbering the good ones. I couldn’t stand Italian lyrics at the time of Resurrecturis (and we’re talking 15 and more years ago) – go figure what I think of track names like “Abbadalucco”. This is just too far from my personal interpretation of grind. It’s a terrible mix of teenage slang and typical pizza-house dementia. There is this scum punk cheaply hilarious feel in the tracks which I just cannot swallow – slow happy mary-go-round tarantellas and aimless chugs do not make a band goregrind even today that cheap humour has permeated the scene. The sound too, is that of a walkman dubbed live school concert devoid of sickness and even noisecore hypersaturation. For some reason, Grumo seems to lack the tiny spark that is innate in many sludgy German Goregrind bands. The thin line that separates standard punk teenage riffs from the real gross mid-tempo grotesque thing they are surely inspired by (namely Gut, Utopie, Mucupurulent, Plasma, CBT, Bitch Infection etc.). I can hear the passion but there is a lot of crap that has to be taken away, just too much superfluous fuss. Go for the throat, don’t stop picking lilies on the road.