[May 2006]

BLOOD FREAK "Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Flesh-Eating Corpse!" Cd

(Razorback Records - RR37)
Release date: 2006
Running time: 67:30

Review: This is the quintessential Razorback album, the perfect hybrid of all the label's aspirations from old school grind/gore, thrash metal, death metal, doom to exploitation flicks & horror comics! Like the previous Blood Freak cd this album is still very much Grind/Gore/Death Metal at the core, taking a Impetigo meets Carcass/General Surgery meers early Entombed/Grave main direction, except this time a whole lot more ingenious thrash metal arrangements are added to the mix (in the vein of the latest Frightmare album perhaps), complete with wah solos and guitar effect that really bringing out a different, really exciting edge to Blood Freak I think! So the big reveal that Blood Freak is not a real band?! It was a really good prank but honestly anyone who bought that the first album was a long lost album recorded back in the day must be really thick... I however had no idea this was the work of a single person; Color me impressed! Blood Freak definitely sounds full-fledged, even though every instrument is recorded individually by the same person, execution is totally natural, everything flows perfectly and musicianship's exceptional on every aspect, from mindblowing guitar riffing, tight-as-fuck drumming to the blistering roaring and shrieking vocal delivery... I'm not sure what kind of drugs Neil is on to stay that consistently great at churning out excellent riffage in every single band and project he's helming but one sure thing is that I want some too! Song-writing is just excellent, songs are all memorable, catchy, hard-hitting, just cool-as-hell... Blood Freak more than any other death metal bands out there today simply delivers the goods! Always keeping it straightforward, take-no-prisoner, downtuned and thrashing! The styling and musical direction is really steady and strong, this is usually the most positive aspect of one-man bands, you don't have to struggle to mix different people's influences, I'm convinced that's what makes this album such pure, undiluted metal fun! The album still explores a variety of styles, it can be blastbeat grinding, thrashing mid-tempos, go into some d-beat rhythms or have some really cool Autopsy-like doom moments on some tracks like "The Flesh and Blood Show". As usual, tons of exploitation gore and horror movie and trailer samples are worked into the songs to great effect! The booklet is also filled with awesome comic book/vintage poster style artwork, terrific front cover by legendary Ed Repka and really cool inside black & white drawings by Putrid and others... Plus this time a complete lyric sheet!!! Razorback head Billy Nocera is responsible for writing most of them, in a whacky and insane Impetigo-style, meaning plenty of old school horror nostalgia and gore! So that's about it... This album really is the full package!

Tracks: 1)Butchermobile (1:34) 2)Toxic Tomb (2:22) 3)Bad Case Of Brain Rot (1:06) 4)Carnage Castle (2:05) 5)Gobble Up Your Guts Part 2:Revenge Of The Turkey Monster (2:36) 6)Splatter Of The Highest Order (1:25) 7)Mucouspewing Lungslasher (2:28) 8)30 Ft. Arterial Spray (1:24) 9)Full Moon Sacrifice (2:25) 10)Last Grindhouse On 666th Street (1:12) 11)The Flesh And Blood Show (2:40) 12)Worm Face Executioner (2:22) 13)Intermission (0:57) 14)Axe Of Violence (1:18) 15)Goretits (1:58) 16)The Nameless Stench Of Forgotten Celluloid (4:14) 17)The Slaughter Special (1:28) 18)Psychosexual Burial Ground (0:46) 19)Boarding House (2:34) 20)Shriek Of The Mutilated (2:06) 21)Doctor Bitch S.D.(Sexual Deviate) (2:27) 22)The Screamatorium Drive-In (2:08) 23)Right On! (23:55)

www.razorbackrecords.com
www.slashermetal.com

REMASCULATE "Blend In and Juice Them" Cd

(Evigt lidande productions (ELP-006))
Release date: 2006
Running time: 19:03

Review: Remasculate is playing nice and clean swedish death metal, it's quite effective and it's got some blistering grind elements as well... Some solid, catchy riffing, very slightly melodic/intricate but still keeping a very basic/straightforward, crunchy vibe (there's an ex-Desperator member on guitar just to give you an idea), pretty fucking tight drumming (by the drummer of Insision on this one), rhythms are kept pretty fast, some sweet blastbeats here and there, the rest is rather mid-paced parts but delivered with tons of groove, kind of Entombed-style... Last but not least some dual vocal work, alternating roaring growls and piercing shrieks! Not the most memorable or original-sounding band ever of course but this is still 10 songs of tightly-written, well-executed and pretty intense grinding death metal, well above the norm, in my not-so-humble opinion; Remasculate just gets the job done here... The sound production is pretty smooth, not the heaviest, just clear and conveying just the right amount of aggression! The band's got an air of Birdflesh, from the slick grinding death metal style to the similar gory, twisted sense of humor that's displayed through the lyrics (not quite as hilarious as Birdflesh though but still good fun). All in all, a quality cd, short but sweet! The band's got plenty of samples on their websites, so the best would be to maybe just check this one out for yourself!

Tracks: 1)Til The Stench Do Us Part (2:33) 2)Mens True Asian Obsession (1:51) 3)Bon Ape Tit (2:47) 4)Subway Doomsday (1:50) 5)Cum On Everybody (1:22) 6)Prostitutor (1:46) 7)Get Rid Of That Butt & Get A New Fag (2:05) 8)Rhoid Rage (1:01) 9)Genital Haipiece (1:50) 10)Blend In And Juice Them (1:58)

www.remasculate.tk
www.myspace.com/remasculate

BILE "The Shed " Cd

(No Escape Records - NE 019)
Release date: 2006
Running time: 17:07

Review: Another re-edition, this one is also something of a goregrind classic; alright this is originally from 2000 so a recent classic anyway... Bile is pretty close to what Mortician would sound like if they had real live drummer and Regurgitate-flavored pitch-shifted vocals instead of those wacky guttural growls... This is a pretty short ep but content is one hundred percent quality splatterific goregrind, with a killer crunchy sound, great meaty, incisive riffs, beautiful, thick bass distortion... Also, drumming is quite hard-hitting, precise, slightly rigid but varied enough with some solid blastbeats, doomy midtempos and even groovy or thrashing d-beat rhythms here and there! Songs are all short, straightforward, blistering and to the point. Sound production is the perfect blend of downtuned heaviness, distortion and clarity; This band is made of Inhume band members, so just think of Inhume in terms of execution and sound (only slightly crunchier and heavier), it should give you an idea... This stuff reminds me a little of Utopie too. Anyhow, the concept of this whole cd is based on "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2", the weird synth-heavy intro is swiped in its entirety from the opening credit score to the movie, I always thought it was one of the most awful piece of music in a horror film ever, hehe... But I still like it in a cheesy sort of way, this intro works the same way the "Nekromantik" intro does on "Emetic Cult" by Haemorrhage, campy but creepy... All the classic lines from the movie from "Lick my Plate you Dog Dick!" to "Sex or the Saw!" are also sampled throughout. Way back, I used to like Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 alot, I remember renting it all the time... I was a little disappointed though when I watched it again recently, it definitely doesn't hold up as well as the orginal! Still I'm really looking forward to the R1 special edition dvd of TCM2 that's on the way! (check here for info) and don't forget the the new 2 disc special edition of the original TCM coming in September! Anyway, I'm going way off track here, so yeah, this Bile mini-album is a fabulous chunk of slick, basic goregrind, short but really sweet, if you missed the original, you definitely have to get this!

Tracks: 1)Intro (1:52) 2)The Shed (1:58) 3)Boiling Flesh (0:41) 4)Prime Meat (1:34) 5)Bile (1:11) 6)Defleshing Of Bones (3:26) 7)Gutted (1:35) 8)Smashed And Battered (1:10) 9)Bloodsoaked (1:04) 10)S.C.E.X. Or The Saw (2:36)

www.noescaperecords.com

MUCUPURULENT "Sicko Babe and More Babes " Cd

(Necroharmonic Productions - Sleazy 017)
Release date: 2005
Running time: 60:44

Review: Behold one of the best Gut/Dead worship album ever released, this is Porngrind with the sleazy groove of "Odour of Torture" and the tightness "You'll Never Know Pleasure...". What's german Porngrind? Basically it's got the sickening sound, simplicity and rawness of "grind" except it's played much slower and with tons of groove added, I guess it's kind of a stretch to even call it grind as this really sounds more like midtempo death metal with gurgling vocals but heh, that's just the way it is... This has insane amounts of groove, really cool lowtuned riffs, just tight and catchy songs, extremely sick gurgling vocals and wacky Gut-style girly screams. I remember seeking out this album after Dead Infection's drummer listed it in his top 5 in an interview! It's gonna be almost ten years since this one originally came out, and I guess this one became some sort of cult classic, for me anyway! I used to dig this album when it was out and I still dig it to this day! It's not perfect, the vocals can be repetitive but some of these screamy choruses have some great hooks! The band tried to stray away from their influences on their subsequent album and inevitably got pretty boring! The Gut/Dead clone thing was the point of this band and it worked great for them, why change things? Anyhow, this cd doesn't stop at being a "Sicko Baby" re-edition, the "Bizarre Tales of the Abnormal" 1995 Demo, the Split w/ Cabal & a Regurgitate cover are also included as extras and these tracks are really reason enough to get this cd. The demo has quite a good sound production, these are mostly cool alternate demo versions of songs also found on the album with a few more Gut/Meatshits-style seconds short noisecore-style tracks... The Regurgitate cover comes with an aboslutely filthy sound though! Also included are some of the lyrics which were not even printed in the original cd (although it seems like the band only wrote lyrics for the screaming parts, as the words for the main gurgling vocals are nowhere to be found, hehe)... You've also got nice and infromative liner notes from the band members, some band pics... Nice looking packaging and booklet. Simply a very well done and worthwhile re-edition!

Tracks: Sicko Baby Cd 1997: 1)Intro (2:01) 2)Lacerated Tits (1:41) 3)Cybersex Deliria (1:50) 4)Scrotal Hernia (1:36) 5)Oral Sex Masturbation (1:36) 6)Mangled To The Gore (1:01) 7)Pussy Berzerker (1:48) 8)Suborbital Ejaculation (1:23) 9)Abhorrent Dissection (1:26) 10)Splattering Nirvana (2:03) 11)Vaginal Cancer (1:32) 12)Gays Errection (2:28) 13)Cumshot Messiah (1:48) 14)Stainless Spoon (2:13) 15)Corroded Testicles (1:25) 16)Splatter Whore (1:41) 17)Fistfucked Barby (1:34) 18)Spermsoaked Bitch Consumer (2:16) 19)Pierced By A Driller (4:07) 20)Extra Uterine Pregnancy (Disastrous Murmur Cover) (0:45) 21)Urethral Discharge (0:09)
Bizarre Tales of the Abnormal Demo 1995: 22)Corroded Testicles (3:04) 23)Strangled Bitch (0:20) 24)Rectovesical Pouch Of Peritoneum (0:05) 25)Spermsoaked Bitch Consumer (1:37) 26)Vaginal Cancer (2:34) 27)Lacerated Tits (1:39) 28)Anal Intruder (0:11) 29)Orific Of Urethra (0:19) 30)Cavity Of The Cervix (0:06) 31)Infundibulo (0:05) 32)Pelvic Ligament (0:08)
Remind the Bizarre Split 7" Ep w/ Cabal 1998: 33)Oral Sex Masturbation (2:03) 34)Stainless Spoon (1:46) 35)Fotzenkrebs (2:33) 36)Pussy Berserker (1:32)
Tribute to Regurgitate Cd Appearance 2001: 37)Effortless Regurgitation Of Bright Red Blood (Regurgitate Cover) (1:19)
Bonus Material: 38)Gay's Erection (Recorded 95) (1:49) 39)Splatter Whore (Recorded 95) (1:27) 40)Raw, Brutal, Rough & Bloody (Recorded 97) (1:44)

www.necroharmonic.com

ANATOMIA "Dissected Humanity" Cd

(Necroharmonic Productions - Sleazy 016)
Release date: 2005
Running time: 45:25

Review: I didn't know anything about Anatomia before popping in this cd, but you can count me as a fan now though! Old school Doom & Death Metal influences are cleverly entwined in the music of this awesome japanese band! I'm hearing equal amounts of Incantation, Demilish, Winter & Autopsy influences which is refreshing to hear in times where Suffocation clones proliferate... The sound production is excellent, with some really great, heavy, profound sound textures, lowtuned, slow-burning, crushing riffs, superb, haunting basslines, deep guttural vocals, only the drumming is maybe a tad too quiet in the mix, slightly drowned in the background... Otherwise, this whole album sounds purely excellent and the whole album had an almost mesmerizing effect on me while listening... Everything here is clearly designed to sound like something out of "Mortal Throne of Nazarene" or "Mental Funeral"... Songs have the occasional grinding or faster elements but for the major part things are kept at an agonizingly slow pace here... Still everything remains very captivating, rife with intense, gripping riffs, rich sonorous depth and some really gorgeous, extremely deep vocals from beyond the grave! Pretty original artwork and a complete lyrics sheet which is very commendable! The cd logically ends with an Autopsy cover version... If you're into doom/death like Coffins, this band is just as good! It's amazing, I knew japanese were good at playing grindcore but they seem impossible to beat in terms of quality doom metal too!

Tracks: 1)Carnal Mutilation (3:25) 2)Tortured Bleeding End (6:39) 3)Drowned In Sewage (5:45) 4)Funeral Feast (5:03) 5)Suicides (1:49) 6)Deceased (7:45) 7)Morgue Of Cannibalism (5:41) 8)Only Consumed By Dead (6:13) 9)Stillborn (Autopsy) (3:05)

www.necroharmonic.com

GUT "The Cumback " Cd

(Necroharmonic Productions - Sleazy 018)
Release date: 2005
Running time: 36:51

Review: So that's it... Among the come-back of favorite old bands, let's say Regurgitate & Dead Infection for example, this is definitely the most disappointing. I wouldn't say this is a disaster but opening an album with a 5 minute hip-hop beat and boring introductions rapped with a german accent is definitely not a good sign... Thankfully the rest of the album has some actual of their usual midtempo, sludgy death/grind style and I gotta admit the sound production is exactly the same as it was on "Odour of Torture", a portion of this stuff is also actually pretty decent riffs here and there, some of the basic vocals didn't budge at all since the old days... The problem is that if you strip everything down of intros and all the hip-hop filler tracks (of which there are quite a few) you might be able to fit all the worthwhile stuff into a nice 12 minutes Ep... Most of this stuff actually sounds like re-hashed old song replicas with some additional wacky vocal elements that don't mesh so well, mostly them shouting "Break It Down"!!!... I guess this nu-grind approach is supposed to be funny, I'm not really getting it though; Some of the intros are taken from "Austin Powers" or "Team America" and while amusing, they mostly just seem pretty random... All I'm getting out of this is joke "grind" on the level of bands like Gronibard, which is fine but I don't know, you'd expect a little more from Gut... Some people used to complain about overlong porn samples on the old stuff, but minutes long hip-hop interludes and absurd R&B female vocals are infinitely worse... More than half of this cd is clearly filler material, with the rap/remixes surely being the worst parts, leaving us with very little listenable material... Compared to "Odour of Torture" which was shock full of memorable, catchy and sick songs this album just seems very lazy. You've got a fun "making of" feature video included (the same kind of thing Ultravomit did it on their cd), which is pretty fun to watch, it doesn't make up for such a mediocre album though... Some decent parts here and there but on the whole this album leaves alot to desire...

Tracks: 1)Pimpiro Featuring MC Unilingus (4:33) 2)Pimpin The Underground (2:05) 3)Jenna Haze (You're A Pro) (1:09) 4)Freestyle Fuck-O-Rama (0:52) 5)Three Handsome Guys (Rock The Block) Featuring Angela Spectulum (1:27) 6)Reign In Bukkake (0:48) 7)Let Me Be Your Sperm Factory (0:27) 8)Girls (Just Wanna Have Cum) (0:04) 9)Drink My Spit Featuring Angie Spirale (3:36) 10)Mrs. Boomfuksicc (0:24) 11)G.U.T. Forever Featuring Willie Idol (2:05) 12)Fuckology Inc. (0:21) 13)Aurora Snow (You're Not Bad, Hoe) (0:42) 14)Throatjob (It's A Dirty Job, But Someone's Gotta Do It) Featuring Anal Admiral (1:31) 15)Pussy Pitch And Penis Punch (0:38) 16)How Low? Featuring Maria Felatio (3:23) 17)Choke On My Rock (0:39) 18)Nymphos Without Pants (0:18) 19)Anal Tambourine Featuring Willy The Kid (1:16) 20)I Hate Chicks (But I Love Pussy) (0:33) 21)By Boner, Your Dinner (1:14) 22)Song For Heather (2:19) 23)Panzerwoman 666 (0:18) 24)Next Level Shit (2:16) 25)Strap It On (Outro) (2:08) 26)The Magic Sound Of Lonely Hearts (1:45)

www.necroharmonic.com

MESRINE "Jack is Dead" Cd

(Power It Up - P.I.U. #55)
Release date: 2005
Running time: 77:33

Review: That's a hell of a lot of tracks! Here we have a partial discography for this fine canadian grind/death band; This is a collection of split ep & full length ep recordings punctuated by a handful of unreleased songs (I counted a total of 6, 3 tracks from 2004 opening the cd and 3 tracks 2002 later on)... The most recent material is presented upfront, then the collection goes back in time with splits w/ Fuck the Facts, Pulmonary Fibrosis, Needful Things, Krush, Irritate, Noisecore Freaks, Glaucoma, Septicémie, Dahmer, Rot & Neuro-Visceral Exhumation... The style is raw, crude and basic grind with a heavy, downtuned and growling sound (not to mention pounding doublebass) that somehow also links it to death metal, but then you've also got quite a whole lot of d-beat type drumming infusing some crust vibes as well, I can't exactly pinpoint a style for this band, it's just tough for me to categorize them! Simple but crushing riffs, extremely prominent bass sound (who said too much?), monstrous, raging, roaring growls coupled with some really pissed off shrieking backing vocals... No frills sound production, it changes from recording to recording, from fairly clean for the first portion of the cd to progressively rawer, dirtier and crunchier as the cd advances, some of it can be pretty fucking rough but most of this stuff sounds good enough to me. The last 4 tracks are live recordings and sound almost as good as the studio stuff if not better (band sounds way more intense to me on those tracks) so that says a lot... Anyway songs are solid, consistently bad-ass and thoroughly encrusted in grind through and through the cd... Though I gotta admit 77 freaking of minutes of this stuff is alot to take in and can get repetitive, muddy or dissonant in a grating way... Listening to this in one sitting definitely munched my brain! The fact that the band is canadian and naming each of their tracks after a different sociopathic killer (that's quite a collection of freaks by the way) as well as playing crusty grind/death, they can't escape the comparison to Dahmer of course, but musically Mesrine's got quite a different, more guttural vibe... A cross between Agathocles & Hideous Mangleus maybe?! Anyway, this cd is filled to the brim so you'll definitely get your money's worth of some of the heaviest grind/death shit around!

Tracks: 1)Alain Quimper (2:30) 2)Gary Ridgway (0:48) 3)Ernst Jean-Pierre (2:35) 4)Orhan Babutcu (2:59) 5)William Goad (1:26) 6)La Six (1:34) 7)Ti-Noir Le Ramoneur (1:38) 8)Yoo Yung Chul (1:51) 9)Michel Fourniret (1:47) 10)Michel Verreault (2:04) 11)Serge Quesnel (0:37) 12)O.B.L. (1:26) 13)Bean (1:38) 14)Richard Barnabé (0:52) 15)David Côté (1:50) 16)Krystof Masiak (1:32) 17)André Gagnon (2:29) 18)MF (0:09) 19)Magloire Poissant (2:38) 20)Skinner/ Smithers (0:54) 21)Guy Georges (0:46) 22)Charles Bishop (2:54) 23)Jack (1:23) 24)Gino Camacho (1:03) 25)Conrad Brossard (0:46) 26)Dave Hilton (1:25) 27)Couloir De La Mort (1:26) 28)Vital Lemyre (2:03) 29)Mom Boucher (0:37) 30)Andrew Cunanan (2:43) 31)Behram (2:42) 32)Victor Lemyre (2:21) 33)Guy Georges (0:44) 34)Timothy McVeigh (2:14) 35)Gilles De Rais (1:51) 36)Skinner pt. II (0:12) 37)Murder In The Aisle (1:36) 38)Jacques Mesrine (1:43) 39)Paul Bernardo (0:53) 40)Valery Fabrikant (1:19) 41)Nou-Bom-Kon (0:47) 42)William Fyfe (1:13) 43)Monica La Mitraille (1:27) 44)Apu (1:56) 45)Charlot (1:38) 46)The Clown (1:01) 47)Skinner/ Smithers (1:00) 48)Michel Verrault (2:07) 49)Serge Quesnel (0:43) 50)Bean (1:43)

Label: POWER-IT-UP   ZUM HOLZFELDE 12  31226 PEINE   GERMANY  TEL.: 0049-(0)05171-82646
http://www.power-it-up.de/

EXHUMED/INGROWING Split Ep/3" Cd

(Obscene Productions - OBP 064)
Release date: 2006
Running time: 13:04

Exhumed Review: This release is possibly a way for Exhumed to make it up to Curby for the time the band had to cancel their appearance at Obscene Fest! The band even dedicates this release to the czech scene! Anyway, this is a nice little split coming in both 7" Ep & tiny 3" Cd format. The Exhumed side consists in an elaborate 5 minute track and two shorter, grindier throwaway tracks, including an old school Napalm Death cover version ("Life?"). I shouldn't have to explain Exhumed to you... But oh well... You've got thrashing riffs, followed by punishing grinding parts, sick, splattery dual vocals... And then the band breaks into some pretty wild guitar solo-ing mid-song too, you know the deal! The shrieking vocals have a slightly different vibe than usual but otherwise this is pretty typical Exhumed stuff... Sound production is excellent as usual. It slightly sounds like Exhumed on autopilot but that still sounds better than just about anything out there!
Ingrowing Review: Ingrowing's side was recorded at the same time as their recent full length cd, so expect more of the same, maybe just check out my recent review for more ranting on the band... Anyhow, this is solid, hard-hitting czech Grind/Death... Nice, thick guitar tone, very catchy riffage, bombastic drumming with tempos ranging from blasting speeds (<mostly that) to groovier rhythms, plus of course dual vicious high pitched snarling/lower bestial growling vocals, etc... 3 songs, all very intense, direct and to the point, the last track is a Regurgitate cover version, it even comes with slight vocal effects which is a nice touch! Overall, simply a pretty good split Ep, this should satisfy fans of both bands!

Tracks: Exhumed "Something sickened this way comes": 1)Something sickened this way comes 2)Consumer or consumed 3)Life?
Ingrowing "To clone and to enforce": 4)Biomechanized 5)Dance of submission 6)Total dismemberment of a female corpse

Label: www.obscene.cz
Band: www.ingrowing.wz.cz