Rotten Sound
Murderworks
Necropolis / Deathvomit
Yet another offering of fine splattergrind from one of the best record labels in the world. Maybe ever! Deathvomit is my Chess Records! Murderworks contains fourteen short, sharp shocks of extreme gorecore (along with some horror mood pieces) that all clock in under three-and-a-half minutes. Now that’s almost a Mountain Goatsian level of brevity and preciseness! Nice! One thing that smacks me in the mouth about Rotten Sound is that they bring an almost hardcore punk sensibility to the gore metal genre. There’s as much Extreme Noise Terror and Doom in the mix as there is Carcass. This aesthetic shift is most evident in the spittle-flecked and eyes-bulging vocals, which have HC anguish mixed in with the usual sickness. More societal comment, rather than rolling around in an endless river of human entrails (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Very nice.
A whole lot more urgency to the music too, in contrast to the more sadistic, lingering glee you’ll get from an Abscess, or Disgorge, for instance. Rotten Sound is an interesting mutation. The fuzzed low-end bass chaos, thick sludgy guitar, and blast beat drums are all pure gore grind though. Oh my god, the sound is so deep! The stomach-churning rhythms are to die for. More suffering!
“Targets” does an incredible job of setting the tone for the rest of the record, half ambient tension, before bursting into a distorted blast-beat seizure of thirty-second sociopathic tendencies. “Revenge” is just pure fucking evil, the sound of your house being ransacked by an army of homicidal crackfiends – almost Masonna levels of noise punishment, yet still within the grindcore idiom. “Doom” breaks out some fun self-flagellating screams in amongst the grunts and blast beats. “IQ” totally reminds me of Brujeria all amped up on cheap Tijuana steroids. Man, they do an homage to Napalm Death’s “Suffer” and stretch it out to a marathon 11 seconds! Yes! “Obey” is comparatively sprawling, covering Today is the Day masochism, grindcore hate, mid-paced mosharama, death growls, and even a little industrial metallics and punishment. “Lobotomy” feels like it=EDs buried under a few feet of packed, wet soil; the music is solid with tangible disgust. “Agony” is the closest sonic equivalent, it begins with a churning riff accompanied by a nagging feedback whine that explodes into lightspeed hardcore blurs. Veins bulge to the point of separating from the skin and exploding. It ends with two minutes of ominous ambient rumble.
Murderworks is total Hemorrhaging crust grind, like Napalm Death on HGH.
Necropolis/Deathvomit Records: http://www.necropolisrecords.com
