After almost two years of no split activity, Haemorrhage are back to releasing split records on obscure labels, this time with fellow Spaniards Gruesome Stuff Relish.
>Side Haemorrhage
This side opens with a heavy distorted guitar lead that follows into the signature groovy goregrind drum beat and before you know it Lugubrious is pulsing your ear canals with grimy and oozing vocals. The track itself is groovy and fun, with classic style choruses and overall it’s just a catchy ass track. The second track however is a more straightforward attempt at grindcore, with more of a drive at delivering blast beat upon blast beat to the listener. The guitar whaling in this track is really fun and feels like each chord stretches out for miles before being interrupted by a grinding transition. Again more catchy multi-layered vocals are showcased, this time with even more pitchshifted vocals, which is never a bad thing and with one strangulation style gasp the track finishes. Following in a similar fashion, the third track continues to more straightforward grind sound, with more guitar layers and an increasingly paced drumbeat that crescendos into a final ensemble of all that is Haemorrhage. Next is the GHB cover ‘Necrophilia’, now I had no idea how this would sound but they totally changed up the standard guitar tuning and it actually sounds hilariously good. With d-beat drums, guitar solos and Lugubrious just being the madman he is, the end result is a brilliant cover.
My only real complaint is that the guitars aren’t as powerful as they could be, they feel a little too low in the mix and would really make the music better if they were bumped up.
>Side Gruesome Stuff Relish
Next up is GSR’s side, consisting of three tracks similar in vein to Haemorrhage’s work, but with the trio’s doomier twist incorporated into the music. The opening tracks consists of doomy bulldozer guitar work, leads, intense blastbeating and more raspy vocals than you can shake a stick at. The contrast in grindcore and groovier slow components keeps you on your feet and not really sure what to expect next. What I like about GSR is you can understand the lyrics a bit more than your typical goregrind/grindcore band, so it’s fun to be able to actually comprehend what is being sad. The second track features even catchier guitars and even some out of nowhere solos to mix things up.
The last and final track splatters a ghastly scream into a fun clean guitar lead and sloshes it all around with in a mixture of haunting backing synths, sludgy style drumming and just an overall chaos of, well gruesome stuff.
Overall it’s a fun side and complaints are only that it sounds like it was ripped from a vinyl copy or something, and perhaps that’s intentional but I just wish this side was properly mastered in a studio and was crystal clear, or atleast as clear as the earlier Haemorrhage side.
Complaints aside, this split is fun as hell.
SHIT RATING: GOOD
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