Short Bus Pile Up - Repulsive Display of Human Upholstery (2010)

It would be difficult for me to discuss Short Bus Pile Up's Repulsive Display of Human Upholstery without first mentioning how absolutely phenomenal it looks. Not only 'graced' with one of Jon Zig's very best works, but I love how the Virginians' nearly unreadable logo really jives with the image behind it, that ghastly display of bones and flesh turned into room trappings. Even the fucking ceiling! One can just imagine the individual responsible for such a feat, taking the old 'Most Dangerous Game' plot to a whole other level of artistry, and clearly this is one of the best horror-themed visages I've ever seen for a death metal album. But it also comes with a caveat: that my superficial expectations for this music were set immediately quite high for the actual music.

No, Short Bus Pile Up do not quite live up to that level, because frankly there's nothing creepy, shocking or incredibly distinct about the music they perform. Hell, there are single riffs on oldies like Leprosy or Cause of Death that are more frightening and evil than the sum of every song on this disc. Once you're past the familiar, misogynistic brutality of the lyrics, song titles and artwork, it's nothing out of the ordinary. But that aside, where I find the value in this group is that they have one of the better takes I've experienced on the 'slam' subgenre of the style. Eschewing the meat-headed monotony of many of their peers to create an album that is better balanced rhythmically, they provide plenty of punch for the flailing fisted pit monkeys and also some uptempo, clinical surges of intensity that generate excitement. The songs are more highly developed than the earlier material I've heard, and add to this the very deep, murky and nihilistic production values of the record and there's no doubt this is serial killer slam to which few people are going to remain still...

Vocals here are a wretched guttural deep enough that it could very easily camouflage itself against the low tuned guitars and bass drum, and yet the three seem like a trio of neanderthals beating each others' children and tribeswomen over the head, dragging them back to their respective lairs, and keeping score on the wall with cave paintings of each others' blood. The riffs are never blindingly complicated, but there is clearly a bit of effort placed into the faster sequences, almost like a crud-soaked technical thrash that generates some excitement for those breakdowns; a crucial contrast that prevents the album from becoming boring. It also helps a lot that the lion's share of the songs are really short, around 2 minutes, but still pack themselves with plenty more note progressions and tempo shifts than your garden variety grind or gorecore. The mix to this is fairly organic, also, somewhat lo-fi in comparison to a lot of the other slam bands I've checked out. It can seem slightly muffled and under-polished, without those rich and meaty modern tones, and the bass lines on this album seem like little more than an afterthought to the guitar chugging, but it's desirably honest all told, like they recorded it in someone's $2500 basement studio.

Apart from maybe its great title and cover, I'm not sure Repulsive Display of Human Upholstery is going to ascend to a cult classic status 5-10 years down the line. But for what it is, it's pretty entertaining. Short, under 30 minutes with a few alternate song versions stitched to the end, and it never grows boring. I'd like to hear even more of that variety they hint at in the future. They've got the brawling and bouncing palm-mute rhythms down pat, but lack some wild, incendiary leads or atonal, freakish melodies that would create a more fulfilling atmosphere. Also, though they're unlikely to cause much friction with strict devotees of the genre, I get a little tired of the Cannibal Corpse/Mortician lyrical trappings, which these guys never seem to escape here unless you count the few scatological leanings; though in a few of their disgusting rhyme schemes they evoke a handful of memorable lines. I suppose after staring at that artwork for about 15 minutes every time I return to this disc, I just want something so much more atmospheric and sick; but taken at the music's face value, it definitely could be the start of something promising. Fans of USDM butchers Devourment, Lividity and Deeds of Flesh should check this out.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (bound by bruises)

https://www.facebook.com/shortbuspileup

Slaughter Brute - Systematic Transmutations (2012)

With a handle like Slaughter Brute, you'd expect this Ukrainian act to pull out all the stops and deliver one of the most grinding, grueling and grotesque experiences in death metal. And yet, there's a curious level of refinement to their compositional skills which renders their sophomore outing Systematic Transmutations slightly less crushing and more adventurous than I was predicting. Not that it's necessarily anything new in terms of technique or versatility, but there's just so much happening on this album that you're never given a moment's breath to think much about it. Of course, all of the traits common to brutal/tech death metal are present: pavement pounding double bass beats, guttural barked vocals, punching grooves and arpeggio skills all collapse into a controlled chaos.

This is 100% one of those mildly progressive, surgical and scientific albums which is not going to appeal to anyone whose idea of death metal ends at around 1993 and can't seem to stomach anything that isn't simply an endless recycling of those early aesthetics. Slaughter Brute has far more in common with acts like Spawn of Possession, Psycroptic, Necrophagist and Beyond Creation than Grave and Incantation. Systematic Transmutations is also a pretty clean recording, with little atmospherically occurring beyond the instruments themselves. The harried, machine gun percussion is polished and placed straight against the ears, while the guitars tone is thin and punchy enough to handle the rhythmic acrobatics, with plenty of digitized effects on the lead harmonies and upstart melodies to counteract the mute-streams and picking spasms. The bassist is particularly good, shifting between a low tone and some plunkier hysterics, and I found myself often following what he was rolling out beneath the frenetic arpeggios and contained chugging sequences. In truth, all of the instrumentation is up front and personal, clean but not so sterilized that it doesn't feel reproducible in a live environment, and if you think about it, this is fairly essential for a band performing which such precision timing.

The lyrics revolve around mind control and other forms of scary experimentation, dystopian technologies and a few traumatic situations like "Victim of Incest", so it's not strictly the gore, rape, and necrophiliac violation; it may, at times, actually try to make a point, and it's clearly more unique and interesting than their first album. Though the band's logo and the title font here are kinda cheap looking, the artwork is quite excellent, an H.R. Giger-styled fusion of bio-organic forms and machinery with a sexy symmetry that provides almost an optical illusion. Ultimately, I got quite a lot out of the record after numerous listens, with particular favorites in "Not Learned Integrants", "Hypoxemia Neural Phenom" and "Cyanotic Purulence". The intro and interlude pieces are well done, short ambient segues which reflect the band's futuristic ideas. It's neither perfect or incredibly memorable, and it won't be for everyone, since it's almost the antithesis of the Autopsy and Incantation worship currently trending; but if you're open to this sort of spurious and clinical modern death, then these guys should be added to your radar.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

http://www.slaughterbrute.com/

Morgul - Lost in Shadows Grey (1997)

Morgul has got to be one of the least known Norwegian extreme metal acts to have achieved their level of visibility, had anyone actually been looking. With albums out on Napalm Records, Century Media and Season of Mist, you'd think that they would have stirred up some further conversation, but I am hard pressed to find more than a handful of souls who have actually fucking listened to them, or even heard the name... It's honestly a shame, because most of  Charmock's (aka Jack D. Ripper) tunes are honestly quite good for what they are, and Morgul is probably the only Norse band of those early-mid 90s whose interest was strictly in promoting horror concepts through the genre, as opposed to the usual paeans of mythology, sacrilege and Satanic self-empowerment so common among peers.

Granted, black metal is the means to Morgul, and not the ends, and various of Ripper's albums have forayed into realms of industrial, Gothic and symphonic music. Even this debut, Lost in Shadows Grey, has a lot of riffs molded in a pure Black Sabbath vein (like in the bridge of "Hunger of the Immortals"), so that one could make a black/doom argument and not be far from the mark. Like a more Gothic structured, less psychedelic precursor to Furze. It's easily the most primitive of the project's discography, with really raw guitar tone that seems little more than at the demo level, but I have to admit I enjoyed the fuzzy honesty. The keys are incredibly cheesy, from operatic choir pads to the almost John Carpenter-like intro to "Enthroned", they're almost constantly being used to enforce that haunted castle atmosphere of the cover artwork. Jack also uses understated acoustics, samples of wolf howls and other predictable atmospherics, and very impressively, performs all of the instruments himself. And while the bass is not really important here, and his black rasps are status quo for the genre and not all that significant, he's admittedly not a bad guitarist, piano player or drummer.

Overall, the album does not distinguish itself very much in terms of individual riffs or songs, but functions more as a primal span towards fundamental gloom and morbid, rustic and antiquated European horror. There are a good variety of riffs, from the aforementioned Sabbath-like grooves to the faster paced tremolo lines, but nothing really incendiary like what Emperor or Immortal were pulling off around the same era. The tracks are quite long, and there are only 5 of them, ranging from about 7 1/2-9 minutes, but the journey is 100% consistent through its many contrasts, and you feel that solitary, fell grandeur for the full 41 minutes. I love the swarthy symphonic sequences like the opening to "My Bride...", despite their lo-fi nature, and you get the impression Charmock could damn well have written a number of albums in the vein of Mortiis' 'dungeon synth' style and I probably would have bought every one. On the other hand, I'd be damned to actually pick out a particular track as a favorite, the quality is very level throughout and though structured well, there isn't anything here which is novel or unique enough to really rush back to.

Despite the grandeur Charmock was aiming at here, Lost in Shadows Grey manages to avoid any sense of pretentiousness, thanks to the very down to earth production values. I'm sure there were about a thousand black metal demos in the mid 90s which sounded exactly like this, exploring the campier side of the genre, but I have to say I'm just a sucker for the sound. It takes me back to a place well before that scene really burst open, even though the album's chronological placement was not so early. The crudest of Morgul, no doubt, but still worth hearing, especially if you're a fan of records like Old Man's Child's Born of the Flickering, Dimmu Borgir's For All Tid or Satyricon's Dark Medieval Times. An appreciable gloom to accompany that next cup of tea on some misty, morose, overcast afternoon.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Morgul/26354186855

Ancient - Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends (1997)

Ancient took a wrong turn around 1995-96 when Aphazel decided it was in his interests to channel his inner blood sucker and pursue a course of black metal vampirism not unlike what England's Cradle of Filth and their coattail riders Hecated Enthroned were doing around the same time. Svartalheim had been a pretty solid album, crude and atmospheric but possessing a lot of those primal charms attributed to their various countrymen in the early 90s; it's not well liked, but I honestly don't think the Norwegians have trumped it yet. The Cainian Chronicle, their first record for Metal Blade Records, brought on the wampyr themes, and it's pretty clear to me that someone in this band was heavy into Anne Rice and the pen & paper RPG Vampire the Maquerade ("The Cainian Chronicle", "Malkavian Twilight", etc). Not that a well written game like that is bad source material for lyrics and music, but Ancient manages to transform its fanged obsessions into a laughable parody in place of a sound that might have us jumping at shadows after sunset...

The problem is they just go too far with this formula, and as the result Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends sounds more like an album that creepy circle of incestuous Goth-friends at your high school would write as they share awful poetry with one another, whine about missing the latest Type O Negative gig and paraphrase bland guitar riffs from better bands. The cover itself looks like a lazy garden party attempt to impersonate Cradle of Filth, but what truly sinks this record into the shitter is the use of the various narrative voices that make it impossible to take seriously. With the exception of the two instrumentals wedged deeper into the disc, each original piece is drowned in cheesy Romanticism that comes off like some ghetto interpretation of Lord Byron, Edgar Allen Poe and William Wordsworth, another trait that reminds me a hell of a lot of Dani Filth and his band; only they have traditionally proven far more competent in how they craft their lyrics. Lines like 'bleeding from my lovelorn scars' and 'thou art the answer to all my dreams'. Sure, there's some variation throughout the album, with surprises like the lush and fetching instrumental "Neptune", the tribal piece "5" with its maddened cavalcade of whispers and percussion, and a version of Mercyful Fate's "Black Funeral" which plays it pretty close to the original in terms of pitch and performance, but those are really the beginning and end of its qualities...

Let's be clear: without the lamentably lame vocals and 'character' interactions, Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends would at least be a work of mediocrity with a few appreciable traits like the drumming, which blasts quite firmly where needed and is comparable with other Scandinavian outfits of the period. The only caveat was that there were some sequences in which the kick sounded like my washing machine when it acts up due to overload. The guitar riffs are often just 2-3 chords boringly cycled through predictable architecture, but I have to admit the airy leads and melodies would have been quite nice over a more interesting rhythm section. Keys are your typical haunted house dressings, and I'm sure the band thought they were quite 'eloquent' and 'profound' alongside the lyrics, but they incorporate pianos, clean guitars and even a cello to good effect here. In fact, the production on this album definitely places it in that mid 90s era where bands were tripping over themselves to leap onto the back of the turnip-wagon that was toting Emperor, Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir off to their own respective destinies at the forefront of this genre. But at the same time, it reeks of desperation and creative despoilment, and as if Ancient processed its music too quickly and didn't think of any long term effects or consequences, so unlike In the Nightside Eclipse, Dusk and Her Embrace, or even Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, it doesn't feel timeless...just silly.

A huge part of this is the vocal interplay between Aphazel and Erichte, the latter of whom sounds incredibly bored as she recites her lines through pieces like "The Emerald Tablet" or "Willothewisp", even when she spins a little aggression into her inflection. Hearing these sorts of lines in a call and response with Aphazel's gnarled, Filth-like snarl is goofy enough, but when he refrains particular lines through the album it just becomes a chore, and when he screams lines like 'HAIL SATANIC WITCH!' or 'copulation grins upon my face, as we cum all over this fuckin' place', I can't help but start laughing, as unintentional as the humor might have been when they were writing this. At some level, I suppose the lyrics about love after death, worship of the pale female Gothic form and loads of cliches about moons, wolves, and ravens are suitable to the theme, but Ancient never does anything truly interesting with its material. There's also a lack of total commitment to these vampiric concepts, since "Um Sonho Psycodelico" is a strange piece about inhaling and popping drugs and hallucinogens, and "Her Northern Majesty" is a strange Norwegian pride track you'd have expected more from a band like Satyricon. Azaphel also lapses into these fits of Gothic narrative vocals that render the record even more awkward, as in "Blackeyes" where his voice echoes out over these groovier epic heavy metal riffs...

Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends needed about a year's additional development, and perhaps an outside producer to wade through the heaps of cheesy bullshit and convince Azaphel (who handled this duty here) that perhaps some of his ideas weren't that great. Had those conditions been met, then we might have ended up with a decent, middling black metal record with a few moments of elegant, stereotypical Transylvanian atmosphere that might be fun to break out every other Halloween while we bob for apples. As is, this is a ludicrous failure with an appeal only for its unintended humor or to those L'estats and Pandoras who stopped monitoring the progress of the world after about 1995. The weak selection of guitar riffs simply cannot compensate for how agonizingly awkward everything else feels. A good gag reel, sure, but a poor black metal album.

Verdict: Fail [3.75/10] (yes, my darling, I can hear it too)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ancient/169474939758697

Ezophagothomia - Instinct of Inhuman Devourment (2011)

At long last, the medical knowledge of brutal death metal musicians has surpassed my own; I hadn't the faintest freaking clue what this Ukrainian band's name, Ezophagothomia meant, and after a brief skim of online dictionary resources, I still do not. Not that anyone can really read the logo here in the first place, but I must admit it looks great over the Jon Zig artwork; this guy once again earns his paycheck as one of the finest cover illustrators in the genre, pretty much guaranteed to make your band look effective, and really, I could stare at Instinct of Inhuman Development all day it's got such a great balance of colors and ghastly details. But could I keep listening to it all that time? Yes and no.

Ezophagothomia plays a very structured and chug-heavy brand of slamming/brutal death which would hardly seem a novelty to anyone's ears, and the focus here is almost entirely on the production and intensity rather than the songwriting. They're not exactly terrible at coming up with riffs, because the sheer mechanical confidence of the constant palm muting in of itself can prove entertaining, but like a lot of albums in this niche, the tracks do begin to run on into one another and lack much individual distinction. That said, they're not without some degree of variation in terms of how they pace themselves: deep, muscular grooves are morphed into even slower, bruise & cruise rhythms and occasionally they'll pick up the tempo like the blast in their cover of Mortal Decay's "Rejoice in Moribund". Lots of squeals of various pitch are used to cap off individual guitar phrases, in true brutal USDM fashion, while many of the riffs certainly drew their inspiration from names like Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation and Morbid Angel somewhere down the line.

It's truly the guitar tone that is the star of the show here, it's so rich and full and percussive that it really steers all the action, almost keeping the time more than the drums. Almost guaranteed to please fans of similar acts like Kraanium, Ingested and Abominable Putridity. However, the beats are quite competent with loads of double bass sequences that grind the listeners' bones into pulp. Vocals are a brooding guttural which is often held out and garbled to the point that it creates its own, nihilistic droning gurgle effect. The bass is low and bouncy, but often hard to make out over the squeals and meat of the guitar tone. What the Ukrainian beasts savages seek here is to present the listener with a roiling, fit-for-pit wall of force, and to that extent, at least they succeed. Seeking to score your next fist fight, or to practice the zombie walk? Instinct of Inhuman Devourment would provide a reasonably functional soundtrack to such activities.

Ultimately, though, the incessant, knee-breaking, battering ram grooves that comprise most of the album are in dire need of enhanced atmosphere. Whether this is through the incorporation of wailing lead guitars, which the band seems to avoid, or a greater abundance of the morbid ambiance they capably evoke with the intro and outro track, I was constantly thinking to myself that another layer of musicality would go a great distance towards better attaining my attention. These guys are certainly decent at digging into a brutal breakdown and lathering it with a broad growl, but those become the highlights of the album, and tracks like "When Earth Will Be Tired of Us" and "Parasitic Vivisection" would have been better served with starker contrasts, like higher pitched guitars that counterbalance the feckless low end concentration. From a technical standpoint, I liked the execution of the guitar tone and the packaging to this disc, but it's not much more memorable than the last time you stubbed a toe...which is sort of the point, I'll grant you, but not always the hallmark of greatness.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ezophagothomia/207443599286767

Vile - Stench of the Deceased (1999)

Though Vile was well ahead of many of its 21st century Californian brutal death brethren, that state having become somewhat of a mecca for the style in the past 5-6 years, they still haven't quite made their mark. Even with a presence on some of the genre's better record labels like Unique Leader and Willowtip, I've never heard a lot of chatter about them. I think the issue's always been that, as talented and balanced as most of their output is on a technical level, their songs almost always feel like a piecemeal reconstruction of their various influences, whether on the Floridian (Death, Morbid Angel, Malevolent Creation) or New York (Suffocation, old Cannibal Corpse) side of the equation. That's not to imply they aren't pretty darn good at it, because they actually are, and in fact I'd say their first three records are all well worth checking out if you're into the sound.

Stench of the Deceased was the band's self-released debut, with another great Jon Zig cover (the guy's taste in women is apparently on par with his taste for the undead), but interested parties will instead wish to track down the 2003 Listenable re-issue, which features some solid sounding live recordings and a demo track to boot. Already, after only a few years' existence, the band had a strong sense of professionalism in how they presented themselves in both songwriting and production. This isn't quite so spit-polished as you'll hear in a lot of modern brutal/tech death (to the benefit of some fans, and the dismay of others), but you can really make out everything pretty evenly, from the deep-sprung bass lines to the Corpsegrinder-like belched guttural vocals to the balanced, proficient drumming. The guitars have a load of dynamic range, and there's ever the slight sense of 'progression' in how they composed their tunes. Though there are more than enough balled-fist, lumbering juggernaut rhythms for the anger management sect to get their mosh on, there are plenty of more 'musical' moments, not the least of which are the great, spurious and otherworldly lead guitars.

It doesn't take a long while for Vile to 'sell us' on themselves here, as they exhibition almost the full range of tactical variation on the first tune "Abort (The Fetus)", and then proceed to mix it up throughout the remaining 29 minutes of Stench originals. Lots of Cannibal Corpse-like trilling techniques are implemented, as well as dual grunt/snarl vocal harmonies circa Deicide, and the pacing alternates between uptempo flurries of thrashing force ("Severed") to prog-death patterns like those in "Surgery" that wouldn't have sounded out of place on Death's Human or Atheist's Piece of Mind. Meanwhile the bass drums continue to batter along like extraction machines burrowing beneath a graveyard, and there's always a good handful of riffs involved in each particular track that keep it from becoming monotonous. If there's any flaw, it's that a few of the breakdown elements were insipid and uninspired by comparison to the more hectic, choppy riff patterns, a fault I often found on death metal debuts through the mid to late 90s.

Otherwise, while it's not the best of their albums, Stench of the Deceased is certainly a well rounded effort for the Californians' first time out, and it instantly transformed Vile into a 'player' on that post-advent-of-Suffocation circuit here in the States. These guys deliver live just as much in the studio, and they really were a 'complete package' sort of band. The lyrics are pretty average, similar to early Corpse, but they do their job in snaring you into the murderous impulses of their subject matter. Never content with just hammering away relentlessly on the same few notes, the compositions show quite a lot of effort, even if they don't ultimately establish an identity of their own beyond their influences. A good disc, though I think Depopulate and The New Age of Chaos might make better starting points if you're interested.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (I shift through the insides)

http://www.facebook.com/thenewvile

Mortem - Decomposed by Possession (2000)

They say all's fair in love and war, but if the painfully unsung career of Peruvians Mortem is any indicator, the same cannot be said for the realm of extreme metal. These guys have hands down been one of the finest South American death metal acts I've ever come across, and yet they continue to languish in obscurity while others soak in the spotlight. For example, I'd say I enjoy the four Mortem full-lengths more than almost anything by Krisiun; they might not be as fast and blast-based in terms of how they construct their music, and obviously haven't had the touring and larger label support to back them up, but there is something sinister, repulsive and daemonic about their music which never loses its ominous luster no matter how many times I listen through it...

Perhaps it's most accurate to think of Mortem as a direct South American upgrade to the sounds pioneered by Slayer and Possessed in the 80s. Loads of hyper tremolo riffing contorted through bold, thrashing and drudging evil chord progressions that feel incredibly bright and bludgeoning in the dense mix. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of Decomposed by Possession, their third album, is the vocal performance of Fernan Nebiros, who basically takes that soaked, murderous timbre of Jeff Becera to an entirely new level (think if Jeff's tone was sauteed with some Martin van Drunen). Some of the sustained screams and growls in cuts like "Death Rules Supreme", "Incubus: The Return" or "Blackest Funeral" are just intense, and while one might think they could threaten the rest of the instrumentation with their overwhelming antics, the crunch of the mutes is loud and pummeling enough that it maintains control of the ghastly festivities. Drums are a bit tinnier, though you can really feel the kicks on the double bass sections, and the bass, while not incredibly unique or distinct, is at least pretty obvious. Special attention must go to the leads, though, because they rip off across the ceiling of this jungle like wild, blazing bats colliding into one another.

While I wouldn't dub Mortem 'technical', per se, they're quite adept at setting up more than just your basic riffing patterns. Tracks like "Morgue Rapist", "Blackest Funeral" and "Devilled" reveal a penchant for some threatening melodies, a clinical thrash influence circa Testament or the first Pestilence record, and truly harrowing, blitzkrieg drums that are constantly blossoming belligerent fills into the propulsion of the note progressions. They'll even throw out a lumbering groove or two, like the riff that opens the title track, or a few seconds of ritualistic atmosphere ("Noctivagants") to ensure the record's dynamic range. No boring, monotonous blast-fests to be found anywhere, this lot is well versed in musicality and there's almost always something new waiting around any corner on the album; plus it just feels so fresh and in your face due to the rather raw volumes of how the instruments and vocals are mixed. Even the lyrics are solid; not exactly unique or conjuring up the most complex of images, but simple and effective sagas of graveyard lust, occult rituals and unholy resurrections worthy of the profane cover image.

Stylistically, not a huge departure from the second album The Devil Speaks in Tongues, the main difference would just be that the guitars have more of a blunt, beefy edge to them, and the mix is overall not so even. But therein lies a lot of the charm to this, and it's ultimately well worth owning if you've an interest in such obscura. The band sounds old school and punishing without being overly derivative, and whether your cup of poison flows with Asphyx, Pestilence, Possessed, Sepultura, Vulcano, Morbid Angel or Mutilator, you'll likely enjoy anything this band recorded from 1995-2005.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (a pile of pus outpouring evil)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-True-Mortem-Per%C3%BA/151727424891464

Cancer - To the Gory End (1990)

Cancer was definitely among those 20-30 formative death metal acts around the dawn of the 90s that you thought big things might happen for. Not that they were particularly special or impressive next to their far more crushing UK peers like Bolt Thrower, Benediction or Carcass, but they got in there early enough among the fans of heavier thrash and proto-death that you could see their logo turning up at gigs, their albums out in the local specialty shops. They had also managed to snag one of the more obvious and sought after monikers for the genre, which goes a lot further than you'd think in terms of accessibility when penetrating an audience, even in the underground. Their debut To the Gory End, while not their best album (that honor should go to its followup Death Shall Rises), was a reasonably primal hybrid of the death and thrash genres that always reminds me very heavily of another, more popular act from this period...

And that would be Brazilians Sepultura, circa 1987-1989. A lot of this probably has to do with the mix and production, in particular the guitar tone; both To the Gory End and Beneath the Remains were produced by Scott Burns, after all. There's a nice wash of fuzz on the guitar that gives it that same sepulchral, ripping and downtrodden feel like trudging through a decaying bog full of rotted, half-submerged coffins. However, I also found that the fiber of both the mid-paced thrashing riffs and the faster, tremolo bits were quite similar in how they were composed, perhaps with a few touches of the similar Slowly We Rot by Obituary. This was not a time when many albums were 'fully committed' to either one genre or the other, so Cancer pretty evenly distribute the riffs between the palm muted mosh pit hymnals and the faster paced picking that bands like Slayer and Death brought into the mainstream. The bass is very plunky and difficult to distinguish from the rhythm guitar, but the drums here had begun to incorporate a lot of the double bass and a few of the later crossover-charge beats that would eventually transform into the blast beat. Vocally, I was more reminded of Altars of Madness-era David Vincent than Max Cavalera, if not as ghastly; John Walker has a nice, bloody sneer to his gutturals that keeps them in an admittedly mid ranged pitch.

One of my favorite tracks here has always been the title cut, which opens with a menacing, symphonic synth and barrels through a number of potent riffing sequences, especially the frenetic speed/thrash played out below the vocals in the verse, but there are a number of other cool bits like "Body Count", "Into the Acid" or the spectral "Sentenced to the Gallows" with its threads of cleaner, eerie guitars that glide above the rhythm chords. To be honest, though, even these better pieces don't exactly resonate for very long in the memory, even though they still sound fresh whenever I return for another listen. The leads, where they appear, are fairly wild and zippy, but I always felt like there was simply a layer of atmosphere missing that would have made the lion's share of tracks more ominous and aggressive. As it stands, To the Gory End feels rather stripped in its delivery, and it doesn't have that riff for riff quality you'd recognize from, say, Schizophrenia, Consuming Impulse, Leprosy or Beneath the Remains. Half the tracks were pretty average even for a time in which the very notion of death metal was still a novelty, while the other half were decent enough to hint at a glimpse of future potential.

Lyrics involve, as you might expect from looking at the cover (which was censored in some markets), serial killers, murder, butchery, and hell, even hanging ("Sentenced to the Gallows"); the title track is even a tribute to the Hellraiser film series, so the horror influence is overt. All told, a fairly humble debut which was simply and understandably outdistanced, outclass and out-brutalized by other albums of its age, but probably worth a listen if you're into transitional death/thrash hybrids like Sepultura, Assorted Heap, Sadus, Protector and so forth.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (as they make you ride the blade)

http://www.myspace.com/canceruk

WTN - Rotting in Pestilence (2004)

Beyond the livestock slaughterhouse and the corporeal body itself, blood & guts have rarely manifest themselves so often as in the field of death metal music; and Razorback Records has long been a sanctuary for the campier side of schlock and gore, to the extent that they've often been criticized for taking it all too far, a one trick pony. Hogwash. The late WTN ('War Torn Nation') is probably one of the more obscure acts to have spent time, a Singaporean act whose career consisted primarily of a series of splits, a snazzy anthology featuring Dennis Dread artwork, and this one, bizarre full-length Rotting in Pestilence, which honestly looked like a pretty damn good time. How do you go wrong with a shambling corpse depositing another into a graveyard while an undead tree cheers over your shoulder?

Well, WTN unfortunately didn't 'go right' with it, and this is a fairly inconsistent debut mashing up elements of death metal and grind in fairly even measurements. A huge part of the problem with Rotting in Pestilence is its poor sense of pacing. There's quite an array of material here, 48 minutes being somewhat swollen for an album of this type (though some of the duration is attributed to 'dead' space' in the closing track), and yet the band has front-loaded it with most of the least interesting material. The instrumental title track is a 4 minute slog of dour Bolt Thrower melodies and thuggish, dull riffs that sets up a series of briefer tunes that involve more of the straight, cheerless blasting I've come to expect from this genre. In fact, it's the 'grind' side of Rotting in Pestilence which provides its weakest. Though I'm quite picky in general for the niche, most of the uptempo guitar progressions here are naught more than the same tired punk chord combinations being played at an accelerated rate with nothing interesting or unexpected coming through in the note selections. You heard a lot of this on Napalm Death's Scum, or that albums peers in the late 80s/early 90s, and what presents itself here goes no further.

The production is also a bit muddied, with an overbearing car crash guitar tone and sewage factory swill bass lines kept somewhat raw and basic; don't expect the more refined and intense savagery of their countrymen Wormrot. Occasionally they'll go into these colon rupturing muted sequences at higher speeds where they really start to shred flesh in a pleasing way, but even there the actual notes chosen fail to compel. The drums are rather too tinny up against the bulk of the guitars, I understand this is often done on purpose to create that quasi-Carcass appeal of the late 80s, but they really lose a lot of power as a result, and the guitars are left to just drown everything. I did enjoy the band's sporadic and freakish use of zipping, eerie leads that bounce all over the mix unexpectedly, especially where they'll be used to offset a deeper groove, but when it comes to the stock riffing, the band is sadly average. Vocals are a mix of ghastly gore gutturals and ripping snarls that dwell percussively in the meat of the guitar, but not distinct enough in terms of inherent rhythm to save the music.

Where the Singaporeans become more interesting is where they experiment, in particular the closing cut "Into the Light With Blood" which features most of the better riffs on the disc, including some frilly, frightful melodies that create an interesting spectral presence before the metal fades out, later replaced by what is more or less a dark ambient/horror soundscape which sounds really noisy and raw. I actually dug this a lot, and I liked how raw the application of other samples felt in other tracks, but unfortunately this is wedged into the end of the record, after a cover of "I Work for the Streetcleaner" featuring Mark Sawickis himself of Impetigo. It's a decent rendition, predictable more thrash-based than the band's originals, but I'm not a huge fan of those Illinois cannibals to begin with, so it was somewhat lost on me.

Ultimately, Rotting in Pestilence is hardly one of Razorback's more entertaining efforts. The band's locale might seem novel and exotic, but most of the ideas on this debut are undeveloped and just not that creepy or memorable. The lyrics are decent, primarily spun out of the old Carcass ideas of clinical, gore-flooded imagery, albeit with a more horror/supernatural infusion. The album also doesn't sound much like it looks (except for rare exceptions in the leads), which was a disappointment as I was expecting something more consistently atmospheric.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10] (performing senile necromancy)

Splatterhouse - The House That Dead Built (2004)

One of the stumbling blocks I always arrive at when revisiting the sole Splatterhouse full-length The House That Dead Built is just how close the Oregonians sound to their fellow West Coasters Ghoul. Both bands were involved with Razorback Records, and both put a similar fun spin on that old Carcass sound of the late 80s/early 90s, primarily in their choice of dual guttural and snarling vocal counterpoint which provides most of the charm and laughs. Hell, without liner notes in front of me, I'd just assume that the two bands consisted of the exact same lineup. For a long time, I probably believed this. Ghoul's first two (and best) records had come out before this one, and I liked their riffing progressions more, but this is still a tightly written and executed effort, and I suppose if I wanted to be technical, the slightly less silly Exhumed and Impaled beat both of these groups to the punch.

Right away, the production here is quite excellent, with a rich and pungent guitar tone that sounds like a chainsaw during faster tremolo sequences but also has a lot of meat to it when the band is just letting a chord ring out. The riffing patterns flurry between fits of Carcass-like death/grind and thrashing outbreaks, with a good variety encapsulated in the 34 minute run time. Slower progressions often remind me of Autopsy on their first few albums, or Symphonies of Sickness styled grooves, but the band favor a lot of brighter, sinister uptempo hybrid death/thrash licks that wouldn't have been out of place on Necroticism or even Heartwork at its most abrupt and pummeling. Plenty of blasting and great fills, though the drums can't really compete here with that dense crunch to the guitar tone. The bass is cozy and audible, but rarely distinguished as it clings to the guitar closely. Honestly, though, while there are a dozen or so money shot riffs on this thing, it's really the vocals that win me over, strictly due to their ghastly charisma; whether they're scripted in a call/response pattern or firing off simultaneously, they give you that impression of cannibalistic undead fighting over table scraps, and they even incorporate a deeper, disturbingly guttural timbre to play a sort of 'third character'.

As usual with these Razorback records releases, the horror sample bookends are legion, but Splatterhouse have fun with it, taking quotes from unexpected places like the Futurama cartoon. In fact, I couldn't identify most of them, so it's quite likely some were made up by the band itself; nonetheless they work very well here and create the appropriate, tongue in cheek atmosphere for the raucous tales of freaky parasitic infestations ("Night of the Creeps"), unlawful exhumations ("Confessions of a Grave Robber"), post apocalytpic warriors ("Mutilator"), and all manner of hilarity you might find in B-grade horror films from the 80s, or Troma films in particular. Add to this the band moniker taken from the cult 1988 video game classic (I used to own a copy for my TurboGrafx-16), the colorful cartoon artwork, and you've got what amounts to the quintessential sort of 'Razorback experience', never taking itself remotely seriously and bred simply as puerile entertainment for those with a carnal sense of humor and a love of camp horror/exploitation.

The cover of Canadian grinders Dahmer's "The Hillside Stranglers" is a fitting end to this; with the fattened, abusive guitars Splatterhouse really makes it their own; but The House That Dead Built is honestly quite consistent throughout the eight originals. Where it suffers the most is that the note choices and riff structures here are just not quite up to par with albums like Necroticism, Slaughtercult, Death After Life or We Came for the Dead!!!, and thus I always get the impression of a second stringer, an also-ran. That said, if you can't get enough of that sound, or if you just general love this label's aesthetics, there is no reason not to give it a listen. It's nothing amazing, and I don't feel the need to break it out very often, but it's tight, well recorded, and if you fantasize about having a night out on the town with your favorite machete...well...hack away?!

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (no perversion too large or too small)