SHIT LIST: September 2012

SHIT LIST: September 2012

Toscrew [2012] Crawl

Possibly one of the lamest names I have come across, Hungarian ex-blackened death metal band TOSCREW have dropped their kvlt sound and graced humanity with an attempt at making stoner doom. Now for those unfamiliar with Toscrew they were a run of the mill to okay blackish death metal band, but with the departure of their vocalist things changed for the worst.

While the music itself does indeed hit doom levels at times the vocals just completely ruin everything and anything potentially good on this. Crawl just sounds like a bunch of middle aged Black Sabbath fans got together and made a numetal band. The vocals are just a drawn out clash between James Hetfield and Marilyn Manson. Again, the music is interesting at times but 95% of the time this album conjures up images of local night at the local redneck bar. The kind filled with past their prime old men wearing Godsmack shirts hoping to look cool to their kids.

SHIT List: August 2012

In an effort to seed through all the truly awful albums I come across I will be doing some bulk review posts at the end of every month. The reviews will be quick and to the point, well, in a shitty way of course.

SHIT List - August - 2012

Gore Obsessed [2012] Where Babes Meet Blades
Mortician and Bob Macabre walk into a bar, Will Rahmer forcibly rapes Bob Macabre and nine months later Gore Obsessed dribbled out with a billion EPs in hand. While I dig the whole throwback horror movie shtick  it's getting old fast. My overall complaints are simple: every song sounds entirely too similar, almost no variation is used in the guitar tuning or playing and the drum machine beats are so basic and typical that the album feels like the first track is on repeat. Overall the guitars are boring, but at times catchy, the drums sound flat out outdated and the vocals are cool for a track's worth, the remaining 10 minutes are just boring as balls.

Lucifugum [2012] Od Omut Serpenti

Do people actually listen to shitty bedroom black metal? Just because you've been releasing terrible albums for years doesn't make you credible. For those unfamiliar with this atrocity, Lucifugum is a married couple from Ukraine who release black metal, and by black metal hear I mean terrible drum programming, a starter guitar and amp and absolutely no depth or bass at all. The vocals sound like a whiny teenager trying to sound kvlt and the guitar work is boring and uneventful. So with drums, guitars and vocals all sucking, this shit flat out sucks from all angles.

Printemps Noir [2012] La Commune
Continuing the string of truly atrocious black metal "projects" ruining my day is Printemps Noir, a "raw" black metal band from somewhere I don't care enough to look up. Initially I thought it would be a punkish release by the cover but was soon given a hot mess that sounded like it was recorded through a $10 Walmart microphone. But first there's the mastering: unless you're lucky enough to have a mono option to your speakers you will be hearing the drums from the left speaker, the vocals in the right and the guitar mixed through both sides. Once track two kicks in the drums shift to 95% left and leaving ONE single ride cymbal coming through the right speaker. It's just fucking retarded, but musically the guitars sound muddy and distorted like they were recorded, pressed on an underdeveloped record and then ripped at like 50kbps. The drums are just downright atrocious and honestly so basic that you'd figure a 10 year old was playing it. Finally comes the vocals, which fit the same complaints as guitars and are monotonous throughout the entire release, but thankfully for everyone it's only two tracks and ends a hair over ten minutes. This could possibly be the worst black metal album I have heard this year, congrats.

Six Feet Under [2012] Undead
Do I even need to justify this post? Chris Barnes has churned out yet another lifeless and completely forgettable audible turd and I am starting to wonder who I dislike more, Six Feet Under's music or the labels who keep giving these guys record deals. Barnes' vocals are all but shot at this point and they just sound like someone with a bad cold now. Musically there are a few random cool riffs thrown into the mix but the songs are still bland and placid, and the only thing worth listening to on this record is the sound your Recycling Bin makes when it finishes deleting a file. Serious Barnes, you're giving me second hand embarrassment big time here.

Funeral Depression [2012] Road to Suicide

For some reason I had high hopes for this release, for I had never heard anything from Funeral Depression, and given the unoriginal yet fitting name and eyecatching album cover, I snatched this hoping to stumble upon another I’m In A Coffin, alas, I did not find such a gem.

Funeral Depression is a Polish one man funeral doom / “ambient” project, with a couple demos, an ep and a full length from 2011 under their belt. The man behind all the action, credited as “Belzebub” does all the instruments and electronics, but chose to leave out the vocals and keep Funeral Depression a mostly instrumental band (sans ‘Inner Pain’). Along with the standard guitar, bass and drum setup there is also the inclusion of backing synthesizers that attempt to fill the music and give a feeling of depressive beauty to the raunchy distorted guitars and the plane jane sounding drums. But I hate to say it folks, this album is just flat out fucking boring and unoriginal.

Clocking in at a hair over 50 minutes this album is quite labor intensive, for it took everything out of me to actually listen to the entire thing and frankly, I want my 50 minutes back Bubz.

As a big fan of actual ambient, it pisses me off when bands get added “ambient” tags to their music, simply because they use a delay pedal and have minimalistic parts. I also can’t get over how basic the drumwork is, it’s so rudimentary that it resembles that of a 12 year old on Youtube covering Crazy Train, I just don’t get it, it truly is that bad. Also, the guitars do indeed have a few interesting parts, but overall it is just painful to sit through the clean interludes and transitions for it sounds, much like the drumming, like textbook sample patterns that anyone could replicate with a starter guitar kit. Cleanly played the guitars sound alright, but once the distortion or any effect is added it just sounds flat and awkward, and coupled with the even more distant sounding drums it just makes for a really discombobulated sound all around. There are parts where transitions will just flat out stop and out of the blue a new one will begin, it’s as if Bubz forgot what he was doing and just switched to something new to fill out the time. And on the track that actually does feature vocals, the only thing that Bubz is able to do is convey the sound a baby makes just as it shits its pants inside of a dark cave somewhere. The attempts at the kvlt black metal sound just completely fails and it just sounds as if a small child is being fed hot cider over and over, again, this is just another failed attempt at what other bands have actually done better. At the end of the day sure it could be way worse, but that doesn’t make this release good, or even worth listening to.

SHIT RATING: BAD

Deformed Slut [2011] Stench Of Carnage

Complaints? It’s Slow, boring brutal death metal, with nothing sticking it out from the endless pile of BDM bands in today’s market. There appears to be an attempt at slam death but really it doesn’t have any of the hooks or punch that slam comes with, so it just falls flat on 98% of the record. So if you like your death metal void of quality buildups, crushing crescendos and in your face brutality, this is for you. The slithery quasi-guttural vocals have been done a million times over as well and are nothing at all impressive. The production and recording quality is the best thing on the album, for it allows the bass to clearly be heard, the drums are pretty well recorded and the guitar, while a little low in the mix, fills the air and keeps it from feeling dead. But with all that said the album did absolutely nothing to me.

SHIT RATING: BAD

Frosthammer [2011] Nexus of Time

I downloaded this because the cover appealed to me and I figured that with a clean-ish looking logo that maybe I will avoid another bedroom black metal project…I was wrong. I have never heard of Frosthammer until now, and thankfully this will be my last, here’s why.

Complaints? The recording is absolute shit. The guitars sound like they were recorded off a First Act guitar and amp, the drums are sound fake as shit and the vocals are just retard bad. Sounds of Emilie Autumn’s spazzy fast paced vocal style came to mind while I listened to the vocals on this release and it just doesn’t work. I get they/he/whatever is trying to convey a sense of melody for that symphonic black metal tag but it just comes off as a comedic attempt at sounding like a twat. The attempt at black metal kvlt vocals is just as atrocious, for it sounds like a 13 year old is trying to push out Dimmu Borgir cyborg vocals and again, it fails to reach anything higher than aural comedy. The production, like the rest of the sounds, is muddy and makes the music sound flat and boring. I actually had to check to make sure my headphones weren’t switched to mono when this cd was playing, because it was that fucking flat and unappealing. The best part of the entire album is the synth work, and that is only appealing because the mastering is so fucking muddy that it masks any potential flaws that might be present. It is almost 2012, why is it bands are still releasing stuff that sounds like it was recorded on Audacity? Get with the fucking program if you are going to release music, it’s not complicated to get decent mastering programs and equipment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a step up from the Xasthur clones out there who make listeners battle walls of static, but this is on the total opposite of the spectrum and is just plain bloody boring and uninteresting. Overall it is a boring release with absolutely nothing memorable being produced. This album will be deleted upon posting of this entry, and my computer couldn’t be happier.

SHIT RATING: BAD

Fetish Necrozis Germofroditus [2012] New Year’s Terror

After really digging Anal Grind’s new album I downloaded this one as well hoping to strike big with another lesser known act. Hoping it was good I eagerly downloaded it, unzipped it and played it the second I could. It’s a shame it only took that first track to kill my gore winning streak. Little is posted about Fetish Necrozis Germofroditus, who are a few years late on the joke MySpace goregrind project era where bad production and overly fake drum programming was acceptable, but what I do know is that the outfit is based out of Russia, and is most likely the work of one singular individual, or atleast I hope so. Similar in effort as Brutal Nekkro Sex, Spermswamp, Bitch Infection and SMES, Fetish Necrozis Germofroditus ignore all standard musical requirements and simply lay down an indecipherable layer of noise and throw pitchshifted vocals over it with very little effort or originality.

Complaints? Where to even begin. The entire album is one muddy mess, and not like early Last Days of Humanity, more like every instrument and sound on this album was coming out of the same singular blown out bass speaker onto the cd. The guitar is utterly intangible. the drums are obviously programmed and aside from being insanely repetitive, they just do not fit the music and are awkwardly sequenced with the rest of the song. The vocals are just as bad as the guitar, for yes there is a pitchshifter at work but it is so low and distorted in the mix that whatever power it did have at the time of recording is now lost and drowned out by awful drum programming and blown out guitarwork. There is also an odd feeling to this album where it feels like the entire album has a subtle phaser at work, and that the music shifts from left to right at a barely listenable pace but over time it just creates chaos in the equilibrium and makes the album just that much more unpleasant. Now I get this was probably made by some guy in his bedroom but god damn, standards are standards, and this release is complete garbage that is not worth the discount CD-R’s it is printed on. Oh and good job stealing the album art from fucking google, if you’re going to lift images at least edit them a LITTLE. Ya hack.

SHIT RATING: BAD

Methos [2012] Revelation

When I first saw this online I thought I may have stumbled upon another Acid Witch style stoner band, and coupled with the artwork of that of such sound I downloaded it and was really excited to try it out, but was almost instantly let down. To the person who labeled Methos as “Stoner/Doom/Heavy Metal” you kind of got the ordering wrong there buddy.

Revelation begins with a recycled Crazy Train bassline, intentional or not I just made a gross face when I heard this and it really put the album in a bad mood before it even really started. As the track develops it is clear that Methos aren’t really stoner or doom at all, but more so just straight forward old man metal. By old man metal I mean I just envision Methos being four middle aged men in their suburban homes with ambitions of opening for Devildriver or something, it’s just not really good at all, but there’s something to Revelation that made me listen to the entire thing. Yes the vocals are bad, yes the recording is muddy and yes the music itself has been done time and time again, but it’s on the higher end of the opener band spectrum for sure. Anyone who has had the displeasure of seeing newly developed opening rock/”heavy metal” bands knows that there is a giant asshole out there shitting out bland awful band after another of rednecks or older men trying to get one last rockstar feeling in them on stage opening for Dope, so with Methos they actually pull off that aesthetic and sound and it’s actually not unbearable to listen to, and if you go into this album with no real set expectations it makes for a lazily fun experience. Would I listen to this album again? Probably not, but am I glad I gave it one spin? You betcha. And while this review may be superficial and mean, I give Methos credit, they’re probably doing what they love and are great people, so don’t take this review the wrong way, I just don’t dig this at all.

SHIT RATING: BAD

Cemetery Rapist [2012] Tongue Punched in the Fartbox

So I guess I hate myself today, because I decided to download Cemetery Rapist’s newest atrocity: Tongue Punched in the Fartbox. It is a mystery to me how this “band” has continued to release albums and play shows, but to each their own, I’ll try to be as unbiased as possible for this short review.

For those unfamiliar with Cemetery Rapist, it is a solo bedroom project that aims to make brutal slam death metal, but fails miserably to any self respecting death metal fan. CR have been releasing a steady stream of releases for years now and apparently seem to have a small cult following on youtube and in Central Illinois Metalfest type circles, but in the larger scene Cemetery Rapist is a running gag of a band that should have died out years ago. Vocally you only get two variations throughout the entire album: a drowning cricket and a played out bree bree screech, nothing more, nothing less. You literally can listen to one track and have said you listened to the entire EP, it’s that predictable, stale and uneventful. The drums on here are obviously programmed and sound like something straight out of a demo pack of pro tools or something, and maybe that’s the sound he’s going for but it just sounds pointlessly fake. I mean atleast the guy from Putrid Pile takes effort into ATTEMPTING to make his stuff sound authentic. Each track also features an annoyingly long sample, which adds absolutely nothing to the music and only drags the release out longer than is necessary. 

The only redeeming part of this ep is that it’s only 9 minutes long, so by the time you realize it sucks it’s already over, so for that thank you Clay, you can actually do something right for once.

Now I like slam death, and I think while it may be mindless at times, it still takes effort to pull off, and just playing slow chuggy parts over and over doesn’t cut it.  All these complaints go for almost every other Cemetery Rapist release, so feel free to save yourself the trouble and never bother listening to anything they do. 

SHIT RATING: BAD

Dementor [2011] Damned

Having never heard of Dementor before, the thing that drew me to getting this was the painfully bad, yet genius artwork. With some research it turns out the Slovakian outfit has been releasing a steady stream of full lengths since 1994, so my bad guys.

Musically this album just doesn’t connect at all with me, it’s an awkward mix of brutal death metal with faint traces of metalcore here and there. Take for instance the second track “Isolated” which it features vocals that sound almost like something you would hear on a bad numetal album or something Nodes of Ranvier did back in the day. The instrumentation is also pretty awful to my senses, and has a sense of syntheticness about it, like the drums sound so flat and indifferent to one another that it sounds like there’s just a steady stream of bass hits and snares, and the guitars half the time sound like they were programmed in Fruity Loops with the awkward starting and stopping playing, it just lacks organic flow. The quality on this isn’t too snazzy either, there entire ensemble sounds like a bad webrip, the introductions are a few seconds off so they play twice, and it just sounds overall like a rough demo’s take of an eventual fully produced and mastered album. It’s just not for me at all. It also gets dreadfully boring after awhile, the tracks do not stick out from another and it’s just like listening to one long song that is battling to never end. But hey, maybe some true death metal hound out there might like this.

As far as positives go, there are a few catchy riffs here and there and some of the solos are neat, but that’s about it for me. Truth be told the best thing about this album is the cover art and the tits, aside from that there’s nothing I would write home about with Damned. After writing this the album will be deleted and not missed int he slightest, so rest in peace Dementor album, 2012-2012.

SHIT RATING: BAD

Омут [2012] Взгляд в Бездн

Hailing from mother Russia, Омут (Omut / “Slough”) is a  solo black metal project that attempts to create nature inspired noisy black metal. Initially I was sold on the album cover and figured if someone put that much effort into just an album cover, the music had to be quality as well. Unfortunately that was not the case at all, like at all at all.

My main gripe with this album is the rawness of it all, perhaps I am not a big fan of this approach to black metal but I am a big fan of noise and power electronics, so it’s not a case of “oh it’s too noisy!”, but simply bad music. Much like any other raw black metal bedroom project, bass is nonexistent on this, and the guitars are so thin that it actually was painful to listen to with headphones. Imagine if guitar strings could be made from strips of aluminum foil, that’s exactly what the guitar tone sounds like to me. If “normal” effects were applied then the guitars would probably sound really interesting, for the guitar work itself on this release is interesting and catchy, it’s just so thinly projected that it destroys any redeeming qualities the actual playing and creativity have. The drumming is nothing to write home about either, for they are the epitome of rudimentary at best and it just really makes for a boring listen. The kick drum however manages to project some form of bass resonance, so I guess I should be thankful that there is SOME form of deepened sounds going on. The vocals however aren’t all that bad, they are your atypical raw depressive black metal tone and personally I am a fan of such vocals when done in the correct setting, but still, overall this album is just unlistenable to me.

I will however admit that there are some pretty neat introductions and sampling on this release, for example the intro on the second track ‘Твои бельма видят лучше их глаз’ sounds like it was recorded straight from a torture chamber in the Vatican.  The third track also contains a cool intro that is a mixture of WWII marching anthems, knife sharpening and just raw and mechanic soundscapes reminiscent of an industrial plant. These parts of the album are actually enjoyable and if Omut were to release something that was strictly this material I would be very excited for it, it’s just the music before and after these samples is just horrendous to me.

SHIT RATING: BAD