Category Archives: S

SUBTERRANEAN FECAL ROOT (USA): “Anthems Of The Antisocial Underground” full-length Cd 2008 Grindhead

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sfr-aotauAfter all my rants about grindcore being nowadays too perfect and too controlled, one might think that I could be thrilled by a band like this American noise-shitcore Subterranean Fecal Root, with its freakish nonsense and a sound that could remind Impetigo‘s “Revenge of the Scabby Man” + Pile of Eggs on acid stretched into full length album + a bucketload of retardedness right? Fuck no. This is not just a demented album (which, in some particular occurrences could even be fun), but just nonsensical, non-revolutionary, non-hazardous mashup, lacking the fresh random brutality of noisecore acts like, say, Minch or Captain Three Legs. I am usually entertained by shitcore, as far as it’s played with heart, or at least gives me the feeling that something, some boundary, some parameter has been broken. I have the feeling that this album was just a carefully planned project destined to put you a win win situation: if it gets praised “cool”, if it gets thrashed “fuck off we hate everyone that is the greatest compliment for us”.

Of course the band sucks, the absolute worse being these annoying childlike vocals, and they take great pride in stating that their music is made to suck, and I’ll be completely honest, these guy are so completely retarded and untalented that in the end I started to appreciate this album. Not that I will ever give it a second spin, but these dickheads could be funny. So what you have here is a shit-noisecore recording with a bunch of samples and some paradoxical ideas. I am certain I have thrashed this record so much someone will attempt to get it so in the end these assholes have won their prize ah ah. What a twisted game  is this, isn’t it?

As usual my 2 cents on the packaging – very standard stuff. A rushed thank-list with a bunch of the same boring humorous lines, a huge tracklist with no lyrics, and a logo with embossing and other terrible Photoshop tricks. Here you have it.

SPEARHEAD (Eng): “Decrowning the Irenarch” Lp Cd 2007 Invictus

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SpearheadBefore I start the whining, let me state that this Cd looks real terrific. The design here is tremendous, woefully elegant and definitely classy. The cover art is not only intricately beautiful, but it also reflects a very strong concept that permeates the whole release. War. Struggle as the means of man to overcome mediocrity and avoid corruption and degrade. Historical references appear as pictures of iconic representations in a sleek sepia packaging that is perfect even in the choice of fonts. This is really beautiful to look at. I was even remotely intrigued by the lyrics and foreword on their take on the irenarchs of the past and present.

I always find it a bit difficult to find parallels between boys that play musical instruments on stage and maybe participate in a few weekend full contact sessions with paint guns and real soldiers that see their friends torn to pieces by shrapnels, that visit places where real people die including your strict relatives. But the philosophical message here is strong and that’s not the weak spot on this album: it’s the music that really fails here. This album is one of the best examples of hideously generic thrash/death metal I have heard this year. Sure ly some riffs are nice, and they even attempt a killer echoing “ugh ugh” during the first fast opening riff in the best Celtic Frost tradition, and the solos are actually thought out and cool – but the scattering of good chords and soporific mid tempos is quite hard to understand and to find any coherence in. It’s like that movie “Memento” where all the scenes are cut and pasted backwards. You hear the same mediocre galloping riff 8 times, and then a completely different one drops in, coming from some third grade band from Melbourne. It’s as if someone cut the film in the cassette master and hastily taped it together randomly. This again doesn’t mean they inherently suck, they’re just totally unbearable because thrashing energy never bursts out, always squeezed in a vaguely Australian styled neo “denim plus million patches” Thrash Metal composition that really tastes like Kosher meat without seasoning. The vocals are terribly banal but for once I won’t twist the knife in the wound. This band is definitely not for me, even if the premises were good it lacks completely of catchiness. If only they could take an inch of old Vader or Sadus they could as well be something. As it is I could barely keep my lids open after 10 minutes of mono-frequency vocals and semi identical riffs. Not as bad as the previous one but still light years from being interesting.

SERAPHIM SLAUGHTER (USA-Nj): “Scum Terror” Lp Cd 2007 AIDS Needle

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Seraphim SlaughterI had to think about it several times, and I finally came to the conclusion that I don’t like this debut album by Seraphim Slaughter. Sure, it is rough and crusty. Sure it has equal shares of Abscess-like Punk and Black Metal. But it’s just the black metal part that doesn’t manage to convince me at all. It’s an hybrid nested somewhere between The Germs and any Norwegian Black Metal band from the 90’s (pick one, anyone – they’re too hard to identify ah ah!).

If there was more South American vulgarity maybe… maybe… but like this it’s a bit weak other than filthy. The general idea is nice: a band from the grime of New Jersey experimenting lessons in alchemy with vials of the most ugly kinds of music. The cover art is also superb, totally “old school ’80’s thrash metal demo” style, mixing suicide, dead babies, a girl stabbed to death and AIDS encrusted syringes – it looks so vintage it’s a real pity I cannot make myself enjoy it. But really it’s not a matter of filth, it’s the guitarwork that it’s definitely too easy in a bad way, much like a college band if you know what I mean, I must have listened to all the riffs contained here when I was still a teenager. Just like happened with Watain, the dress is not at the same level as the content. Some thrash, some punk, some easy listening black metal… there is really HUGE space for improvement. As it is, I won’t personally buy it for 20 cents.

SPEARHEAD (Eng): “Deathless Steel Command” Lp Cd 2006 Invictus

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SpearheadI want to set things straight from the beginning: my opinion on this record is sandwiched somewhere between “terrible” and “mediocre”. One of the weirdest thing on this album is that the majority of these guitar riffs seem just pointless. Some are just variation of a single one in different speeds. Only the solos are maybe not that bad. The production too, is not raw, (one thing I would highly appreciate) but just completely unbalanced – bass lines disappear and vocals get completely splattered in this forceless “mid-range only” guitar sound. The worse thing of all is the vocals, completely devoid of strength and pressure, just like a flaccid, pierced tire. I honestly don’t understand why someone could possibly consider this album “classic”, “violent”, “a perfect blend of thrash and black metal”, or riminiscent of Bolt Thrower (I have read all of these comments). There is even a terrible Norwegian theme on the song “The Glorious Dead” which just made my head shook all the time. I was expecting something powerful in the vein of Allfather or Axis of Advance, or even some more classic Australian-like stuff like Destroyer 666, but instead I got my hands of nothing but “War Metal” hype. It’s this “we’re all brothers of denim and million colored patches” scene which I just find hard to understand. These songs are plainly unmemorable, and just make you think “why should I listen to this while I have a million obscure Thrash Metal records from the eighties just out there to be listened and finally get all the powerful Metal sound tat bands like this want to recreate? No really, I pass this on. Too bad becouse there are some blasts and some good parts, but all these mid tempos and gay vocals just kill all the good that could be said. The work behind the lyrics is interesting – though: one big concept on war that blends with a superb cover and brilliant b/w layout work, one of the best I have seen in grayscale actually. What i don’t understand is how can evoke images of war desolation and bombardments by imitating Gargamel’s vocals. Maybe the war they’re talking about is between smurfs tribes?

Deathless Steel Command

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????

SEMEN (mex): “Deposito de Semen” Cd 2005 Half Life

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Semen - DepositoThis new Semen Cd I got from Half Life stuck me real hard. It’s a fantastic example of real goregrind the kind that seem to have disappeared in the last few years, with all that huge hedgepodge of mid paced cyber-bedroom projects. It’s really relieving to hear once more real grind shit, without super productions a la Nasum and shit like that Semen plays down to earth goregrind, and plays it with real fucking instruments and no fucking harmonizers or other shit – just plain gore porn hysteria. The riffs are not really bone crushing but the general sound is so sick and putrid that you can really go over it. The vocals are deep and gurgling, and the whole recording so dirty you can hear crackling all the time due to the poor sewage bintage recording that however manage to keep the sound full and powerful. Just like goregrind used to be you know, very early Malignant Tumour and stuff. The layout of this album doesn’t really shine, but stays in tune with the general goregrind attitude, a bunch of lesbians and cum filled cunts, and a scattering of terrible fonts butchered with tons of cheap filters. Disgusting and sincere, I really like this stuff.

SPERMSWAMP (Can): “If Abortion is a Murder, Masturbation is a Genocide” Cd 2007 Lymphatic Sexual Orgy/Sindrome

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SpermswampFor those who missed this demo in 2002 (me included) here it is, the repressing by two killer labels such as Sindrome and Lymphatic Sexual Orgy. This is the first release by our pals from Canada, and the sound was quite far from that of their latest CBT worshipping bonecrushing goregrind.

On the graphic side, this Cd is quite appealing, despite the extremely glossy paper (it’s so slick it seems oily… but that might be to simulate the texture of sperm eh eh). At last a goregrind release done with some taste (if we can call it that), the concept of cumshots flooding recently dead feti is nicely gross and well, that’s the right thing for goregrind.

Musically this is not extremely advanced. Seems like more influenced by KOTS and SMES, with a lot of ’80s coin-op style looops and super-distorted vocals. I like the fact it’s so raw and bluntly unprofessional, and also a little bit the humorous keyboard twists, but in general their latest stuff is much more appealing. This is extremely computer oriented music, with almost no feel of guitars and a very synthetic-sounding drum base, not to mention really fucked up vocals and a score of samples like buzzsaws and screams. But in general this shit works, and it’s much better than most cyber goregrind I have heard recently. Good shit, overally speaking.