Archives: Reviews

1 - If These Walls Could Talk 2 - Amublance Chaser 3 - Fulguration 4 - Arterial Spray Obsession 5 - Necrodecontamination 6 - The League Of Extraordinary Grave Robbers 7 - The Admirable Teachings Of Burke & Hare 8 - Capricious Provisional Cadaver Grater 9 - Decomposer 10 - Viva! Blunt Force Trauma 11 - Cold Storage Fever 12 - Mucopurulent Mayhem 13 - Mortuary Wars 14 - Convivial Corpse Disposal Methodology

Okay, let’s start by taking a deep breath. An album like this is a monumental effort and it deserves strong reactions. First off, the idea for the cover artwork is cool: it is a drawing of a set of surgical instruments from the middle ages in the vein of Necrony and Haemorrhage demos, on a worn paper effect which is effective is fot hugely original. However the font chosen for the title is definitely not the best on earth (but I’ll let it go since it seems the same one used for Necrony’s debut) but, well, that jelly effect on the logo is really bad, especially when so close to a lineart drawing like the one of the tools below. Whatever. Another thing I hated a LOT is that this record oozes tongue-in-cheek humour since the very title (think about Entombed‘s debut album) and more of  it you get from the song titles (haven’t read the lyrics, they’re not present on the cardboard promos grrrr), a song name like  “Ambulance Chaser” sounds more Birdflesh to me than gore, and I’d sriously like to say two words to whomever invented a SHIT title like “The League of Extraordinary Grave Robbers”. For sure there was a lot of  nasty humour in early Carcass as well (“Festerday”, “Rotten to the Gore”, “Malignant Defecation” etc), but this just sounds too cheap to me, I am just a bit bored of bands making fun of splatter, some bands should definitely learn from the Brazilian scene).

However, when we talk about music, this record shredded the fuck out of my brain, this powerhouse has the same bulldozing energy of “A Chapter of Accidents” plus “Gore Metal” plus a lot of extra crusty groove-steeled energy. Really “the festering stench of rotting flesh makes me drool as I consume… ” this album!!! Some faint rock’n’roll swing a la “Necroticism” drops in here and there, but generally speaking, making excessive referencing to Carcass would be unfair. For sure early Carcass songs were the matrix from which this band was spawned in the beginning, but considering how the Carcass songs were structured (and when I talk about Carcass I just consider the recordings up to “Necroticism” and this last one with a snort and a spit and a swear, fuck off mr Amott for destroying a cult band), there is not really much of them except for the sound, lyrical themes and the sick vocal approach. Musically I’d say this General Surgery 2.0 is more oriented towards Swedish grind/crustcore: if we strip the songs to the very core, I bet if you change vocals and guitar distortion you’d get something interesting. Whatever the backbone is however, this new stuff has a frighteningly high energy level, full of thrashing guitar riffs, perfect drum arrangements, and a very mature production that places all of the instruments evenly without sounding artificial at all. This is an album that MUST be bought, because things here are really superior compared to the mumble-jumble of second generation clones! The vocals are manipulated in some heavy way but you can tell the original timbre is deep and powerful so the resulting effect is twice as good. There are a lot of sick tempo structures and guitar interconnections here that give the whole album a complex but studied sound, but it’s great to hear that the accent weights on the fistbanging, mayhemic, old school RIFF!. If there is only one thing I miss on this album which might have made me happy, is the lack of explicit gore and the overabundance of fun, this is luckily not fucking Ghoul, but there is just too much light hearted enjoyment going on for my tastes. I just wish I had seen some viscera on the cover, that would have been original, for once… bah!

1 – Long Live the New Flesh 2 – Torture Rape Cum and Kill 3 – Coven of Death 4 – Crawl with Me Through the Filth 5 – Deflower the Dead 6 – Body Fluids from Unknown Source 7 – Alive Swarming With Filth 8 – Pray on the Weak 9 - Dead in a Ditch

It took me several listens in several different occasions to clarify exactly what I thought about this album. At first, the dissonant, modern harmonics that are prominent in the first half of the album sounded a bit disturbing. After all I had my share of those with Meshuggah, latest Gorguts or similar post-metal bands. But here, after all, they make some sense. This is not intellectual waning, but just a different way to distort the brutal music while leaving it that way. The songs are still brutal and Deranged maintained their trademark solidity by preserving the same tempo for the whole duration of the album. This might sound a bit dull, especially because things have slowed down a lot since “Plainfield Cemetery”, but since the sound is so distorted, and the vocals so deep and beefy, something weird begins spinning after a few listens. You start to understand the variations within the monotony. This is 100% unrelenting heavy riffage, original in its simplicity, and with sporadic manifestations of classic solos shattering only seldom the non-stop droning chord monoliths. The drums still have the classic Deranged post-“Rated X” militaristic sobriety, one either loves or hates this way of mauling the skins. I would say there’s some vaguely industrial vibe in this new Deranged album, kinda Pitch Shifter or Fudge Tunnel. Everything is relying on heaviness instead of speed, variation or grove, all elements with are completely missing here. The cover art is still delicious, taking a bit on the color schemes of “High on Blood”, full of blood drops and glistening viscera arranged so to look almost avant-garde. I bet you can clock each song and have exactly the same tempos going on from start to finish but again, it all adds to the idea of unbending sturdiness. Might it be that they added some Murder Corporation in here, since there is some hidden groove in the riffs, but I let you decide. This is brutal, inflexible Death Metal the Deranged way. My fave is still Rated X but here we have a different band in some way. I won’t say this is a massacre, but Deranged surely have their own identity.

1 – Dust of Centuries 2 – Subconscious 3 – Keeper of Forbidden Words

So, another year has passed and here we have something new from Nefas, after the terrific full length release on Bones Brigade. This time you get a small demo release of barely three songs, but if you know the band already, you might also know that there is so little breathing space in here that the running time is not really an issue. The layout is simple but looks splendid, sober and created with the colours of sand and ancient stone, the main artwork is a Chtulhu – ish creature with tentacles and insect legs looking as if drawn of old paper. My only small complain here would be that the stone texture used looks a bit blurry, but the overall effect holds anyway. There is surely a vision in Nefas’ works and they keep following it. The cycles of stars and moon drawing grandiose spells of destruction, the distant, hateful gaze of horribly misshapen godlike creatures lurking within the freezing folds of time, the whispered invocations of priests of ancient sanguinary religions turned insane by things man is not meant to known, a maelstrom of bestial growls raising from the depths of cities long fallen ruin condense in a purest breed of Brutal Death Metal, intricate and unrelenting, frightening and imposing. No bitching here, Nefas is still the best and most original of Death Metal bands in Italy, not just because they’re impossibly heavy, elaborate and brutal, but because they managed to stay this way and developing their own personal style at the same time. The vocals still have that malign but powerful growl on the vein of Immolation, but the music is way more complex, with some lamenting slow, grinding bridges and short, furious blasts of uptempo rage. You never get a complete release of energy, the music is just constantly truncated into big chunks, so that you never get some time to take a deep breath. The production is again extremely accurate, under the zealous care of the drummer Tom, now a professional sound engineer. The chaotic monster that is Nefas now also counts a second guttural backing force in the vocals of guitarist Dario. There is very little to add, this is killer, super technical, powerful and very extreme Brutal Death with countless riffs, and the right amount of old school vibe that makes the music stand out in a fourth vibrating dimension of abominable psychosis. A good innovation is that now the doom passages are deeper and more mesmerizing than before, creating a vortex of madness that drags you into insanity, deeper… and deeper… and deeper…

1 – Slaves of Death 2 – Battlefields 3 – Kill or Get Killed 4 – Soldiers o the Unknown 5 – Death Metal Forever 6 – Wrath Intense Pain 7 – Oh My God!! 8 – Victims

When I read Erik Rutan was the producer of this album I stiffened like a stockfish. What has that guy to do with these great warriors of dark, brutal, south American metal? I must say I only have the demos plus “Ola de Violencia” and “Requiem”, and never really heard the rest of their discography except for a few quick listens at the shop, so I can only make my comparisons towards the very early Masacre. Which was absolute cult to me, let me preface this. Let me also say that this album is not bad at all. They just turned into a completely different band, while remaining dark and tight. The production is naturally much better now, a good balance of heaviness and limpidness, the sound is powerful, dark, somewhat obsessive. Reminiscences of Deicide are clear, the vocals are hysteric, guttural and made of short, powerful sentences in the vein of Glen’s. The solos are also well thought, not too melodic, maybe a bit in the vein of old Loudblast for a lack of better comparisons. The songs are more strictly brutal, in a more direct way compared to their old works, some riffs have a vague Morbid Angel feel, and some guitar harmonics are even a bit reminiscent of latest Cannibal Corpse, but the emphasis on heavy, chuggish rhythmic riffs is utmost now. So much so, this might be the weakest spot in the whole album. Coming from a band as this, one can’t but be very critical. The songs are tend to be a bit repetitive on the long run, which can be ok for a modern Brutal Death band, but doesn’t work with a band like this with have a mature structure beneath every song. All in all this is a good powerful but old school Death Metal album, with clear strong production and but a somewhat dull song writing. I know I can get used to this but not for the first few listens. If you like old bands with strong rhythmic guitars (Deicide, latest Krisiun, let’s say even Sinister or Cannibal Corpse post-“Tomb of the Mutilated”-, this might be a good choice. I also read the lyrics are in English now, but I couldn’t read them since they didn’t come with the promo. Best release so far from the label anyway. I am happy Mr Rutan didn’t butcher this recording with some plastic gloss. Ah.

1 - Introdukcija 2 - Ne 3 - Bolesno grinje 4 - Nema powalka 5 - Depresia 6 - Osuoen na tapilju 7 - Alarm 8 - Noz u leba 9 - Jebem 11 - Posao 1O-#13 11 - Generacija zajeb 12 - P. SA M.B.K.ZS. 13 - Vjesanje br.176 14 - Mrt av/pljan 15 - Gledam u prazno 16 - Trovanje 17 - Bec teksta 18 - ...Je kraj

I am not 100% sure about the release date of this album, but it says it was recorded in April 2002, hence I guess it was released the same year. That makes it three years older than “Od Nesvijesti Do Grinda”. The music is however not extremely different. We still have fairly political oriented grindcore with rough, drunk vocals a la Extreme Noise Terror/Concrete Sox/Nausea etc., groovy riffs, and a couple of close up pictures of fleas on the booklet. This time the cover looks even more deluxe with the use of this gold pantone color, I like the way it turned out. The lyrics are not extremely readable but that’s part of the design that wants them on the same line. I can just repeat my appreciation like I did for the other album: this music has the constant crusty swing which is fundamental for fun-enjoying grind, this must be excellent to see on stage. There are some attempts at using dissonant vibes which have been dropped on the newer stuff, but they were really not fundamental. The overall sound seems even a bit fatter here, with some added bass distortion and a strong metallic bass backbone. We’re far from minimalist though, the sound is clear and the guitar riffs diverse, more oriented towards the pure mosh. Hmm. Not much to add, get this if you liked the other one, can’t say much more. This is good honest groovy grind.

1 – Zivot, Rad, Uzas 2 – T-Pusiona 3 – Proljev 4 – Kodine-trokuti 5 – Uvijek Ista Prica 6 – Pobuna G. C. 7 – Jedan Dan 8 – Usamljena Udovica 9 – Error 10 – Jebemise 11 – Pluca Puna Cinka 12 – Nerv 13 – Pjevac U Paragvaju 14 – Van Iz Depresije 15 – Grinje Odlaze

I know I sound irritating when I repeat myself, and I know there is surely a load of grammatical errors in my reviews as well, since I never double check them and my English is surely not transcendent, but why, exactly, don’t labels supervise the layout work and act on correcting the lyrics before they go to the printer? Why I do have to read lines like “I am must fuck”? Sarcofago were justified by the time and place they were born, but a band can’t make thus kind of mistakes in 2006. The lyrics are not hugely advanced, half about fun things like fuck frenzy, holidays in Paraguay and drinking oneself out at the local pub, while the other half is about fucking the police, daily routine (“Walking Corpse”, anyone?), fucking the national radio broadcast etc. The layout and artwork are both nice, on super glossy paper, with a microscope caption of a flea on the cover which must be Bolesno Grinje’s lucky charm (looks like the same flea that resides in the logo).

Bolesno Grinje play forceful grind/crust with a huge groove, not much dissimilar to Neuropathia in the approach, but with a rough, bleary sound that would make the Dark Throne of “Transylvanian Hunger” envious. The energy level is constant, even during the slam dance riffs chock full of sing along choruses. The guitar riffs are razor sharp and full of punkish vigour, the vocals sounds a bit like old Extreme Noise Terror, coarse and drunk as fuck, a mix or orc blood and nicotine, the drums pounding unerringly from start to finish, again this is a band which is surely a big fun to watch on stage or to play at full volume on a beer festival. All the attention here is pointed at the fun element, even if I probably prefer Birdflesh if we talk about purely crusty mosh-grind. I especially like the double vocals, they add much breadth to the mix. I am not much into fun grind, but this is a band which is a must have for those into powerful rocking and rolling groovy grindcore. Let’s crack on!

1 - Unaccountable Masses (Of Shades and Shadows) 2 - In the Presence of a Dread Magician 3 - The Devil, with Seven More Evil 4 - Plagued	 5 - Ancient and Unentered Forests 6 - Midwinter Sacrifice

Ahah, no please hear the riff starting at minute 1.22 of the second song, man I wish I could rip an mp3 here because you need to hear how terrible this is. Again you get the ill midget vocals but for once they’re not the worse part in the mix, because the guitar riffs here are the real shit. The fast chords are banal but the slow, defined ones are so bad I wonder how could anyone come up with these ideas. They sound like guitar exercises for pop-rock students approaching the guitar for the first time. Stuff for high school cover bands. The sound engineer was probably either completely drunk by boredom or alcohol because the sound here is also lacking continuity. Even concentrating on single elements I cannot tell something that stands out of the general poorness. The vocals are stressed and nasal, the riffs as boring as Sykdom’s, the double bass recorded too high and the rest of the drums too high as well for being so undemanding and uncreative. Loose cold chords a la Enslaved mix with almost Absurd-like epic bridges with totally plain arrangements of nth generation teenager pop rock. I have no clue how we can disentangle from this to something even fairly interesting. Not as desperately hopeless as Sykdom or Thy Endless Wrath, but completely transparent to my interest. So mediocre you forget it as you hear it. I tried stopping the album in the middle and guess what, I couldn’t remember what I was hearing one second before. Labels should no sign bands like this. And for what reason did they write the web designer’s name on the booklet?