All Creatures Great and Eaten

In discussing Nuclear Death, most listeners stop at the first two albums. They are two of the most intense deathgrind albums ever made - and few bands (if any) rival that level of extremeness in sound and subject. But All Creatures Great and Eaten is an equally terrifying release, and one that doesn't get as much attention. But those who were impacted by the abject horror of Nuclear Death's first two releases will absolutely want to check out this distressing death metal.

A little history: by this point, Nuclear Death was primarily the "Lori Bravo Show". While it was always her creative drive that pushed the band into grotesque and morbid territories, the first several releases were marked by the presence of Phil Hampson. A founding member of Nuclear Death in 1985, Hampson was Bravo's partner at the time, and he qualified Lori's avant-garde approach to metal with a rippingly sharp take on gore and grind. However, his membership ended when he and Bravo broke up (either because he was kicked out, or because it's just hard to be in a band with someone you used to date - right, Thurston Moore?). This led Bravo to take on guitar duties, which resulted in her playing almost all of the instruments. Steve Cowan remained on drums, and his jazz background continued to add a strange skittering and often improvisational aesthetic to Nuclear Death's sound.

All Creatures Great and Eaten furthers the absolute horror of Nuclear Death to an extent rivaling previous LP Carrion for Worm. Though a pretty short death metal LP at 24 minutes and nine tracks, this release reduces the outright grind from Hampson's tenure to a stranger death metal sound. It's almost like outsider death metal at times, as if Bravo and Cowan come to death metal from no wave or noise rock rather than thrash and punk. Tracks like "Guinea Man" and "Bones of the Lip" are almost unrecognizable as death metal when compared to Malevolent Creation, Death, or Entombed. It shows how ahead of the game Nuclear Death was in their release history - debut LP Bride of Insect was from 1990, and All Creatures Great and Eaten just two years later in 1992.

This release foreshadows the experimental rock direction that Bravo would take Nuclear Death in their final decade. The last four tracks are even further removed from death metal (much less deathgrind), though Bravo's vocals remain as brutal as ever. "Untitled" is an 83-second instrumental to which Cowan is credited as "effects" in the liner notes. "Aunt Farm" lapses into a churning warble that is kind of similar to Filth-era Swans (hey, we're back to grind!) before the death metal picks back up in an almost doom-like context. "A Dark Winter Psalm" begins with reverbed spoken word that evolves into another death metal explosion and harsh vocals depicting apostasy, rape, and cannibalism. And the ending title track brings Bravo's bass into first chair before returning to the bizarre whirlwind of guitars that characterized Carrion for Worm.

If the lyrics of "A Dark Winter Psalm" didn't make it obvious, this album is graphic. This isn't B-movie slasher fiction; it's more like an art-house exploitation film that makes you wonder if you accidentally stumbled upon snuff. Everything about Nuclear Death's first seven years was disturbing, but All Creatures Great and Eaten is genuinely unsettling. The completely schizoid song structures mixed with Cowan's thorny drums and Bravo's anguishing screams makes for an album whose short run-time is a grace. The shrieking in the background on "Guinea Man", the slowly descending motif on "Mindbleeder", and the hollow snare on "Divine Perversion" are just some of the highlights (deadlights?) in this window into death metal dismay.

I have a friend who's deeply into all things extreme music. We frequently swap finds as we explore the bowels of nineties death metal. But he actively avoids Nuclear Death - for him, it's too much. I can't say I blame him. All Creatures Great and Eaten is immensely successful at not being a good time.

Grindcore – that furiously primitive bolt-on to death metal – got cruel and weird in the early 1990s; otherwise known as the end of history. What started as a one dimensional catalyst for new levels of making an unholy racket suddenly morphed into extreme metal’s equivalent of an avant-garde movement. Not all grind went this way of course. Like many forms of extreme underground art much of it quickly devolved into self-parody. But as with so many things in extreme metal, there is a sweet spot to be found somewhere in the early 1990s .

Arizona’s Nuclear Death sat somewhere on the death/grind outer limits with their first two releases, 1990’s ‘Bride of Insect’ and 1991’s ‘Carrion for Worm’. Make no mistake, these two releases shocked and awed me when I first listened to them at a time when I already believed I had broken through the wall in terms of noisy experiences. It is dirty, primitive and ferocious music from the very pits of depravity. With Lori Bravo’s vocals ranging from guttural growl to horse shouting, screeching and furious ranting. She sounds truly demented. With third their release, 1992’s ‘All Creatures Great and Eaten’ they slowed things down somewhat. Somewhat.

ACGAE clocks in at barely twenty minutes in length but manages to express the depth and breadth of negative emotions in all their morbid detail. Bravo’s voice is truly unique in this field. It works almost as a twisted performance piece, expressing the forbidden, unspoken chasms of humanity’s emotions. This is not simply a distorted death metal vocal track, it’s a vocalisation of aggression and despair. A truly noteworthy performance that grants Nuclear Death a special place in the lexicon of old school extreme metal.

Production is as raw as ever, although some of the static from the guitars has been cleaned up somewhat on this release, which lends extra clarity to ND’s newfound proficiency in rhythmic diversity. Drums still blast and pound their way through the listener’s soul, but they now grant more space for the guitars to breath. And breath they do, articulating at times haunting chord progressions that leave one cold before pounding in synchronicity with what has become a pretty tight rhythm section. Despite being their shortest full length, ACGAE is easily Nuclear Death’s most diverse. Now unbearably noisy, now straight up terrifying. All three of their LPs from this time are unique slabs of extreme metal and this final slice is the perfect way to top it off. Well worth the time of any old school fanatic.

So get yourself copies of their first three excretions, all together barely an hour and half’s worth of music, and tune out of the ways of civility for a time. God knows it’s cathartic in its own twisted way.

Originally published at: Hate Meditations

Nuclear Death were an original, morbidly bizarre and utterly filthy death metal/grind group out of Phoenix, Arizona. Their debut "Bride of Insect" brought disgusting, unkempt and blazingly speedy death/grind chock full of oddities that would set them far apart from their contemporaries, while their follow-up "Carrion for Worm" sunk that style into a murky low-end haze adding sludge-tinged and almost psychedelic-like influences to the putrid stew of their sound. Their third and final album siphoned out the most wretched, bizarre, sludgy, mucky, hallucinogenic and vomit-inducing aspects of the sound they had laid out and puked them into the most sickening cacophony imaginable. The sum of two legendary albums is the most vile, unrelenting and horrible thing to reach the metal underground: All Creatures Great and Eaten.

Setting aside all this giddy fanboy worship for a moment... "All Creatures Great and Eaten" (combined on CD with the "For Our Dead" EP) is the full realization of what Nuclear Death had been working toward since 1986. It incorporates the waves of dissonant distortion, the blazing grinding paces, the sludgy, agonizing breakdowns and most importantly eccentricities and oddities that move Nuclear Death's third album from an enjoyable death/grind classic to a legendary, monolithic and unparalleled accomplishment. It takes a certain ear to appreciate something so under produced, harsh, filthy and abrasive, so as usual I issue a disclaimer forewarning sensitive ears: This stuff hurts. Oh boy does it hurt.

Interestingly the cleanest Nuclear Death's production got was on their 1990 debut, with the following two albums degenerating in their own ways. Many have complained that "Carrion for Worm" is so low end it makes some of the faster riffs indistinguishable, and that "All Creatures Great and Eaten" is so trebly and sparse it sounds weak compared to their other material. I agreed with these judgments until I let my ears penetrate the muck of these low-fi wonders, eventually allowing me to judge them more or less on the merits of the music and come to appreciate the horrendous production in a way. Furthering the problem for many is the low quality rips circulating on the internet and the great difficulty in finding their albums on CD (the only reissues were in 2001). Anyhow, this stuff is buried in fuzz and not always easy to distinguish, which will immediately put off many listeners.

Each song typically begins with hideous distortion ringing out and either shooting into a blazing fast grinding riff in a haze of murky fuzz or letting loose a pummeling, primitive slower and sludgier riff with chunky chords chugging and ringing out with an agonizingly dissonant tone (but don't expect some Southern-sounding Eyehategod riffs). In the speedier sections the riffs are mostly tremolo picked with strange chords and buzzing repetitive rhythms that would almost be reminiscent of black metal if they weren't heaped in a grinding maelstrom. The bass is mostly inaudible but plays into the low end fuzz adding a fuller and thicker sound especially in the pounding mid-paced riffs. In general the riffs are tinged with a sickly odd sound I will again and again describe as "dissonant". Lori Bravo (bass/vocals) and Phil Hampson (guitar) really hit their stride on this album, making song after song and riff after riff of intensely harsh and disgusting filth. The drums are either violently pounding on the toms or blasting behind walls of distortion, but don't let that fool you into thinking Joel Whitfield is some knuckle-dragging blast beating slouch. The percussion and riffs have a slightly off-time interplay that gives everything a strange off-kilter sound I've heard sometimes referred to as "playing behind the beat", adding a certain distinctive quality to the sound I really dig. Also, the patterns Mr. Whitfield chooses on the toms and cymbals in the slow to mid paced parts are bizarrely primitive adding to the theme of primal violence employed by the group. Ms. Bravo's vocals are most especially of note. I can't stress enough how integral her vocal style is to the sound and atmosphere of the music. She screams and grunts with speedy delivery during the fast parts and really lets loose when the slower riffs crawl in, terrifyingly belting out gut-churning screams in the most heinously bizarre tone over already sickeningly heavy, weird and violently pounding music.

The final three tracks constitute a chilling epilogue exploring some stylistically different realms and delving deepest into the bizarre hallucinogenic themes littered throughout this putrescent classic. We begin with "Aunt Farm", a haze of distortion and buzzing riffs worked into a droning ambiance with a horrific tone as Lori Bravo screeches and gurgles away. Then we pound into a true classic, "A Dark Winter Psalm", a track that exemplifies every aspect of this album and features the most haunting of Lori Bravo's vocal performances, beginning with the hideous screaming of "AT NIGHT / FORGET THE LIGHT / SHE TRIES TO ESCAPE...". The final track, titled "All Creatures Great and Eaten" finishes this morose journey with another surprise: an almost alternative rock sounding riff with Lori Bravo chanting clean vocals in between filthy grinding riffs. And thus ends the third and final chapter of the initial run of Nuclear Death, closing the book on a true legacy of filth (excuse the track by track reviewing in this section, I just dig the end of the album too much to not cover it).

Nuclear Death were an innovative, strange and horrific band with an dark sense of humour behind their sickeningly morbid and disgusting themes (which is absolutely perfect for death/grind). From the break-neck thrashing of "Bride of Insect" to the horrendous, hazy, sludgy and seemingly almost psychedelic "All Creatures Great and Eaten" Nuclear Death established a truly classic sound that remains untouched. Their final album as a trio stands as my favourite of the group (Lori Bravo continued using the name as a solo project for two albums), and is the perfect send off for the glorious merging of these three bizarre musicians. This album is most definitely a personal favourite and I will continue to worship it wholeheartedly. The only possible criticism I could construe is that it's too short (the album on its own clocking in at only 20 minutes), although since it's usually teamed up with the equally potent "For Our Dead" EP which this review also takes into consideration, it totals at the reasonable length of roughly a half hour. While it is highly abrasive, there's no reason the seasoned old school death metal/grind fan wouldn't enjoy it, so long as they can stomach the production. For the average listener, this stuff takes some getting used to and will generally repel more than it attracts. If that remains the case, that's just more Nuclear Death for me. I give this album the absolute highest recommendation. Prepare to be engrossed in a murky bog of filth, corpses, hallucinations and horrific sights and sounds.

Nuclear Death put out their third full length in 1992, which was sort of their last consistently played metal release. This fit-for-some-kind-of-obscure-disease band has gone through a few different line up changes, now with the departure of guitarist Phil Hampson here, who might have feared the growing malignancy of the band, and Lori handling guitar and bass duties in place of. Even with that being said, and this being a later output into their span, N.D. proved that it's still a possible feat to challenge yourself as a band and release a powerful later album.

"All Creatures Great and Eaten" doesn't have a single category to place itself into inspiration wise since their music can be experimental and essentially temperamental. It still retains their death metal side as well as their explosive grind tendencies. They also maintain the blasting fast speeds that usually come with the territory, but include a decent amount of mid and slow range sections as well. The production captures all of this with something of an "obscured vantage point," as if you're viewing events that you "shouldn't" be.

Nuclear Death has a way of having the guitars start a song on their own and then the other instruments come pouring in. They're like the instigators testing the waters, seeing that the other instruments get the right idea. Some bands use intros, sound bits or acoustic parts, here Nuclear Death keeps it straight with metal and begins their songs mostly with the guitar. They also use a particular pedal effect that warps the guitars throughout a few songs. It appears like there are techniques anywhere from strumming, string bending, off-tune notes and musically inharmonious effects added as well. It gives off this kind of unsettling feeling, and this is even coming from a listener that is on the supposed "safe" side of the speakers. The bass is back in action and played clean, being heard even over the distorted production. It turns out to be a great feature towards maximizing their overall projection, since it expands upon itself and includes some separate rhythms than the guitar.

Whether it's the old drummer or their newer chop-meister, the beats with the band always seem to keep me on my toes listening to their albums. Maybe they're just trying to keep up with the warped music the rest of the band hammers out, like when rehearsing and then recording they've got to almost one-up each other as musicians. Cowen has the capability of hitting the drums with immense strokes to adding well-devised beats to keep the momentum interesting. For instance, occasionally he might hardly use the hi-hat and use multiple cymbal hits as a way to dodge where you'll think he'll go next. I think the vocals are what surprised me when I originally heard this because she adds some great effects and oddities to her vocal placements. For example, there are background screams layered with deeper growls; they aren't just there because the genre standards say they have to be, but emit this almost tangible kind of emotion that comes across like it was necessary. She uses a cool whispering effect too, something like Beherit was doing at one point to give you an idea. Her vocals are far from straightforward and will use numerous amounts of various agonizing and torturous screams, even including these mind-bending noises one over top another to make it that much more impacting.

The production is still dirty and scratchy, mostly on purpose, and this release is rather short for a full length, but on the other hand, this recording adds a lot of strong imagination for a style of extreme music where you wouldn't always think that could be found in. Listening to this is almost as if you get a little bit more insight into the tumblers of Lori's morbid head; something like longer episodes and flashes to get snippets of. Nuclear Death essentially went forward from mostly being an all-out, chaotic extreme metal act to concentrating more on the side of themselves that reveals a hovering mood with this release. I wish they would have done more material like this because as far as I'm concerned it seemed like the band was just getting started. "All Creatures Great and Eaten" especially pushes "Carrion for Worm" aside and also expands on ideas from "For Our Dead." This recording still has some recognizable semblances from past recordings but is a different animal from them, an animal that hunts deeper into the recesses of the night. Basically this is something like a more expressive outing, and even though it changed a few things around, it is definitely a very deserving recording. If you like early nineties death, grind and experimental extreme metal music, then definitely get ahold of this release for one that more than works and to add is more than returnable.