Gore Blessed to the Worms

Disgorge was a pretty revered band in the brutal death/goregrind scene some years back around the 'Forensick' era. Unfortunately those years have long passed and with 'Gore Blessed To The Worms' Disgorge takes a major step down from the throne of messy brutal death/goregrind champions. The material on this album doesn't have much of the spirit of the band's previous works, opting instead for a rather standard death/grind template with a bit of the band's trademark sloppiness in playing and writing. It doesn't have the sick, depraved atmosphere of the earlier material, and overall, it's just a disappointment in pretty much every way.

It's not that 'Gore Blessed To The Worms' is incompetent death/grind. It's competently written and everything, and it's not an unpleasant listen. It's just that the band is capable of much more interesting stuff than this, and the album in general isn't any better or worse than any other generic death/grind album. It's fast and relatively brutal but I don't get the impression that there's anything going on that I couldn't find elsewhere and with better playing. I never remember any of the riffs of song structures after they're over, and the listening experience as a whole is pretty transitory and relatively uninteresting.

There are some parts that at least get my head nodding, but that's not enough for me to really like this album. Occasionally Disgorge will land on a groove or a riff that works, but most of the time songs are just sort of assembled for the hell of it with no goal in mind aside from 'be brutal'. I simply can't see liking this unless all you want from a death metal record is blast beats and fast guitar work and gurgly growls, because there's really nothing else to it. It's Lecherous Nocturne Part Two: Sombrero Edition, and it seems to be the last gasp of a band who's really out of ideas.

There's worse music in the world, and objectively this is just mediocre, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm more disappointed than I would with a different band. Old Disgorge was pretty compelling stuff, with a real dark atmosphere reminiscent of Paracoccidioidomicosisproctitissarcomucosis, but this is devoid of all that mood. It's just lacking in all the things that turn a death metal album from average into something more. They can do better and they have before, so there's no real excuse for this.