Morgue Supplier - Mastering the Disease (2026)

Driven by inhuman, mechanical blasting rhythms that collapse and contrast against its more meandering, atmospheric grooves, Mastering the Disease seems a fit evolution for the previous Morgue Supplier record, Inevitability and its subsequent single tracks. But where its stylistic frame is comparable, there's something even harsher and more 'checked out' sounding about some of this newest material. A collision of death, grind, industrial vibes, even some noticeable progressive elements in the structuring, they really swing for the fences. I'd liken it to a sort of 'cybergrind', only you replace almost all of the futuristic (or at this point, retro futurist) synths and sound effects with loads of dissonant, death metal guitars more central to that genre, and a gruesome vocal exhibition which is actually quite detailed and technical as it's laid out.

A good example of the varied carnage this band can create of its listeners would be "Pupils of Insularity", starting off with a pensive flow, cleaner melodic guitars and thick bass, almost Godflesh-like vibes, which escalates into a head-spinning, dissonant bender that feels like you're testing a drum machine to hear how fast it will go before exploding; all the while the other instruments crash along with abandon and Paul Gillis wretches and sneers and vomits all over the riffing. This is not for the faint of heart, anyone wearing a pacemaker, or anyone retaining a warm view of humanity. Other dizzying tracks include the psychotic "Annihilated Thinker" with its broken beats that descend into strange sampling and drugged, dissonant riffs that ooze around the meat of the distorted bass-lines. "Next World Consumes" is a harrowing endscape soundscape, oppression thicker than concrete, but by the time you hear that you're probably already either dead or suffering a severe headache.

Thankfully, if you DO survive that, the closer is a brilliant dark ambient track, "Indifferent Majesty", which is one of my favorites on the album, even though it's completely different to everything before it. Spacious but intense, it shows the flip side of what these creators are thinking but from an entirely different, non-percussionist perspective. The cover art here also reminds me a lot of the post-modern cyberpunk/body horror film Tetsuo: the Iron Man by Shinya Tsukamoto, and it unquestionably might serve as a sort of aural counterpart to that visual experience. This is the future, here, ugly as fuck, and not what we were hoping. While not as brilliantly riffy as the band's eponymous 2016 album, my favorite, and a little less sublime than Inevitability, Mastering the Disease is still very intense, with just enough devil in the details, especially the myriad abusive vocals and provocative bi-polar shifts between blasting and grooves that litter its debris-ridden labyrinth of noise.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100075977500489

Macabre - Dahmer (2000)

Macabre's a band I never get around to revisiting often, but don't let that fool you, I think they're a fairly interesting and quietly influential act that had a pretty big impact on the deep-dive serial killer studies that other bands like Church of Misery have continued with. They also occupied a niche seemingly to themselves, where numerous genres combined, no one of the thrash, death metal, punk or grind really dominating the rest, and then the insertion of humorous elements into the music also transforms them into a carnival of Midwest extremity. The first four albums in particular have the most to offer, with these sprawling track lists, few ideas left on the cutting board, and though the tongue-in-cheek qualities can become distracting, they can mete out some mean fucking metal on your ass.

Dahmer is the band's exploration of its titular serial killer and it spends equal time tackling this topic, comprised of 26 tracks, most hovering around the 1-2 minute mark, a few beyond that, but that's where a lot of the grind aesthetic comes in here, because the band isn't always playing a million miles a minute with the splattering vocals and accelerated hardcore you'd expect. Many of them take a punk rock approach with gang shouts, accessible riffs, and then this is alternated with hyper-thrashing pieces that catapult themselves into the death metal spectrum. But they also delve a little deeper, with some more dissonant thrash riffing that even reminds me of Voivod, like in the opener "Dog Guts", and they'll bust out these solid leads that also seem pretty ambitious compared to the surface level of their style. So the idea that one could ever write Macabre as some group of gory goofballs would be misinformed. They are crazy motherfuckers who put an emphasis on exploring different sounds and then unifying them behind a chosen theme, which is conceptually impressive, even when it's something really zany like the thrashing surf rock of "Do the Dahmer" (something Ghoul might have picked up on).

Ironically, it's this variation that can both work FOR and AGAINST an album like Dahmer, because the shorter track lengths mean a lot of the stronger, evil riffing ideas will be broken up and you never quite get enough if you're digging them. Like the churning caveman death metal of "Hitchiker" ceding to the "In the Army Now" anthem, or the blasting, chaotic "Bath House" giving way for the "Jeffrey Dahmer and the Chocolate Factory" tune, which is essentially a twisted cover of the Oompa Loompa song from the old Gene Wilder film. However, by that same argument, every time I think I've gotten my laughs in and am about to phase out, they'll shift back into some more intense and interesting, so I can imagine that the scattershot inspirations and execution of this album might be an attempt to dive into the psyche of a character like its own subject. But I do think overall this might be an aspect of Macabre that has held them back from greater success, it's not like Mr. Bungle where the musical freakshow is the entire DNA of the writing, but something they swap on and off. It doesn't always land for me, either, but this and a few of their older full-lengths hit more often than not.

The vocals of Nefarious and Corporate Death are impressive in their versatility, from gutturals and sneers to higher pitched wails that you might not expect, and then the gang vocals I mentioned before. The guitars have a nice, organic tone to them which seems to work well across the constituent genres, frilly enough for the crisper thrashing riffs, fluid enough for the punk chords, and then some solid effects on some of the leads. The bass playing is quite busy and plunky, and this is a component which can even be highlighted within the sillier tunes, and I could say the same for the drums, these guys are just an overall, musically impressive act even if they only exhibit briefer bouts of technicality among the more simplistic, accessible writing. All told, there's not a lot I can really compare this with, or maybe just too MANY things to compare it with...some of the faster, thrash/death parts recall some Deceased of the same era, and there are obvious punk and hardcore references, but say what you will, Macabre is quite unique, and if you can pull yourself away from the Netflix documentaries, this is quite a bat-shit but well-rationed exploration of the infamous cannibal and necrophile.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://murdermetal.com/

Rest in Pain - Intense Tremor EP (1993)

If you look at some of the earlier Invasion Records releases, the focus was almost entirely on local death and grind, weighted towards the local German underground, but not entirely. You had EPs from Defleshed of Sweden, Fermenting Innards, Lunatic Invasion, Finland's Infera, and this little band of unknowns, Rest in Pain, who put out only this single EP and a couple of tracks on a split before calling it a day. Right from the get-go, you can tell this is not a band to take itself seriously, with the goofy Crumbsuckers-like cover art that looks like something you'd see from a crossover or grindcore band with a dash of comedy, and I think the band also had a sort of 'dress up' look to them similar to Pungent Stench, only with top hats...at least for promo pics, a notable contrast in aesthetics.

Intense Tremor is definitely death metal, with a quirky weirdness to it not unlike a Jumpin' Jesus or The Lemming Project. It's rough and chunky, with a production level equivalent to a solid studio demo, and lots of simple bass guitar breaks poking through the churning, semi-clinical rhythm guitars. I'll admit that the band seems hard-pressed to evoke memorable riffs, and bounces back and forth before more serious, solemn chords and then peppier moments which reveal a punk or hardcore influence, but they also try to pick up the pace into some faster grooves where they start to lose the plot and sound sloppy. In some tunes like "Organ Donation for a Hungry", they are approaching the chaos of Napalm Death grind, but again the drums, while intense, feel like a mess against the riffs. The vocalist does a guttural similar to Barney Greenway, but they'll use a bit of clean vocal and some more ominous, weird growls elsewhere.

Definitely a curious one, and there are some spots here or there where they seem to be digging their heels into that surgical sort of death metal with dissonant chords and grooves, but they just never perfect it into meaningful riffing, you don't get the evil tremolo riffs you'd love from OSDM. Potential? I can't tell you if they were onto something or not, this was pretty weak. So not all of these earlier works bore much fruit for Invasion...two of their other German acts, Fermenting Innards and Lunatic Invasion would go on to create some pretty damn good material, and the label overall would jump into the more popular emergent styles like melodic death or black metal, but Rest in Pain just had a little fun grinding and moshing and (I'm assuming) dissolved somewhere soon after 1994. 

Verdict: Fail [4/10]

Morgue Supplier - A Life Extinguished (2023)

A Life Extinguished is the second in a series of singles planned for 2023 by Chicago sickos Morgue Supplier, and like its predecessor, its focus is on further fleshing out and exploring the band's influences from death and grind, with a fraction more atmosphere and progression than you'd have expected from their earlier full-lengths. There's a clear line here from Inevitability, but I found this particular track to be one of the most interesting they've produced yet, and although it's just as demented and extreme as you'd believe, there are points where it was almost weirdly accessible, with these bouncing grooves and catchier guitars taking over from the blasted, more intense exhibitions of force. It also goes hyper weird at points, shifting numerous times between tempos where the dissonant guitar lines ring out and they almost sound mischievous or playful...

It's probably an insane comparison, but what if there were a band which adopted the grindier aspects of bands like Exit 13 or Cephalic Carnage and then twisted them with a bit of Primus and an organically rendered dissonant brand of industrial metal circa Godflesh? That's what I took away from this tune, and it's highly entertaining, and a little different, without betraying the expectations of Morgue Supplier fans over the past few albums. As usual, Paul Gillis doesn't just deliver his vocals with monotonous grunts or snarls, the guy's got all that going on, but he just slathers his lines over the riffing, as if someone had spit them out in gobs and then they were running down the walls of the song's framework like blood or puke. Add to that an awesome bass tone from Stephen Reichelt, which excels whether it's plunking out fat notes that pop from the incendiary guitars, or with its rawer, blustering tone, and a frenzied, formidable drum spot from Danny Walker (Intronaut, Exhumed, Phobia, and many others). "A Life Extinguished" is every bit as heavy and frightening as its title implies, and lyrically evocative and grotesque, but it's also a hell of a lot of fun.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100075977500489

Morgue Supplier - Dead in Spirit (2023)

Coming off the frenetic Inevitability, Chicago's Morgue Supplier returns with something to further broaden its sound and scope, a track that balances off between a sense for melody and melancholy, and the spastic attacks the band has honed throughout 24 years of destruction. "Dead in Spirit" almost lulls you at first with its gently dissonant flow of chords, but Paul Gillis' savage slurries of rasped and guttural vocals, the ruptures of Stephen Reichelt's bass-lines and the crazy fills let one know that all is not right in paradise, and sure enough, the track swerves on and off the rails of sanity through fits of grinding intensity, tremolo picked death metal riffs and even further, spacy bouts with dissonance, even as a blanket that later covers the softer swerves. I'll mention again the effectiveness of the vocals and bass, the former sounding even more schizophrenic and gruesome over the calmer moments in the music, and the latter having a thick, hypnotic tone that would be fun to follow even if not for all the other band's weaponry firing off in tandem. There's quite a lot going on under the hood of this six-minute cut, perhaps more than what we're used to from many of the individual tracks off the full-lengths, and while I have no idea if there is more in this style coming, it's a good, singular excursion that keeps the palette of illness wet with some fresh ideas that fatten the band's sonic envelope.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100075977500489

Boneyard - Fear of a Zombie Planet (2014)

Boneyard is a solo act of the Spanish musician Noel Kemper, who might best be known for Gruesome Stuff Relish, but also has a good number of other projects which all tend to fall under the realm of horror and exploitation worship, grind and death metal. You can already tell from the cover art that this debut album is focused on both ends of that, a paean to the zombie pioneers George Romero and Lucio Fulci whose seminal films of the walking dead are still venerated today. Kemper does all the instruments and vocals here, so expectations should be tempered; this is unlikely to provide some high budget, technical death metal, but rather one man doing the best he can with what's he's got as he pays tribute to the splattered guts and hollow stares of the monsters that helped define his upbringing.

To that extent, I actually think parts of Fear of a Zombie Planet sounds pretty amazing...he's got this super raw and ripping guitar tone which is a bit of a mix of the British grindcore legends and the classic Swede death metal, and he's unleashing a bevy of catchy hacksaw riffs in there, an awesome distorted bass tone, passable programmed beats and then a lot of undercurrent samples of screams and such. Even the wacky, amateur leads sound cool as hell when they erupt out against the rhythm guitars. Musically, this album is fairly on point at what it needs to be...but there is one major problem...the throaty, raspy, garbly vocals are placed WAY TOO LOUD in the mix, and pretty much destroy the production of this album. This is not uniformly the case, there are a few moments where they get a touch softer, but for most of the direction this is a massive distraction that spoils what would otherwise have been a good listen, it sounds like someone listening to an album in the background and then barking into a microphone over it with some effects pedals.

It's not even that the rasps are that bad, I think they'd work fine at a lower level where you just let those ripping fucking guitars take the center stage, because they are the best written and most professionally produced part of the recording. But at this volume the flaws become too apparent, and it just erases the value I could get out of the cool riffs, cover art, zombie and cannibal lyrics. To be fair, I have heard bits of a more recent album he did called Return to a Zombie Planet, and the vocals are mixed in much better there, though the songwriting was slightly different. I think this debut would probably be worth remixing and remastering with a re-recording of the vocals, maybe some better live drums, but keep the guitar and bass tracks; you could have a little cult classic here for fans of stuff like Exhumed, Ghoul, Impaled, or the rosters of labels like Razorback Recordings. As it stands, that one significant flaw just gets in the way, there is no escaping it but to shut the disc off.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100039975052457

Brain Famine - Die in the Vortex (2022)

Brain Famine is an exciting local Massachusetts prospect which performs an explosive melding of death, grind and thrash, meticulously sculpted so punch more riffs through in mere moments than a lot of bands can do over much lengthier tracks. This would be enough on its own, but add to that a judicious use of eerie melodies or leads that will catch you off guard, and a harrowing vocal style that uses a bit of reverb and hoarseness to create this psychotic, splattering effect that is a lot more exciting than it might prove if he was just barking out your typical guttural or rasp. Die in the Vortex is their second full-length, unsigned for some reason (a status that I'm sure will not last much longer if any labels WITHOUT a famined brain actually hear it), and a dizzying array of speed, technicality and aggression.

I'd almost say their sound is a fusion of something like modern Napalm Death, Altars of Madness and crossover hyper-thrash, that took just a couple semesters of Tech Death studies at the University of Abuse. Vocals bark out in patterns more familiar to the grind sphere, but the guitars that are much more bewildering than your usual four-chord speed-punk, and I for one appreciate the level of proficiency and ambition. Often they'll erupt into these nasty thrash sequences set to interesting, shuffling rhythms, but nothing lasts too long as the band jerks you into yet another memorable pattern that is simply too fast for my old neck to headbang along to. The lead guitars or more melodic runs are short and to the point, but yet another element of elevation which makes the experience even more compelling and well-rounded. The bass tone here is effective, thick and punchy, while the drums are a verifiable tornado of technical aptitude which perfectly compliments the rest. Lyrics and titles are also sharp as a tack, hell I was an English major and I had to look up two words as I was listening through this one (I'm sure you can guess in the track list).

It's REALLY intense, and if you're not ready for it, Die in the Vortex might prove exhausting, but again, most the tracks here are kept very concise between 2-3 minutes, so you don't even have time to realize that your head is about to spin off before it does. The one exception is "Endless March" at over 5, and to be honest I rather like that they space themselves out here, it's got a lot more of the intricate, excellent melodic guitar work and reminds me a lot more of brooding late 80s tech thrash (mid-to-late Coroner, for example). This album clocks in at around 23 minutes, so there isn't too much room, but I'm hoping more like this would appear to flesh out future full-lengths. That said, the area in which they specialize, the shorter, more spastic material is also so well done that I have no real complaints, but it could be better served with a little more of this variation to balance it out. Brain Famine is certainly one of our better local technical extreme metal acts at the moment, imagine Revocation as your gateway drug and then proceed directly to this, controlled bursts of 'off the hinge-ness' that will resonate and reward across multiple listens.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

https://brainfamine.bandcamp.com/

Fluids - Ignorance Exalted EP (2020)

It was somewhere in that 2019-2020 range when word about this band really began to blow up my feeds. Maggot Stomp was a (rightfully) hot new label at the time, known for producing gruesome and catchy old school caveman death metal, and Fluids was one of its most hyped acts, at least in my recollection. So I gave the debut Exploitative Practices a spin, and just wasn't feeling it quite so much as I was Vomit Forth or Sanguisugabogg, but there was at least something tangibly grotesque and repulsive enough about it that I can understand the attraction. As you can already tell from the disgusting collage artwork that you'll not soon (or ever) unsee, there's a bit of a throwback here to vintage Carcass, only what results is more akin to the style that New York butcher squad Mortician popularized through their career.

Ignorance Exalted is pretty much par for that entrails-splatter course. Essentially you've got deathgrind slowed and reduced to its most primal urges...slow, chugging rhythms, hightly distorted over programmed drums that are just as ugly and raw. The vocals are a monotonous blur of gutturals which serve as this massive, ominous shadow over the grime created behind the super distorted blend of beats and chords. There is nowhere near anything resembling a catchy riff on this album, and so once again it begs that Mortician comparison, because for all the fun that band brings, it's not one you listen to for a couple tunes that are going to stick out in your head, but rather that overall effect of crushing sickness which gives you both a genuine feeling of dread and a bellyful of ironic laughter. I think the small difference here is that Fluids uses more of an industrial/electronic influence here on cuts like "Quartered", and they don't stick to the same sample parameters that those Will and Roger are so fond of. So this gets a more bizarrely urban and apocalyptic vibe to it, and sometimes the percussion is even kind of funny by its own right.

It's heavy as fuck, there is no debate on that, but I did find myself getting really bored because of the lack of anything interesting happening in the rhythm guitars. Even if the vocals might come across as generic, they're still very monstrous and effective, and I wish some of the riffs churning along below them would better catch my attention, rather than just seeming like the first patterns that come to mind. If the band transitions into blasting, it feels too stark and sudden and thus doesn't transition too successfully at all other than in the most rigid and modular fashion. There's also a gimmick with the song titling where they just use the past of some verb common to the brutal death metal and grind lexicon..."Capped", "Smothered", "Chunked", "Coerced", you get the drift; it's amusing for the first couple times, but then the commitment to the practice just doesn't seem to yield anything amazing. There are certainly some fun bits, like that messy lead in "Chunked" that I wasn't really expecting, and I think there's a TON of potential if they could keep this immensely oppressive sound and then write some earworm riffs to complement it, but I just don't know that I'm there yet.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

https://fluids666.bandcamp.com/releases

Ghoul - Dungeon Bastards (2016)

It would be remiss of me to discuss Dungeon Bastards without first mentioning what fun packaging the CD comes with. Not only is the rear cover a mock-up of an old Dungeons & Dragons module, but the center of the fold-out is also a ridiculous roll & move board game complete with rules and everything, simultaneously helping flesh out some of the worldbuilding for their whole Creepsylvania schtick. The lyrics within are accompanied by an adventure narrative which ties the whole thing together as a concept album for all their Ghoulunatics to enjoy. As silly as it all might seem, few bands put such effort together for a product that can be appreciated well beyond just its listening capacity, and top that all off with some great comic-like artwork by Mark Richards of Heavy Hand Illustrations, and what is arguably the best of the band's album productions to date, and you've got the band's strongest attempt yet at breaking through into the wider metal audience...

On the other hand, despite all Ghoul has going for them this time, the songs themselves aren't quite so memorable as the packaging, or at least they don't start off the lineup of tracks here on the strongest of footing. This is still the same grab-bag of grind, thrash and death metal they've been serving up since the beginning of their mystery project, and it's more exciting than Transmission Zero before it, but the riffs don't always land with me, not because they're badly written or unfit, but just because a lot of the note patterns are just familiar to myself or others who have explored these sub-genres before. They still punch pretty hard thanks to the excellent, level production values that provide equal impact for the drums, guitars, and multiple vocal styles, but it isn't until "Dungeon Bastards" itself, or their fan anthem "Ghoulunatics" that I'm running into some riffs that really stick out to me, both well balanced attacks of their grinding guitars, fast-paced percussive battery, gang shouts and some really nice little metal leads, especially in the latter. I feel like these would have been better to kick off the whole album rather than "Bringer of War", not that it's bad but just suffers from some of the blander riff selections.

Thankfully, on the whole, the Ghoul personality shines through the whole affair, with the interchange of carnal rasps, thuggish gutturals and even some rhyming spoken bits that remind me a little of stuff like GWAR's manager in how they interplay with the rest of the chaos. The musicianship is on point, especially in how they balance out their tempo shifting and the pace of the album overall, and if you're down with this sort of 'funhouse' spin on the Carcass styles circa 1989-1993, or Ghoul's own sister acts Exhumed and Impaled, or Exodus or Vio-lence style thrashing on Fabulous Disaster or Eternal Nightmare and beyond, this is structurally on par with just about any of that. But apart from the actual mix of the album, with its wonderfully chunky guitars and effortlessly consistent rhythm section, there aren't really as many new ideas within the music itself as there are for the cover artwork. Superficially this exceeds its predecessors on all fronts, but it's the trifecta of We Came for the Dead, Maniaxe and Splatterthrash where they hit their peak charm, so I'm still more likely to pull those out of the cauldron whenever I need my fix of these four hooded freaks. Having said that, you can still have a blast with Dungeon Bastards cruising around with your bros on Halloween night, ganja and silly string in hand, aiming to misbehave.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (taking names, then stomping asses)

http://www.creepsylvania.com/

Exhumed - Horror (2019)

Much like its simplified, stripped down title, Horror sees a stripped down version of Exhumed which is reaching back to its earlier turn-of-the-century roots as a proper post-Carcass death grind. In fact, it almost one-ups their debut Gore Metal in how it so rapidly executes the stylistic decision. That's not to say that all of the band's recordings in the interim lacked these aesthetics, in fact they were always present to an extent, but the band had focused on a lot of thrashier, even more melodic elements, and frankly it often ended up with some pretty great songwriting. Now, to be fair, this is no record of absolutes, there are some mid-paced thrash breakouts, and the same entertaining and frantic lead guitars they have been spewing forth the last decade or so, but it's certainly one of their fastest if not the single fastest album of their career.

For death & grind diehards who probably dropped the band after Slaughtercult, or staunch fanatics for earlier Carcass, Napalm Death and Repulsion, this is probably a godse....goresend?! They're getting all of that primal energy, short tracks that almost all fall between the 1-2 minute duration, the mix of snarls and gory guttural vocals that the band has always championed in the Carcass tradition, and if they're also gore/horror fans, a very sweet retro artstyle on the cover which is nearly as cool looking as the last album Death Revenge. The chainsaw guitars and buzzing bass lines come fast and furious, the drumming is intense, and the core of the group's sound is all present. The energy is palpable, Exhumed show no signs whatsoever of slowing down or experimenting beyond what is expected of them, and the lyrical topics are a pretty stock selection of paeans to horror tropes like slashers and zombie flicks. Horror checks off almost all the boxes that it should, but if I'm being honest, as much of a fan of this band as I've become through the years, I found this one solid, but also lacking...not in kills, but in thrills beyond a few select riffs and leads.

To me, lot of grind music falls into the trap of constructing a string of average, derivative punk, thrash or death metal guitar riffs and accelerating them to the degree that their momentum alone can seem to obfuscate the fact that they're quite dull when dissected. The better albums of the genre are the ones that rise to this challenge and manage to offer a new spin, a new sound into the pummeling velocity. Take bands like Antigama, or some of the recent Napalm Death albums, as examples of how this can be kept fresh and alive; but for every one of those, there are scores of others which simply exist like an echo chamber of aggression. Granted, you could say this same thing about any other metal sub-genre, sure, but with grind and deathgrind it always stood out more, since the music was just so spastic and frenzied that I felt I should be more engaged. A lot of the tunes go in one ear and out the other, with the only reaction being 'that was fast' or 'that was angry'. A very temporal visceral response. Horror suffers from this to an extent, but it maintains just enough of Exhumed's charm, production standards and competence over its 15 tracks that 26 minutes that it gets a pass. But there's simply no way I'd break this out over Death Revenge, Necrocacy, Anatomy is Destiny, or their first two, Gore Metal and Slaughtercult, which already gave me what I'd want out of this one, only with better songs.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://www.facebook.com/ExhumedOfficial

Humanity Delete - Fuck Forever Off (2016)

I'm assuming that Rogga Johansson initially intended his dozens of death metal projects to mirror certain individual traits of the many influences in the genre he was weaned on, but the problem with having such a prolific body of work is that the sounds of these bands all tend to bleed into one another to the degree that they become entirely indistinct. As the years continue to roll by, and his catalog becomes deeper still, this grows even more tedious. If you had plunked Fuck Forever Off down in front of me and told me it was the latest Paganizer, or Megascavenger, Revolting, or Ribspreader, I might not know the difference without the actual logo staring at me. Surely there are a few microscopic variations, in both production and composition, but largely any changes come with what personnel he's lined up to work with.

For Humanity Delete, one of his true solo projects, there really aren't any...it's just Rogga alone doing what he's done many times before, and while that's often been good enough, here it just isn't anything of interest. This particular outlet started out with more of a death/grind sound, as I can recall from the middling debut Never Ending Nightmares in 2012, but much as Bolt Thrower evolved from that style, so too does Humanity Delete. The sound manifesting here is more of a straight to the face, slower and groovier variety of death metal which to me felt like a mix of early Grave, Dismember and Bolt Thrower. Spongy, thick Swedish tone, lots of chugging, some grooves, perhaps even some of the death & roll influence his countrymen pioneered. Leads happen at appropriate times but are largely ineffectual. The vocal style is a very dull guttural which is near impossible to distinguish from so many other efforts he's been a part of, and the rhythm section is adequate, with potent drums and bass that sounds thick but usually doesn't deviate too far from what the rhythm guitar track is playing. I think the production is overall well handled, it does give a modicum of depth and atmosphere to the material despite its blandness.

Don't mistake that I think Fuck Forever Off is in anyway incompetent, it's just painfully average. I actually look up to Rogga a lot, it takes some serious dedication to constantly produce albums like this one, this man loves this genre as much or more than any other individual on our planet, and he's got plenty that I'll still break out from time to time. But I don't think I could count more than three riffs on this entire 31 minute experience that I had any real desire to listen through more than once. Tone and style are 100% legit, but the music is just uninspiring whether it's plodding along on tank tracks or breaking out into a faster progression. The Joe Petagno artwork is cool, and as usual Rogga has a bunch of cool song titles like "Lairhunter", "The Hatchet Cleaves the Night" and "Flesh Panzer", but the music simply doesn't do much to evoke the concepts into something that will really fire up your imagination like the early death metal acts that this one venerates did in the 80s and 90s.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10]

VHS - We're Gonna Need Some Bigger Riffs (2019)

VHS might be one of the first bands I've come across purely through social media; I initially saw their page recommended to me, must have been on Facebook, around the time they put out their debut Screaming Mad Gore back in 2016. Their name pretty much says it all. If you were 'privileged' enough to be around during the old Blockbuster rental years, renting or purchasing stacks of VHS tapes for horror and exploitation films, felt the campy thrills and gnarly shocks of all that formative sleaze and gore, then you already know what these Canadians are all about. Most of their tunes are either direct or indirect tributes to specific creature and slasher films, served up on a pallet of dynamic riffs that cover a good array of sub-genres.

Sure, VHS fits pretty snugly into that largely West Coast US scene of schlock horror acolytes that includes the likes of Exhumed and Ghoul, with a healthy heaping of other acts like Cropsy Maniac, Macabre and Impetigo. They don't take things all that seriously, but they obviously love what they do, and without much sense of irony, even the cheesy films and stories to which they pay homage. The cartoon cover art only adds to the charm that these are a bunch of guys who might be hanging out in a garage or basement in your neighborhood, 80s posters on the walls, B-movie slashers on the TV, lighting up a joint or a cigarette, pounding some brews. Enjoying every moment of it. As you should be if you were hanging with them. Somehow, they manage to translate that feeling into a competent, entertaining mix of thrash, death, punk and grind aesthetics captured in a bright, loud, meaty production through which every neck-straining riff is felt straight to the face. I would say that the central style most relied upon is thrash, which comprises a lot of the energy here, from the more uptempo material to the breakdowns, but they certainly go off on whatever tangent they feel without the album ever feeling strained or like its trying too hard to please everyone.

The more gruesome elements are in the vocals, a set of low gutturals and rabid snarls which hearken back to the tradition of good ol' Carcass, which is no surprise when you saw the other bands I had compared this to above. All of these are performed quite well, although you could say they were fairly standard for their styles, not especially gruesome...maybe the sustain on the lower growls when they are sustained for more than a second, but otherwise just functional, fun vocals, and they go well with the bigger grooves on the album like in "Marine Monstrosity". When it comes to the more hard hitting, structured death metal riffs that alternate with the thrashier parts, you definitely pick up vibes of mid-paced stuff like Obituary, Bolt Thrower and earlier 90s Cannibal Corpse. Melodies and leads are no strangers to the Canadians, who spice up several of the tracks so you're getting a little more than a one-track beating, they clearly put a lot of effort into making the 14 tracks on this album varied enough that they all actually mattered, without one feeling too repetitive of another.

Toss in a tight rhythm section, some guest vocals from Matt Harvey (Exhumed) and Trevor Strnad (Black Dahlia Murder), lyrics about your not-so-guilty favorite films like Lake Placid ("An Old Lady and Her Crocodile"), or Creepshow 2 (or least I think that's what "Oozing, Bubbling Black Mass" is about), and you've got yourself a pretty good time. The focus isn't entirely on nautical horror flicks but certainly with the cover art and a number of the tunes that is a prevalent theme (they've even got a "Zombie vs. Shark" song). Have you heard a lot of this stuff before? Certainly with bands like Ghoul, Blood Freak, Frightmare, XXX Maniac, among others, but it doesn't really get old when you're having fun with it, and We're Gonna Need Some Bigger Riffs surpasses Screaming Mad Gore with exactly what it advertises.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

https://vhshorror.bandcamp.com/releases

Impetigo - Horror of the Zombies (1992)

Horror of the Zombies is not much of an evolution upon its older sibling Ultimo Mondo Cannibale, which is to say that it remains the most basest of death metal songwriting, minimal riffing that would make even Autopsy of this period look more complicated. But as I said with the debut, it was never meant to be. Impetigo celebrated the crudeness of the form to a fault, far more obsessed with how they dress up their tracks with lavish serial killer samples than they are at crafting any sort of nuance within the rhythm progressions, drums or vocals. For a lot of their audience, nothing more was needed, and if I'm being honest, I feel much the same provided that the experience on the whole provides some memorable atmosphere or guitar parts, which Ultimo Mondo Cannibale didn't.

But this album does. Granted, this thing is dumber than a rock. The chord progressions all seem like the emergent British grindcore gods of the late 80s being strung out and slowed to a moderate hustle, or crawling along with the first few notes that come to mind. There's a little more to riffs like the one that opens "I Work for the Streetcleaner", which seems like it could have wound up on the Death or Obituary back-lot, but in general there are painful few here that stand out among others. What gives the record its charm are the frilly, weird leads that almost sound like insects approaching your ears when they appear, because you're just not expecting them. Or the blunt growls and garbled grind snarls of Stevo Dobbins. The bass guitar is thick, and buzzes you like the swill at the bottom of the communal coffee pot when nobody bothered to bring in any new filters for a new batch. The drums clang and thump along like an array of pots and pans in the background, not to say that they don't catch and anchor all the right grooves, which make up well over 50% of the album, these sodden, loping, knuckle-dragging bludgeons that well-represent the gaudy undead crew on the cover.

The samples are pretty good, if you're okay with bands using them so often, and they certainly set the tone that this band loves its cult horror, murder and exploitation, which is in my estimation their most influential aspect. You'll recognize direct film references like "Wizard of Gore" and "Trap Them and Kill Them", all of which would go on later to inspire (and even name) many other bands, so these Midwesterners had their shit together when it came to their taste in the obscene. I like when they go even more over the top with the atmosphere in something like "Cannibale Ballet", where the drums set the stage for some warped, freaky vocals that seem more like some emulation of a soundtrack rather than a metal tune. Frankly I'd listen to an entire album of Impetigo engaging in such absurdity because it suits them well. The lyrics are solid, simplistic but effectively written with some ghoulish imagery, and there are also a lot of grooves on the album that still sound perfectly moshable by today's standards.

Like Ultimo Mondo Cannibale, this is so primal that it just doesn't age, there is some gruesome impulse at the core of all of us which can appreciate how straightforward this is, and certainly if you haven't heard the band but enjoy records like Severed Survival, Cause of Death, To the Gory End or The Dying Truth then this is a decent, if not exceptional gibbet of gore slathered in that old Wild Rages Records cheese. If your battered VHS and DVD collection looks similar to the local butcher block, then its a given. I don't always break out Impetigo's records as much as their peers from that seminal period of death metal, but when I do, I prefer Horror of the Zombies.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (making love to the cadaverous whore)

Carnal Diafragma - Grind Restaurant Pana Septika (2017)

The impressions I once took away from the violence and spasticity of grindcore have long since abated for me, and these days I find myself searching far and wide for bands in this niche that can craft up creative riffing, interesting aesthetic themes, or successful cross pollination into other genres. The same old sped-up punk and core riffs don't really work for me, nor does the shock value or silliness of the vocals that I once got a laugh out of. Sure, the eccentricity and extremity of the lyrics might still get a tickle, or just the notion that there are so many bands out there still doing this and loving the fuck out of the style, but it's not often I reach for a record of this sort beyond the early goregrind staples already in my collection. So I've begun examining a little deeper into the European stuff, in particular the Czech scene which seems to have had a thriving grind scene for some time now.

Carnal Diafragma is fairly standard for the goregrind style, with effortless blasting, thick rhythm guitars spewing out riff patterns from the Carcass and Napalm Death playbooks of the later 80s and early 90s, and a mix of vomitous gutturals and gremlin snarls that are going for the gut laughs. They also pair these up with a couple churning, groovier slow sections where the riffs actually sound pretty solid, but you kind of get the drift in the first few tracks and there isn't much beyond that to surprise you. These guys aren't sample-heavy. There are a few, but usually they cut right to the chase and serve up a salacious menu of tunes that sort of stay on-theme with the album title, basically about disgusting delicacies. It's kind of a cute gimmick, but since I can't speak the language or even read the song titles without a translator, and there's nothing musically out of the ordinary to convey the vibe that you're in some grotesque bistro, the theme is only flesh-deep. Having said that, I don't think diehards for this style of grind would be too disappointed, because they capture as much excitement as possible into the tempo shifts, the cut-off riffs, the occasional breakdowns.

The production here is excellent, good and loud but not feeling like polished silverware. The utensils
Carnal Diafragma serves you with have been well washed in guts and goo, and the album will not lack for kicking your ass straight into the cauldron and then seasoning you up. The vocals blend together pretty well, again very voluminous but managing not to overshoot the guitars, and there is enough dynamic range within each of the 1-2 minute tracks that you'll never be bored, partly because they don't give you the time to, but mainly because with a 22-year history and numerous albums and splits already behind them, they know the ins and outs of this madness. I would even go so far as to say they can come up with a catchy riff about 1 out of 5 times, which is a good average in this style, but as many positives as I can lay upon Grind Restaurant Pana Septika, it's just not that addictive, a gruesome gourmet that you'll soon forget about once it vomits forth from your nethers.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

http://www.carnaldiafragma.wz.cz/

Squash Bowels - Grindvirus (2009)

Poland is another heartland for grinders of the gorier persuasion, and Squash Bowels have proven one of the more enduring of their carnal connoisseurs, with 25 years experience and a long laundry list of pulverizing splits and albums. Plus they've just got one of those band names that sticks out to you, probably for all the bad reasons, because who hasn't felt this way about their digestive system after catching a stomach flu or eating some very, very wrong?! It's a bit of a surprise, considering their name, that a lot of their lyric focus in the past hasn't necessarily been all that gross, but their 2009 effort Grindvirus definitely has a slight waft of scatological violence about it, although not attaining the stench levels that many of their peers do on a regular basis.

It's hard not to label this Napalm Death worship, because really they just have so much in common with those British Godfathers of grind that you could interchange a lot of their riffs and vocal patterns and not know the difference, especially from the period around Death by Manipulation, Harmony Corruption or Utopia Banished. Perhaps not a direct clone, because there are a few differences, like the meatier production used by Squash Bowels, and a guttural vocal that has a little more personality than Barney's muffled roars. They also do some slower groove parts that almost sound like nu metal (as in the parts of "D.I."), primarily because of how those riffs are paced with the lower tuning. But when they're belting out one of those downtrodden, brutal fast riffs they sound exceedingly close to the source of their genre, and to me that was one of the limitations. I can't pick out a single riff on this entire album that was remotely interesting or unique, they're all par for the course, no matter how much of a thick, crushing production they are given as they repeatedly pummel the fuck out of your ears.

Maybe the issue is that my expectations are too high for this style? I mean I hear a group like fellow Poles Antigama, who keep their riffs quite compelling and establish a unique mood for the genre, or even Nasum, who succeeded by tossing a healthy heaping of catchy d-beat Swedish death metal into their grind-matrix...and I'm on board. But here on Grindvirus there just isn't anything a lot by which I can distinguish them. Don't mistake me, the production here is quite good, the energy is obvious, and they have a lot of the veteran hallmarks, even some pretty cool cover artwork. This is even put out here through Willowtip Records. I'm sure folks over at the Euro festivals can mosh the shit out of this material, but all I get here is 28 minutes of battery that doesn't really endure even in the midst of experiencing it.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

https://squash-bowels.bandcamp.com/

Deathcore - Spontaneous Underground (1990)

Long before becoming the classification for guyliner-drenched moshing metrosexual angst, Deathcore was a relatively unknown German band performing a splattering of punk and grindcore which felt almost as spontaneous as they hinted at with the title of their Nuclear Blast debut. Looking and often sounding like a lost Sore Throat or Lawnmower Deth recording that never made it out through Earache the same year, Spontaneous Underground does nonetheless manifest a small sense of personality in juts how ugly and un-fucking-caring it sounds, the epitome of a bunch of dudes in jeans, high top sneakers and whatever hand-me-down metal attire they could scrounge up writing a bunch of violent, energetic music that cares little about subtlety or intelligence.

Deathcore actually draws on a number of influences, from the grinding Earache outlets up north of them in Britain, to the crossover thrash endemic to the US West Coat circa D.R.I., Cryptic Slaughter, and The Accused; you might even hear a little S.O.D. in a particular breakdown or two where the band pulls on its splattery reins for a couple bars. Loads of rehashed punk riffs sped up to a junkie pace, and then splayed out with other sections into longer-than-expected tracks. Spontaneous Underground is a long, long damn album for its style, clocking in at over 52 minutes, with tracks ranging from five seconds to over seven minutes in length, a few clicks of a beat and some chords to 'epics' that are constantly shifting around all over the entire riffing and tempo palette of the band. To be honest, that's not saying a lot, because I swear there are a hell of a lot of riffs on this album and almost all of them are the most insipid, forgettable sort that don't seem as if they took more than actually applying your palm and fingers to your guitar to create.

Looking for any sort of interesting progression of chords? Seek elsewhere, the only time you might be surprised at all here is when the guitarist throws out a noisy little spontaneous noodle or weird indie rock riff ("Dolphin Instinct") which feels more like a mistake than anything else. The vocals and lo-fi nature of the recording definitely save it some punk cred, since they have that timeless, earnest, amateur quality about them which we venerate on a lot of early punk and hardcore recordings. But man, when you consider just how much material this band is tossing your way, it's a damn shame that so little of it actually sticks. The loose fills and cadence of the drums, the splatter-style vocals set at various levels of shouts, screams and saturation, and the unfortunately-rebranded band moniker are all things that widely outlived the actual guitars and songs, and that's sadly just not what I seek out in a record like this. That said, it's mildly interesting in its obscurity for being on a label that would go on to explode as much as this one; and not terrible if you dig the DIY mentality usually associated with its style.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

Antigama - Depressant EP (2017)

Antigama have always been one of European grind's strongest advocates and ambassadors towards the future, applying slightly more technicality and modernity to a style that often feels as if it's simply composed of too few tricks and variations. Experimenting with chords, atmospheres, and note progressions that aren't so easy to predict in their frenetic presentation, the Polish band manages to somehow find a style to themselves but rarely repeat a lot of the minute details that go into each composition, while never coming close to abandoning the fundamentals that so many listeners will recognize from their early exposure to Napalm Death, Extreme Noise Terror, Terrorizer, Agathocles, and the like.

The Depressant EP hits you straight up with a concept on its cover, a RELEVANT concept, which isn't just mindless political shillery, and then frames it with the sample opening to "Empty Paths", a labyrinthine assault of dissonant guitars and head-spinning blast work adorned in snarls, protracted screams, and yeah guys I gotta mention the drumming a second time in this sentence because it's utterly fucking sick. For a 2-ish minute tune, the band's specialty here on anything but the title cut, they certainly pack in a lot of beating, a lot to think about, and ultimately something more worth revisiting than your average sped-up 4-chord hardcore/punk configuration which has to depend all too much on a charismatic barker. Antigama has the vocals AND everything else in check, with a musical delivery that is for all purposes flawless across the instruments, but never wanky, showy or unapproachable beyond the sheer intensity that this genre unleashes upon your ears.

They also know how to thrive in these post-modern or industrial-feeling elements, through the voice effects or samples or just the odd chords that embellish cuts like the opening of "Room 7" with a loose, jazzy guitar feel. The ambient passages constructed here, like the first minute of "Depressant" itself, or the interesting way they launch the percussion in the finale "Shut Up", make you feel like you're wandering these cold-lit passages of modern living, where each of your steps is guided by debt, family and societal pressures, regrets, guilts. In fact they do such a good job on this element that I wouldn't be opposed to hearing them put out a purely contemporary industrial/ambient record with even smaller flourishes of grinding where they would do the most impact. They've really been on an incline with their prior full-lengths, Meteor nudging past Warning, and The Insolent hitting a new summit, and the material here is no exception, standing roughly even with that latest full-length in breadth and quality, just a slick, interesting and effective 19 minutes of 21st century grind. The blue pill is not even an option here.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Antigama

Exhumed - Death Revenge (2017)

Innovation is an unlikely event at this point in the trajectory of California's Carcass-inspired death-grinders Exhumed, but I'm not sure if it's even needed. If they can consistently deliver the goods like they have with their 6th full-length (discounting the comps and re-recording of Gore Metal), and sound like they're having a whole lot of fucking fun doing so, then I just don't see myself growing the least bit bored listening to it. This is not a band which has ever let me down, not to say that all their records have been equivalent with one another in quality, but there isn't one among them that I'd put on and not enjoy to some extent. Having said that, Death Revenge is the most entertainment I've had since Anatomy is Destiny in 2003, and it wisely carries forward a lot of the little permutations they first made on that album to glorious results...

In fact, I think Death Revenge serves as a sort of retrospective of all their output, perhaps never going quite as visceral or heavy as Gore Metal or Slaughtercult, but certainly putting the pedal to the deathgrind and keeping pace with some of their faster canon when it needs to. Much of the writing here is of a mid paced, clinical death/thrashing variety, consistent with Necrocacy and All Guts, No Glory before it, very heavily focused on eking out memorable riff patterns and then splattering them with all manner of wailing, amusing heavy metal leads. Exhumed started to take on a more melodic quality on that third album which they've maintained, and it simply adds so much more variety then had they just kept channeling Symphonies of Sickness or Necroticism. They never quite go full on heavy metal or rock & roll like their inspirations did as the 90s wore on, but keep the progressions punchy and intricate, with lots of flash and flair, as in cuts like "Defenders of the Grave" and "Dead End", busy and kinetic enough to mask the fact that you've probably heard most of these riffs before, and not afraid to splay you out with the meatsaw blasting when it fits.

The mix is clean and balanced, maybe a little too dry or polished in places, but to make up for that it delivers clarity between the rhythms, leads, percussion, snarls and gutturals, even the bass as it pops and plunks and thunders along, often using a lot of simpler, sustained notes under the kinetic guitars to give the sound a nice roundedness. The leads here are every bit as precise and competent as on a Surgical Steel or At the Gates' At War With Reality; a component of the band that has become so important in that it precludes them just endlessly aping their first two albums, which were much more unhinged in that department. The blasting is furious enough to balance off against the headbanging mid-speeds and breakdowns. What's more, there are lots of subtle little nods here to thrash and death metal icons of past and present, specifically a few evil Slayer-like progressions or moments where you feel like you've been submerged in some long lost Death track from the late 80s. Lots of details for something that is essentially as straightforward as past outings.

Furthermore, this is just aesthetically satisfying, with an orchestrated, cinematic piano/synth/string intro well worthy of horror classics in the 70s and 80s, reaching a huge crescendo before the bands kicks up the grave dirt and twists your head off in its zombified arms. The artwork choice is really fucking awesome, a folded up poster look from some cult US or Italian cinema which is more than likely gonna involve mobile corpses or some psycho you're not going to want (or get) a second date with. The lyrics are genuinely excellent, with a lot of effort put into them and a lot more elaborate prose than your typical gore mavens, a really cool grave robbing theme and narrative set in early 19th century Scotland! All the pieces are in place here, perhaps not for a true classic of the decade, or even a year's end contender, but just an extremely competent, seasoned record that seems rather timeless in its appeal despite the fact that it doesn't have all the best riffs and vocals exactly where you'd want to shove them. I even kind dug the cover of Exodus "A Lesson in Violence", if only because it was cool to hear them try some blasting and Schuldiner-like growls in it, instead of copying it straight up.

Just a great album for applying your Halloween prosthetics, or kicking back some drinks while you wait for your buds to show up for a slasher marathon. Easily recommended to fans of Impaled, early 90s Carcass, Ghoul, Ex Dementia or the last three records by this very band, Death Revenge proves yet again that Exhumed is one of our very best, dependable American death metal acts, where so many of its peers and precursors flicker, falter and occasionally fuck right off.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (Child of the grave in name and fact)

https://www.facebook.com/ExhumedOfficial

Morgue Supplier - Morgue Supplier (2016)

One of the reasons Morgue Supplier is one of the most exciting death/grindcore mutations to explode from the States in the 21st century is the sheer strength of the influences they bring. The acceleration and impact which so define the genre are present in spades, but where many comparable bands like fall a little flat is in the lack of ambition they weave into the songwriting. Sped up hardcore punk riffs I've heard a million times before just aren't going to cut it in 2015, and neither will sounding like a momentary testosterone spasm accompanied by vapid snarling and barking. Granted, this trend had started to shift in recent years with bands like Antigama and the late Gridlink expanding the field through more unique guitars and song structures, but these Chicago area psychopaths mete out a level of energy and disgust so furious and personal on their eponymous sophomore full-length that you feel as if you've actually been punished, something I've rarely attested to this niche since its late 80s birth.

If their name didn't give it away, Morgue Supplier lean more towards the 'death metal' side of that equation, upon a bedrock of Napalm Death-like blasting and chord grooves, only filtered through a more atonal, unusual note progressions, which at times reminds me of both the classic Voivod and perhaps even a little industrial filth redolent of an alt-universe hyperventilated Godflesh. There are all manner of individual riffs here which show roots in anything from tremolo picked OSDM to impious death/thrash to the whipping, dissonant frenzy of noisier American metalcore bands ala Converge or Dillinger Escape Plan, or the brickwork intensity of modern Cryptopsy; but they'll also lay into a death/doom groove or a more atmsopheric segue when it's best to let the audience take a chance to breathe. You get the feeling that absolutely nothing is off the table, provided that it's sick and feeds into this record's self-fulfilling paeans to murder, addiction and social disintegration; and to that extent the album is 14 tracks and 41 minutes of unforgiving hostility that will at the very least put you in stitches, if not a stretcher...which is kind of what the name implies. Polymaths of punishment, tirades of tempo shifting torture that never forgets the importance of having actual guitar riffs to reinforce the abuse.

Vocally Paul Gillis employs a number of attack schematics, from the sustained, grotesque guttural of a Martin van Drunen to the raspier snarls so often associated with this style. But what puts this over the top is the use of more robotic filters on several of the lines that just make it feel all the more angry and inhuman, dystopian and overwhelming. A bad battery acid trip. Mechanical malcontents. Rather than just rattling off syncopated, monotonous lyrical lines like sabers, there is an intense feeling of discomfort and personal pain captured in the ugliness of the expression. Teamed with the fat, pungent bass lines and a rich, bludgeoning guitar tone that measures off both the fury of the chords and the street light shine of the higher pitched, natural dissonance of the strings, there is just so much pressure being applied at almost any point on the album that you feel strangulated, but right when you're about to lose consciousness they'll switch to something a little simpler and let the senses of vertigo and suffocation subside. Anchored by some muscular drumming which coordinates simpler grooves effortlessly into extreme blasting and bass-rolling overdrive, this band sounds insanely driven, and sort of how Napalm Death's latest Apex Predator - Easy Meat kicked off 2015 with its death grinding excellence, Morgue Supplier has set an early benchmark for aggression in the new year. I'd warn you to wear a helmet, but all it would really do is keep the contents of your head contained once they explode.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10]

https://www.facebook.com/morguesupplier?fref=ts

Cloud Rat - Qliphoth (2015)

You know how sometimes you get a new record from a band that you’ve never heard of before, and it takes you a few songs or a few listens to really feel captivated by what is going on musically? Qliphoth is not that album. You will know after the first few songs whether you are all in or not, and I sure as hell hope you are because this is a great album.

Qliphoth opens with a tranquil vocal line, but it does not take long for the true form of Cloud Rat to manifest and unleash their incredibly catchy variety of grindcore. I honestly feel a little out of my depth even talking about Cloud Rat in terms of genre, as I mostly gravitate towards the more well known bands from the genre - earlier efforts from bands like Napalm Death, Carcass, and Bolt Thrower to name a few. And, well, there has been a hell of a lot of progress in the genre since the 80's.

Cloud Rat is loud, aggressive, and fast, but they punctuate the more turbulent riffing with moments of calm, giving you a chance to come up for air. Like clockwork, a string of loud, fast, loud, fast will be interrupted by a calm instrumental or an opening riff that gives you a time to brace yourself before the inevitable avalanche of noise that is about to drop.

In fact, my favorite portion of the album is the five song sequence that begins with “Raccoon” and ends with “Udder Dust.” “Raccoon” begins with a slow three note riff that builds to include additional instruments and eventually vocals. It is a nice resting place, after the onslaught of the previous three songs, and the songs that come after “Raccoon” are among the most intense on the album. Cloud Rat is at their peak on “Rusting Belt,” which channels all of the bands aggression into the first minute only to resolve in the spoken words “arson is a form of self-expression in a place where you can’t express yourself.” Vocalist Madison Marshall puts in a hell of a performance on this album, but this spoken line, the only one of the album, was the one that stuck with me after I listened to it for the first time. I have since looked at the lyric sheet that came with the record, but this one line feels like the thesis statement for the entire album. It is poignant and powerful, and if it doesn’t make you want to set fire to the suburbs then you’re not listening to it loud enough.

While I don’t think I can call this the best album of 2015 so far, it is probably my favorite. Unlike some of the more technically impressive efforts I’ve heard, there is something about Qliphoth that I keep coming back to. The record feels like bottled lightning in that they managed to channel all of their sound into aural catharsis, and I find myself wanting to flip the record and play it all over again when it’s done.

Verdict: Win [8.0/10]

https://cloudrat.bandcamp.com/