Gorgasm - Destined to Violate (2014)

Snatching a satisfactory brutal death metal album out of the ether has become an increasingly rare commodity for me in recent times, so it often falls to the old standbys to get it done; and in terms of a US field clogged and constipated with technical djent deathcore, I generally feel forced to rely on someone like Gorgasm, who have delivered in the past with their Masticate to Dominate album in 2003. It's been over a decade since that time, with one reasonable full-length in between, but Destined to Violate, if nothing else, does manage to capture some of that enthusiasm of the later 90s and the last decade. It has its flaws, many of which stem from its inherent redundancy in the wake of a hundred other albums, but I don't think anyone will question the Indiana quartet's jubilation for punishing aural exercises in misogyny and murder...

To be quite exact about how this disc sounds, it's sort of like the clinical death/thrashing aesthetics of Pestilence's legendary Mallevs Maleficarvum, with the requisite tremolo picked surgical implements, clad in the armored brutality of mid-90s Suffocation grooves and set upon a killing spree which is reminiscent of Cannibal Corpse's Corpsegrinder-era pummeling uptempo passages, in both the pure punctuality of the riffing and the guttural syllabic meter employed. The guitars eschew the polished and over-processed tones of many of the band's younger, more technical peers, for something that feels belligerent and mildly raw, only clear enough to capture all the considerable notes being spewed forth from the team of Damian Leski and Ryan Saylor. Riff structures run the gamut from banal and predictable breakdown brevity to surprisingly interesting muted melodic barrages (like the intro to "Corpsified") that really want you to remember them before they cede their respective tunes to a more average compositional strength. Drums have an airy, forceful kick sound which I enjoyed, and there are loads of fills flying around to keep even the less interesting riffs excitable, and once again the band errs on the side of the lesser polished than making them sound like a computer program.

You've still got horror samples inaugurating a number of the tracks, from all manner of slasher films (I think there was one from Identity but I could be wrong); a practice as old as this sub-genre, often targeted at 'whores', but I did not find a lot of them incredibly effective leading into riffs that were not among the record's best. Likewise, the gross-out song titles like "Funeral Gangbang", "Mouthful of Menstruation" and "Lubricated in Vomit" are squeamish enough, but not particularly yucky or eye catching for anyone who wants their death metal truly over the top. The bass playing is solid, but I do wish it had been a fraction louder since the mechanistic colon rupturing of the rhythm guitars seem to steal the attention away from anything loitering beneath them. At the same time, it's really those rapid, precise riffing patterns that are going to attract or repel the average brutalitarian, so it's probably best that they be hung out on display like the corpses of victims in some taxidermy lab. I've never found the Gorgasm vocals to be particularly distinct for their field, and that hasn't changed, with the guttural barking and belching adequate but never entirely convincing beyond its genre specific function.

Destined to Violate is largely a run and gun sort of record; it does feature a few pure, forgettable mosh motivator grooves, but for the most part it snaps along at a pace slightly too swift for your headbanging to follow without ingesting a lot of sugar (or drugs) in advance. Ultimately, a few moments stand out from the rest, but it's neither a step forward or backward from 2011's Orgy of Murder. Decent to sit...or survive through for a number of spins, and continuing to wield the flesh chewing chainsaws of the band's legacy, but I have to say it: a little innovation here or there, or just a broader net of variation in structure, would do better to catchy my ear. Gorgasm seems to sit too comfortably in that late 90s era where None So Vile was this massively inspirational work that rubbed off on hundreds of other bands, where they clearly have the talent to surpass themselves. Anyway, if you're a loyal fan of Lividity, Cannibal Corpse, Severe Torture, older Cryptopsy, Suffocation or Prostitute Disfigurement, you'll find this is chasing you right up your alley with a meat cleaver.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

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Gorgasm - Orgy of Murder (2011)

Judging by the band's revolving lineup history, it wouldn't have been a stretch to guess that an eight year gap between releases would likely mean an entirely new lineup for Gorgasm. Only the the band's central creative figure, guitarist/vocalist Damian Leski returned after shelving the project for years, but it's almost remarkable how Orgy of Murder seems like a pretty direct continuation of Masticate to Dominate, with only a few difference aesthetic choices that help to better place it in the modern brutal death metal context, a scene that's become thick with 'slam' death acts and other extensions of the 90s sound. Well, this time he surrounded himself with 3/5ths of the fellow Lafayette Indiana act Sarcophagy, all of whom also played in Human Filleted (I've written a few reviews of their albums), and certainly this is the most tight and professional roster he had yet assembled, though how much of this can be attributed to performance vs. studio wizardry is anyone's guess.

In fact, were I to judge Orgy of Murder simply on its technical merits, then I'd have no choice to but to assign it some high grades. The production is cleaner. The new members perform together with an insane level of almost mechanical precision. It's occasionally a bit faster than prior material, and though I'm not sure I'd cite it as more 'technical', one could make an argument for that descriptor. I'd hazard that, at least for the first half of the disc, the songwriting is actually somewhat catchier than a lot of what I heard on Stabwound Intercourse, Bleeding Profusely, etc. Kyle Christman's drumming isn't necessarily standout in such a wide field of bands performing at the same speeds and ability level, but it's effortless, all-purpose blasting and rabid kick speeds which are basically mandatory when playing music of this nature. They've always had some good bassists in this band, but Anthony Voight's performance here might be hands down the most technically efficient, especially when he gets a nice, wavy fill going as in "Exhibit of Repugnance". The vocals implement a lot of atmospheric, sustained growls which are often panned against one another to create a more cacophonous haze above the instrumental punishment.

Usually, the samples used on such albums provide just a few seconds of silliness to help emphasize the irony of the lyrics, but here, Gorgasm actually created some genuine freakout pathos with the opening sequence of "Cum Inside the Carcass". Just think about that, some killer cannibal telling you you're pretty soon just going to shat out of his body? Hideous (and effective)! I also dug that there was a continued sense of musicality in the faster riffs. Sure, you've still got your obvious hat tipping to Suffocation or Cannibal Corpse, but a few of the more melodic structures reminded me of Death's progressive material in the 90s, or the very clinical and unforgettable sense of riffing you got off the Pestilence debut Mallevs Maleficarvm. The songs have largely returned to shorter, 2 piece vignettes, several of which feel as if they're all over too quickly, but on the whole it's got a comparable duration to the prior album, and not quite so harried as I felt with Bleeding Profusely a decade before this. There's also a good deal of variety here, and it's possibly the most difficult of their albums to pin directly to particular influences...it's not 'unique' or 'unusual' for this niche in death metal, but it's fairly well rounded and hints at self-identity.

If there's one factor here that holds it back behind its predecessors, though, it has to be the breakdowns. Gorgasm was no stranger to implementing slower palm muted hooks to maintain the moshing furor of their audience, but on Orgy of Murder they feel rather forced and uninteresting. Almost as if they wrote an album with some decent faster material and then decided it wasn't slamming enough for the fan base they'd be facing in the 2010s. As such, many of the progressions seem unfit and bland, the sort you'd find chocking up the entirety of just about any second rate slam death metal record in the past few years. They're not really 'terrible' or anything, it's just that they don't add much to the flow of the other note patterns, and so they come across as pandering and unnecessary. It's not entirely a deal breaker, but I just feel as if I've heard them all before and that Gorgasm is simply more fascinating playing at a higher speed; and they transform what otherwise might have been a damn solid effort into one that just barely scrapes by.

But, hey, there are worse crimes than being just a 'good' death metal band, and Gorgasm have definitely established themselves in that classification for well over a decade now. Through all the intensity and the technicality, you still get those delicious hints of old school tremolo riffing and authenticity that date them back to their influences, and for nearly a decade of absence (other than one demo), it's impressive that Leski can snap the project from its hibernation and back into shape. Worth hearing if you're into their earlier work, or any of their peers on the Brutal Band imprint, or if morbid and misogynistic subjects like "Infection Induced Erection", "Axe to Mouth", "Third Degree Taste" and "Erotic Dislimbing" even remotely intrigue you...the lyrics to that last one...god DAMN, Gorgasm. You have soiled my spirit and scarred my psyche forever.

Verdict: Win [7/10]  (carve a smile from ear to ear)

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Gorgasm - Masticate to Dominate (2003)

The few times I've rolled through Indiana, likely en route to some Midwestern metal festival, it always seemed like a pretty peaceful place. Golden fields all around, nice people, tranquil roads... Masturbating corpses, torture cellars/cabins, and bloody, bursting wombs never crossed my path, but I bet it was all just a 'show' those folk were puttin' on. For, lurking in the rank corners and back roads of the Hoosier State was Gorgasm, a quartet of merciless murder mavens who were at that very moment thinking up perverse means to mine own end, in the form of Masticate to Dominate, their second and best full length effort wrought upon Unique Leader Records, and judging by the sound of the thing, I'm not sure it could have found a more suitable home...

The formula here was not an immense deviation from Bleeding Profusely, but perhaps why I hold this in higher regard is that it really finds the perfect balanced between the genre's penchant for brutality and the more musical, melodic tendencies Gorgasm wasn't shying away from on their older releases. That's not to say they evoke any 'warm' or 'tingly' feelings through their selected note progressions, unless depravity and necrophilia are your thing, but clearly these guys were never just content with plugging away uselessly on the same forgettable chug to blast patterns beaten to death by scores of undergrounders. That said, I did feel that Masticate to Dominate was a slightly more 'typical' sounding brutal death effort than its predecessor, little more than a smorgasboard of ideas previously manifest through Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Deicide, Deeds of Flesh, Malevolent Creation, Cryptopsy and the first few Cannibal Corpse efforts helmed by Corpsegrinder (Vile, Gallery of Suicide, Bloodthirst). Fortunately, that doesn't hinder the material from slurping your entrails out through a gaping puncture wound and then stomping on them while you watch.

A few carefully timed splatter/smut samples. Loads of start/stop tempos used to set up blasted patterns with their staccato streams of surgical muted rhythm guitars. Thicker, chugging breakdowns which hurt so bad you can feel them on your own palm. Guttural verbal secretions with a syllabic punctuation somewhere in between George Fisher and Lord Worm, with a slight tendency to return to those toilet bowl intonations the guys used on the older material. Muddied, acrobatic spikes of classical-guitar influenced scaling patterns pop up in places like the bridge of the title track, also paid forward from the earlier works. Gorgasm acquired not only another drummer here (their third in three records) in Terrence Manauis, but also a new bassist in Paul Garcia, so basically an entirely new rhythm section. But they pull it off, keeping the beats organic and rampant, the bass lines audible and instinctual against the rapid churning and spitting of the rhythm guitar.

It's neither rocket science nor the most complex material of its field, but the run and gun riff progressions and incessant hostility were a sadistic satisfaction guaranteed for the record's intended audience. Novelty and nuance are rarely felt through the composition, and it lacks some of the incendiary lead work that provided a number of the highlighted moments on Bleeding Profusely, but all in all the balance of riffing and tempo variation here is superior. Not to mention that they draw out the tracks to a more palatable duration of over 3 minutes, so the listener is given more time to actually 'get into' the contrast of blasts and grooves. I even felt a bit of giddy, gruesome, mortuary slab fun here in "Concubine of Despise" that reminded me fondly of the post-Carcass West Coasters like Impaled and Exhumed, though the vocals definitely remain loyally in the gurgling category without the growl/imp interchange you'd expect.

Admittedly, I wasn't immensely fond of the production here. The rhythm guitars are punchy, but both they and the melodic sequences feel a bit dry, especially in unison. Some added reverb, chorus, or other effects would have given Masticate to Dominate a more engrossing atmosphere, but at least it feels functional, and you can make out all the grunts and bass notes if you listen closely enough. The lyrics are grotesque, sexual perversions upon both the living and dead, zero political correctness, 'peaking' with the closer "Deadfuck" which is as accurate a summation of the entire experience as you'll get here. Jon Zig's arwork was easily identifiable and the best Gorgasm has yet used, but not something you'd want to show off to your Sorority sisters and their mothers at the next sponsorship gala. Masticate isn't perfect, and I've long crossed my fingers for the leads, atmosphere and maybe even an occasional synth line (as on the debut EP) would take a more prevalent role to balance out the brutality, but this was definitely an entertaining onslaught that they could be proud of. And MAYBE their moms and pops...but I doubt it.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (scream if you like)

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Gorgasm - Bleeding Profusely (2001)

Bleeding Profusely is seemingly innocuous on the surface (cover art), perhaps a bit of a letdown if you're looking for something sicker. But then, I'd urge you to think back on the Stabwound Intercourse image, and then back to this, and somewhere in there lies a connection, intentional or not... uh, yeah... Of course, the continuity between that earlier EP and this debut full-length is more than skin-deep; the very bones and organs of the music seem lifted directly from the aesthetics of their older material. But once again there is just enough musicality and exploration, especially on the latter part of the disc here, that you get a nagging feeling Gorgasm were intended for more than they've ever gotten. Granted, they also carry forth some of the flaws inherent to the more middling bands of this style; only this time, there's enough explosive, dynamic musicianship and replayability that I can qualify the product as a success, if not a smashing one.

Like the 16 minute EP, Bleeding Profusely is extremely goddamn concise, clocking in at 24 minutes for 11 tracks (including a re-recording of "Disembodied"), which average about 2 minutes exactly. I am serious, when writing these things, the Indianans kept durations dangerously close together, and that right there gives a strict uniformity to the album. On one hand, it means you can probably listen to the whole thing during your daily commute, one direction. On the other, the brevity and precision of the practice doesn't generate a wide level of variation. These pieces are tight, and the band throttles you with as much as they can within their bounds, but a lot of the better riffs zip in and out before you really get a chance to let them sink into your mind and leave an impression. It would certainly not have damaged the pacing and flow of this record to incorporate a few 4-5 minute cuts with a few added repetitions of the better guitar progressions, since some of them deserve more space to breathe and beat on the listener, but at the very least no one could accuse Gorgasm of wearing out their welcome. This is wham, bam, thank you ma'am entertainment...even if that might seem a poor choice of words to describe an album containing "Fisticunt" and "Lesbian Stool Orgy".

But despite blowing its wad faster than a sexually repressed sailor pulling into a brothel after months at sea, there's a lot to admire about this record. The leads are intensely well constructed, and there are moments like that mean solo bridge at around 1:00 in "Severed Ecstasy" where the writing is so harried, dense and evil that they could compete with anyone else in the business. Gorgasm learned pretty quickly that brutality does not necessarily have to eschew musicality (despite what some of the mentally challenged, perpetual 12-year olds haunting the genre's fan base will tell you)  and Bleeding Profusely is flooded with tasteful arpeggios and classical shred inspired licks that constantly engage the imagination; a musician's dream. They've got their share of generic 4x-16x chug and bait-the-tremolo patterns, but even when they hit rock bottom with some banal palm muted progression, they're quick to shift up the playbook to something more satisfying. I found that a number of listens through the album helped me pick out some of the more flavorful details, and there is overall a more robust sense of technicality and flair than Stabwound Intercourse.

Not exactly more atmospheric, other than the improved lead/bridges and the use of more samples, but the rhythm section here is simply fucking insane, with the bass flying along a thousand miles per hour, and yet another mechanically taut drum performance, this time from Dave Culross (Malevolent Creation and now playing in Suffocation). I think the sole caveat here was that I found the vocals rather bland. They're the same assortment of grunts, toilet swish gutturals and snarls that they were using before, but for some reason the mix seems a bit dry, and though they attempt some charismatic, punchy staccato lines which feel more acrobatic, I didn't come away with as ghastly an impression. Which I guess is fine, because the lyrics to pieces like "Morbid Overgrowth" and "Fucking the Viscera", among others, compensate with enough of a gruesome jungle of splatter and disgust that you don't come away from Bleeding Profusely feeling in any way unsoiled. It's like a short slasher film in which all manner of debaucheries occur in just a brief span, leaving you ample time to vomit your popcorn into the nearest latrine, woods, or, if all else fails, date's lap.

This isn't their best album, and it's nothing amazingly unique, but definitely a step over the EP in structure and quality, a sadistically pleasurable way to kill 20 minutes or so...again with my shitty choices of words! I'd recommend it to fans of Cryptopsy's None So Vile, or other seasoned murderers like Deeds of Flesh, Lividity or Malevolent Creation; just don't expect the 'Mona Lisa' of brutality here.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (I won't stop until I am caught)

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Gorgasm - Stabwound Intercourse EP (1998)

As relatively redundant as their style might have seemed, even by the late 90s when the whole 'brutal death metal' thing as its own self-sustaining evolutionary entity was but a few years old, one has to grudgingly admit that Gorgasm knew how to make an entrance. With one of the most provocative band names and titles, and 'evocative' cover images, at least to those low down dirty sick fucks who gorged upon this niche, you were not forgetting Stabwound Intercourse anytime soon. Add to that a spiffy production job and tight, technical musicianship and you had one of the more explosive young acts to come along post Deeds of Flesh or Cryptopsy, and one of the Midwest's most punishing sources of pure pathology alongside names like Fleshgrind and Lividity.

Truth be told, beyond the elevated level of lyrical sickness built upon the Cannibal Corpse blueprints, there was just not a lot of nuance or distinction in what Gorgasm were writing here. The punctuality and phrasing of the guitars is highly redolent of Deicide's first few records, only amplified to the level of aggression that New York's Suffocation brought to the field. Tremolo riffs are affixed to an impressive double bass drum performance by drummer Derek Hoffman (who later played on Fleshgrind's mediocre Murder Without End), and you've got plenty of palm muted frenzies and a few well timed breakdowns to help break up the bursting momentum like energy beams splitting asteroids for space miners. The leads are hardly adventurous or interesting, but at least they're there, tearing off the central riffing structures. The bass is just as dextrous as the rhythm guitar, with a lot of treble-heavy, farting propensity to make itself noticed, and I would have to think pretty hard to summon forth memories of another rhythm section that was so tight and professional so early on in a brutal death metal act's career...

Not to mention, Gorgasm made one of the most efficient, earliest uses of the toilet bowl, sustained gurgle guttural vocal that initiated a competition within the genre that persists today: who can create the deepest, butt-muddiest flushing tone?! Your prize?! A crate of obscure scatological Euro-porn?! There are a few occasional wretched rasped lines which remind me of Glen Benton's 'higher range', but in general you're getting this persistent, porcelain god pummeling that really feels fit to the strenuous performance across all the instruments. Unfortunately, where Stabwound Intercourse failed me was in the sheer quality of songwriting. Only a handful of the riffs across the six tracks of the EP really stick out, and the rest are forgettable within moments of hearing them. It seems that wherever the Indianans 'branched' out to explore a range of options they grew exponentially more interesting. For example, the classical structured death/thrash riffing break in "Coprophiliac" or the excellent use of the horn-synthesizers during the bridge of "Horrendous Rebirth", in which they cling dreadfully to the surgical sounding guitar progressions.

Otherwise, it's really just more of the same chugging, squealing and banal composition we'd already come to expect from the second tier of bands, and which sadly continues on through the 21st century. With lyrics about mutilating female genitalia, eating human waste, and initiating sexual intercourse with the posteriors of the deceased, there's a sense that this would 'sate' your average inbreed who jacked off on such sadism and misogyny, with is all well and good (if you're one of them), but it's just not an effort which stands up to long term scrutiny; largely because its few inspired moments of brilliance too easily trump the remainder. In hearing this after so many years, I just know that the Gorgasm members were capable of more curious atmosphere and musicality, and wish they had infused that influence more often. That said, if this is your thing, you could certainly do a lot worse. The 16 minutes of material certainly never lets up its onslaught (save for a sample), and for 1998 it was, if not unique, at least ahead of most of the flock to follow.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10] (with masochistic bliss)

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