Human Piñata

When I found this band in the store -Cumbeast- I was not pretty sure of getting it to my collection, because I didn’t know much about it. I usually research something about a band and then I buy it. This is a band from Finland, they play a very rhythmic, half-time brutal death metal with some gory lyrics and a touch of black humor that made me remember other bands like Corpsefucking Art, Torsofuck and Internal Bleeding.

At the beginning there was a level of uncertainty about this band regarding their music. But as soon as I played the first song in my CD player, my doubts disappear. The CD “Human Piñata” starts with an intro full of horrid voices and then the slaughter is unleashed. A monstrous Polyphony of guttural grunting, screams, and pig-like vocals is the first thing that you can notice. Then, everything makes sense; slow and rhythmic guitars in the way of Internal bleeding, followed by bass lines that just make me remember bands like Vomit Remnants (not that fast) and Perversist. The drumming part is actually connected with the rest of the musical dismemberment, slow jams of double pedal and brutality expressed in an outrageous way.

Something negative that comes from the variety of voices is that there is not a clear or understandable vocal pattern. I consider that the principal goal of this band is not to deliver an interesting message through their lyrics, so, they just sing in this unrecognizable way or they just don’t give a damned. When you look at the artwork of the CD for the first time, you just got an instant idea of what this band wants to say (there is a guy battering a woman in a very brutal way that a fetus is coming out of her). In this way, there is no a central or coherent theme that guide us through out the topic of this album, just isolated songs that are connected with the musical intention and not with the lyrical one. However, we don’t have to expect a very intricate and complex album from a brutal death metal band; perhaps, from bands of other genres like gothic, heavy or black metal.

This is the part that I like the most about reviewing bands, critic the content of their lyrics. Cumbeast is a band that does not have any political or religious attachment; so, they discharge all their hatred and scorn towards those topics in their lyrics. Tracks like “Feasting the Whore”, “Back Alley Bludgeonment” “Foreskin Eater” and “Strangled with a Dreadlock”, focus more on the gory and violent aspect of the CD. While songs, such as “Hostile Ape Posse”, “Pre-burial Pope Molestation” and “Raping Santa”, aim towards making fun of something in a very cruel way, in other words, black humor.

Last thing to say about “Human Piñata” and Cumbeast is that this is only recommended to the fans of the genre, other people may not like it, because of the senseless and absurd topics that these guys manage. This CD is not a masterpiece of intricate musical skills and complex musical arrangements; you will find brutal music and nonsense lyrics that have nothing to do with the mainstream metal bands. This band comes from the depths of the metal underground to let you as human piñata after listening to it.