Archives: Reviews

Yeah. Black Metal. Some melodies which falls between the mild and the heard a thousand times. Dome grunts. Some despaired vocals. A touch of violin here and there to add colour. Some mid tempos which have a fair feeling of 70’s. Some religious feel given by the same organs again and again and again… You get the picture. You should have got my point of view. Ahyesh, they have some cognition to structure the songs, I can’t nor want to deny it. And the slow parts have a some fair evocative medieval feel. But stop it, please, aren’t there a million already like this?

Might be unfair to talk about THE CHASM as the band from Daniel Corchado (ex-INCANTATION), but it’s just to give out some trivia stuff for your evenings with friends. Anyway what punches you in your stomach at a first listen is that THE CHASM is absolutely original. This is the kind of REAL originality that lacks in lot of bands to this day, they have a fucking thick identity in their music. The CD starts with that heart constricting feel you get when listening to “Hell Awaits” (that mood that even SLAYER were unable to recall after ’84) and progress with some melodic crescendo into an absolutely different kind of Death Metal. That SLAYERish mood comes and goes down the music as you’0re brought into the halls of Aztec forefathers… Oh well, I find myself in a very strange situation but I just can”t find the right words to write down this music in words. Think of songs whose every single riff is adorned with dissonant, articulated partly melodic vines… and place the whole music in a eerie mood which has nothing to do with Doom, Gothic or Blackish Metal. To me they’re entirely superb. You got to listen to this because it’s very malignant… and then somewhat depressive although fast and catchy…well you got the point?

My favourite Polish band is back with an absolutely blasting attack of violent grind gore, as intense as very few bands could manage while maintaining a definite structure, a forceful, clean wall of sound and yet still Grindcore to the bone. Although this kind of high level, no filth grind could be sometimes despised for its lack of crude barbarity by crust core purists, SQUASH BOWELS demonstrate they could be exactly as dirty and explicit as any garage Grind act, succeeding at the same time in beneficing by an excellent production. Perverse, chaotic and forceful SQUASH BOWELS stand in the rusty red heaven of Modern grind with INHUME, CEPHALIC CARNAGE or the latest REGURGITATE. The arrangements are precise, heavily studied and absolutely brilliant. Top notch Gore Grind if not THE top notch gore grind band today, no kidding. Killer.

MINDFLAIR part starts with the South Park soundtrack and continues with a more human but still uncontrolled Grindcore compared to RUNNING GUTS’, with screams for vocals and some effected grunts. The drumming is sometimes a bit uneven mainly in sheer volume, as if some blows were weaker here, more powerful then, but it helps the DIY feeling and genuine grinding approach. More of a mince core band with a rather chaotic fun approach. Interesting.

French Grindcore with very low tuned guitars and metallic bass that vibrates with radical sickness. RUNNING GUTS style of grind has a very predominant hideously distorted bass parts that are usually preludes to feral psychopathic accelerations . Not unlike BEER VOMIT or other French acts, might be an omen that French grind scene is rather thriving in its own puke. There is a sort of broken radio effect on the vocals which renders them pretty confused and make ’em blend pretty much into the background noise, which is definitely fitting although you have to like it.

I don’t know how much this CD convinces me. In a way it’s very simple but on the other hand it is one of those releases you should manage to hear for a while….some of the bands that spring to my mind are the latest DISMEMBER, latest NAPALM DEATH, crossing with some almost crossover mosh and a punk-core backbone. Actually they have some good slamming originality, though far from the excellent crusty Grindcore they used to bring with their previous work on Repulse. Seems as if they found a definite identity in a small space that stands between different kind of genres, but they’re just not a confused patchwork of genres without any cognition like AVULSED’s latest. Actually now that I am at the end of the disk I realized I was doing other things without having been grabbed into the music at all. Well do you like the newest DISMEMBER? Put them on speed (wouldn’t take much I think eheh) and pump up the volume high and you’ll get something which might remind ROTTEN SOUND with its deserved hardcore push. While sometimes they blast like a serious Grindcore affair, often they stay on the slamming thread which just seem to have missed something. I favoured the old stuff.