Wednesday, November 26, 2008
DLA review of Gortuary’s “Manic Thoughts of Perverse Mutilation”
San Diego’s own death metal start-up Gortuary has been tackled by reviewers on the internet’s oldest and most prestigious metal site, the Dark Legions Archive.
Here’s what they have to say about the band’s first release, Manic Thoughts of Perverse Mutilation:
This band reminds me of Psychomancer, who were sort of around a few years ago, but without the ability to grasp the core of what they’re expressing in a song and bring it to light. All instrumentation is capable, songwriting technique is good, but songs don’t come together and end up being a chaotic riff salad of contradictory impulses. That they do this in old school death metal aesthetic is at first memorable, until you realize that this CD lacks what made the old school great: the ability to bring a dark, brooding, powerful vision of life alive and make it exciting. Spare us.
In other words, close, but no cigar: the fragmented, unrelated riffs are this album’s downfall. Perhaps we will see some more noteworthy material from Gortuary in the future?
You can listen to the entire album right here in a modest mp3 quality, but I hope you keep in mind the “try before you buy” philosophy.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Update in the Brief: CrySpace Safari
I decided to do a bit of a pseudoscientific experiment: Make a “quiz” for people to determine “what metal band” they are. In actuality, it was so I could determine what average people favor in “metal”. That is, plastic-lifestyle radio metal.
One thing I forgot to factor into the quiz results were the people who would prefer music for things other than appearance. This experiment assumes that these people were intelligent enough to find this quiz stupid and unappealing, and so they would close it immediately and reconsider why they were wasting their time taking quizzes on myspace.
To the date of this article’s writing, 208 people have willingly participated in this experiment. At least 5 of those people were upset enough by the truth behind their results to leave some tasteless (but otherwise amusing) comments, and rightly so. I’d pin the blame on whoever I could if I discovered that I had poor taste in metal.
Here are some of the responses that people made after receiving their ever-so-accurate results:
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Phobia - All That Remains 7” [1990]
All That Remains is the first release (7” vinyl) by Phobia, Orange County’s premier grindcore band.
Production: Distorted guitar comes out with a fuzzy texture, and clarity in the mid ranges, with drums and bass guitar outlining at the higher and lower ends. Harsh vocals have a texture similar to the guitar, but stand out all on their own.
With their first work, Phobia demonstrates a knowledge of the building blocks of grindcore, utilizing closely-related riffs built around sets of drumming rhythmic “cells,” or repeating cycles that move along once they wear out (via hardcore, thrash), and are replaced yet again with a variant improvement of the last (via speed metal and crossover). Awareness of balance between cycles is a key motivator behind the music’s composition, lending to it an effective simplicity.
The vocalist hearkens to us from a shrouded distance, warning us of mankind’s imminent self-destruction by the poisoning of the environment, failure on society’s part, et cetera. The track Imminent Rot describes in metaphor the inner struggle in living and coping with modernity. These songs make suitable anthems that aren’t as preachy as their progeny. The topics and ideas presented here both lyrically and musically aren’t new in grindcore, but they were probably just an indication of stagnant thought; a lack of fresh ideas. Nonetheless, they make for a great starting point for improvement.
Resources
Phobia - All That Remains @ 7inchcrust
