Month: March 2013

All these years I’ve been collecting records and I’ve never come across a flexi and all of a sudden I have three of them in a month. When it rains, it pours, eh? I don’t really know of that much stuff on flexi that I want; there’s a Swans “New Mind” promo flexi which I hope to end up owning and a live Enemy Soil flexi, but other than that, there isn’t much else. It seems to me that the format is making a comeback these days. I was surfing and decided to check out how the great people at Pirates Press are doing these days, and their website now has a whole new section on flexi manufacturing. To be fair, the prices aren’t too bad considering the quality of sound you can pack into these things. I think that if you could do two-sided flexis we’d have a new flurry of split EPs on flexi format. What do you think? My first gripe with this flexi is that the hole is too tight (that’s what she said) and the record stays still whilst the platter spins. I have to stick a pen in there and wiggle it about a bit to widen it, which wasn’t a massive pain in the arse but these things are so delicate I was afraid I’d damage the fecking thing in the process. Fortunately, this worked a charm and I was able to spin TFD in all their scatterfucking glory. I really miss TFD. Not that they’ve got anywhere, I just don’t listen to them enough. The songs here are the borderline-insanity grindcore that we all know and love, and whilst I don’t think it really expands upon the TFD sound in any way I do honestly believe if something isn’t broken then there is no need to fix it. I could listen to a hundred of these EPs. Massive thanks to the sadly finishing To Live a Lie Records for pressing this on red, limited to 500 copies.

This is one my favourite splits ever! Limited to 2000 copies thanks to Relapse Records. There is the usual Relapse 100 clear, 100 on orange, a bizarre 50 on white, and the remaining 1750 on black. I was lucky to get a black copy at a fairly decent price, but be wary that the white and orange pressings can fetch hefty price tags on record collector websites. Classic Pig Destroyer are on top form, covering the goregrind legend that is (or was) Carcass. There is simply not a better version of “Genital Grinder / Regurgitation of Giblets” in existence. “Exhume to Consume” leaves a bit to be desired vocal-wise, but for the most part is an ultra-tight, lightening-fast zip through a classic track from the genre. Isis on the other hand, opt for something a lot more slow and dirgy. With Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s Jay Randall in tow they sucessfully create their own very unique version of the legendary Godflesh song “Streetcleaner”. Not as sprawling in production as the original, but is almost suffocating with claustrophobia.

When I got this through the door the other day it took me right back to the thick of the good ol’ trading days! Gotta love these insane underground goregrind compilations and splits, there really is nothing like them anywhere else in the music world. As with most Dehydrated Tissues releases, this has been put out on the band’s own label Regurgitated Stoma Stew Productions, who deal in a plethora of absolutely fucking filthy goregrind, porngrind and noisecore. Well worth a look in! Dehydrated Tissues take their Rompeprop-worship to a whole new level here, even mimicking Romperop’s hilarious intro tracks with the song “IntroIntroLOL”. Tracks like “Colon Pogo” and “I Am The Vaginal Cheese Inspector!!!” absolutely reek of Dutch polka goodness, and this can only be a good thing – there really is nothing quite like shaking your tail feather to some groovy-porno-gore-grind! It is the only music I can legitimately dance to (I’m not joking – you should have seen me at a Venetian Snares gig. Can anyone say “square”?). Latexxx Command are just as great, but bring more of that dirty South American porno vibe, rather than wading through gore. Sure, it sounds virtually the same as Dehydrated Tissues give or take some production values, guitar tone and degree of phaser effect on the pitch-shifter, but for me the definition between porngrind and goregrind is entirely the vibe you get from the music. It is easy to go ahead and categorise bands into each genre, but so many successfully cross over so seamlessly that to an outsider it could look like there is no difference at all. Menstrual Fistfuck is a project by the same mind behind Latexxx Command and for this reason I think it sounds very similar to the latter, although it does shake it up a bit here and there.

Welcome to quite possibly the most perfect goregrind sound. Last Days of Humanity are probably better known for their later, 9000bpm efforts, but Hymns of Indigestible Suppuration is more my bag of disfigured body parts. The whole thing starts off with a frankly odd sample, before kicking into some of the best down-tuned slop I’ve ever had the displeasure of hearing. Could that artwork be summed up in a more perfect sound? I doubt it. The guitars are a thick wall of mushy goodness; the bass and 6-stringer mingling together are seemingly inseparable  On top of that under-layer of filth are the drums; crisp, clear and clean – the ultimate opposite to the muddy thickness of the string section. The snare is one of the best sounds ever put to tape. It is bouncy, bright and brilliantly mixed in with the terminal goo oozing from the amps. The vocals…well, I don’t really know what to say here! Jesus!  There are still copies of this in circulation for a fairly acceptable price, although I am not sure if it is out of print or not. Out on Bones Brigade Records.

Gut sounds absolutely huge on vinyl, I just wish they’d stop fucking around and play some more grind! I love the fun element of modern Gut whereas a lot of goregrinders shun them now, but on this record for the most part it’s a template of “typical porn sample followed by uninspired five-to-ten second song with silly vocals”. I am glad that I didn’t shell out the earth for the original CD version of this, and I even commend Everydayhate for putting this on wax. Not to mention, “Nympho is a Gee” is my all time favourite Gut song (either that or “The Taboo Room”). But, unfortunately, the rest of the Gut side is massively disappointing, and often boring. Rompeprop on the other hand simply cannot be faulted. Open up the sleeve and see written “If you think harmonizer / pitchshifter-vocals are fake, so is your distortion on your guitar!”. That couldn’t be more right! Big up the pitchshifted vokills! After the hilarious opener “Hallo!”, Rompeprop gurgle’n’slam through some excellent polka-dance inducing goregrind for us all. ‘Nuff said. Spin this, get up, wiggle back and forth and point those fingers.

Okay. I’m confused with this Dead Infection side here. What the hell is the furniture obsession thing about? The artwork, instead of some putrefying gore, is a table and chairs. The songs, instead of your usual goregrind fodder, are all about furniture. What the hell have these guys been smoking / snorting / injecting? Nevertheless, the music here is top form and Dead Infection blast and chug through some dank grindcore for us all. Have these guys had a line up change? I don’t recognise the vocalist’s name. Fuck knows. I’m very stupid sometimes. Haemorrhage are one of those bands that always escape me. I have a few splits with them on now but I’ve never actively gone seeking them out, and I have yet to hear a full length record by them, which is a bit daft considering they are pretty much awesome as fuck. Here are three more reasons for me to download everything this band has ever done and then slowly purchase all the records over a two year period. That is what normally happens! (inb4 “download is wrong, mmm’kay?”) This record has been out for a few years now and has been eluding me up until this point so I am glad to finally get my hands on it. Out on Fat Ass Records, an excellent label from Poland.