Next to Dissect

My god, this would be elegant if it weren't so retarded and hideous. It's as though the members of Bloodbastard sat around, monitoring me on hidden cameras and paging through dossiers with lists of my fears in order to come up the most squeal-inducing death metal release imaginable. I feel like I owe them my firstborn or something just for Getting It so fucking much.

The primary influence is Mortician, but Mortician stripped of the blasting. What does Mortician stripped of blasting sound like? Well, pretty much 'House By The Cemetary', except replacing all the blasts with even more devastating proto-death/grind grooves and occasionally thrashy sections. What's replaced the blasting? Porngrind, of course! Bands like Gut, Satan's Revenge On Mankind, and others of that ilk are clearly a big part of the sound here, and the juxtapositions of the porngrind grooves with the more punishing Mortician-inspired ones makes for a release which just reduces me to jelly every time it's one.

The songs are short and to the point, with crusty, oldschool riffs of three or four chords inserted into nasty, syncopated rhythms looping over similarly grooving or thrashing drums. The delightfully drunken and sick vocals add to the overall atmosphere of moronic, absolutely Metal depravity. Bloodbastard lacks any and all subtlety: they play brutal, pounding death metal/porngrind for those who find such a thing just delightful. There's a total lack of insecurity about their sound which makes this such a fun release: the band knows exactly who they are and what they're doing, and devote considerable time and effort into making their music as stupid, malicious, and delightfully evil as possible.

This is for fans of Mortician, Neuropathia, Hymen Holocaust, and any and all other death/grind bands that revel in ignorance and sleaze. If I were to measure a release's quality in the number of times I can listen to it without getting even slightly bored, this would be near the top of my charts. As it stands, it's still pretty damned high.

The first thing that surprises you about this album is the fact that it's not on Razorback Records, but on the slightly more innuendo-laden 'Scrotum Jus' label.

That surprise stems more or less from the fact that take the CD out of the case and into that of more or less any Razorback release and it'd not feel at all out of place.

That's not to deride this type of music nor it's enjoyability, as for the most part this is still a good, enjoyable album. You just can't help but think to yourself as you're listening to it "this isn't bad, but I can think of a few bands that do it just that little bit better".

Effectively there isn't actually that much that I could write in this review with regards specific sounds, stylistics or effects as quite honestly anyone likely to be reading this review has more than likely already read them in a hundred reviews of bands like Blood Freak and the rest of the Razorback horde already.

To put it simply, this is by far nothing new or original nor the best gorey groovy death metal album you're going to buy but at the same time it's not an album you'll regret obtaining either.
That is unless you abhor the entire Razorback style which has, lets face it, pretty much become it's own susbidiary genre of DM in itself.

A good party record or something to fill in a gap in your CD collection but by no means an essential purchase.

If you're into bands like Blood Freak, Gut, Ghoul and all the rest then by all means pick this album up.
To the rest of us, by all means feel free to get it but just keep in mind you won't find it particularly amazing.

The reason the release gets a mark of 65% is mainly because whilst it's not at all original or unique, it is nonetheless something you can still enjoy listening to in the certain mood so in that respect it wouldn't deserve being slated for on it's principles it does achieve what it sets out to do.