Creeping! Crushing! Crawling!

Dude. This is the one. Everything about Plasma's second album is badass, and I'm being fully serious with that statement. They've evolved as musicians since their 200 debut album (which wasn't really all that good honestly) and come back here with a unique and incredibly heavy sound. You see Plasma somehow manages to perfectly blend elements of goregrind, slam, brutal death metal, some groovy moments and top it all off with a really neat 1950's sci-fi influence in the lyrics, song titles and artwork! It's almost insane to see how this band turned around from being a fairly sub-par goregrind act to something with far more musical elements and a legitimately interesting lyrical concept (when compared with almost all goregrind bands unanimously consisting lyrically, of gore and porn, nothing wrong with that though of course haha).

The slamming moments play a relatively major role in the music (to the disdain of some I assume), with a good portion of their riffs consisting solely of some really heavy slam-esque chugging. This is most notable on songs like Observed Observer, Menace From The Ocean Floor and Man-eater, although it is prevalent throughout many of their songs. The slamming segments are interesting and stick out for a few reasons however, first of which would be the awesome gurgled pitch-shifted vocals that play over them. The vocals fit perfectly, they manage to seamlessly blend the Last Days of Humanity styled vocals with the groove of the slamming riffs. It's pretty unique (but not unlike Cock and Ball Torture in a weird way) to see these different elements tied together in this way. The second reason is the drumming in these slamming parts. The drums are distinctly not influenced by the slams much. During the actual slams they seem content to stick to a simple 1-2 (kick then snare) groove, which is actually really cool (and also draws parallels to a sci-fi influenced CBT). They give these moments a unique drive and punch kind of feel, they really help propel the slams away from their initial slam influences.

The guitars are wonder, they have this awesome crunchy distortion to them that is fucking insanely heavy. It's straight up brutal!! The non slam riffs have a real heavy grindcore influence which is awesome, the faster moments are really great and there is a bit of a Regurgitate influence in them as well. They do normally tend to stay in a more mid-paced setting (i.e. Swarming Plague, Giant Wreak Havoc) for most of the time though, which is fine because the groovy patterns keep themselves interesting white the intense distortion keeps everything "crushing" and heavy. The bass is also fucking heavy. It's got this intense distortion on it that makes it sound like some sort of audio based black hole. No, seriously, it does. It's noticeably in the mix too, which I really appreciate. Every song you can easily tell that it's lurking around in the background, adding a really crunchy feeling to everything that it does. Literally the only band I can compare the bass sound on "Creeping! Crushing! Crawling!" would be Last Days Of Humanity, the inhuman low sound the bass creates is comparable to the bass distortion on LDOH's final full length album Putrefaction In Progress. Yes. It's that inhuman. I also should mention the drums, which are really awesome and certainly are able to stand out. Plasma's drummer is fairly simplistic with his beats, and that's a good thing, it adds quite a bit to the literal crushing feeling this album can give off. It's either a simple 1-2 beat, blast beats, a slow doomy style or a mid pace blast-like drumming, there are minimal drum fills and almost no double bass from what I can tell, which is somewhat refreshing to me personally, he eschews flashy drumming for a primitive, driving style and it pays off. Like I mentioned earlier, the vocals are really badass. They never leave the realms of pitch-shifted, slimy, gooey nastiness. It almost sounds like a clogged sewer drain mixed with the sound of a T-Rex uncontrollably vomiting while underwater and it completely sells the 50's sci-fi monster themes this album has.

The production is perfect for this style. Just clear enough to hear everything in the mix, but still DIY and crunchy enough to keep all the awesome goregrinders and slam fans listening throughout. The drum production is a tiny bit off, the cymbals sound weird (in a robotic, sci-fi kind of way) and the snare is pretty high up in the mix. It all adds to the overall sound of the album and helps make so that you can actually feel where the album is creeping, crushing AND crawling.

Overall I'd feel comfortable saying that Plasma's second album would easily find a place in my "top ten goregrind albums" list. It is essential to fans of grindcore, goregrind and slam. If you listen to any of those genres and haven't heard these guys, then please do yourself a favor and put down whatever you're doing (unless it's listening to Urine Festival, in which case, high five dude!) and check it out immediately! Plasma is criminally underrated and I truly hope they produce at least one more album in this style before they decide to permanently call it a day, my hopes are dwindling however, it has been 7 years since this album (which is their most recent work). Either way, do yourself a favor and check this out ASAP!

“Creeping! Crushing! Crawling!”, the second release of Plasma, a German metal band, is one of the more interesting buys available. Relatively obscure and unknown, yet available on iTunes under ironically an incorrect album title “Rampaging!” instead of “Crawling!”, the CCC release is one of the best uses of weird vocal effects in music.

The album is about 50’s sci-fi horror movies, the song titles telling the story of arachnids and insects that were exposed to radioactive substances and rampaged throughout the city. As for the music, it is mainly heavy metal patterns, not as particularly brutal and low-tuned as death metal but somewhat neutral, mixed with interesting pitch-shifted vocals. The aforementioned vocals sound like an underwater effect and are very fun to listen to: bubbly, rippling, and guttural. This is interesting because unless you speak pitch-shift, you have to focus on the overly-cool music. Fortunately, the songs are under and around two to three minutes, making it go by smoothly and nicely.

Overall, I would recommend this album to anyone who doesn’t HAVE to have lyrics and such. The guitar and drums have easily head-banging patterns, and this is short enough to hold your attention-span. Recommended tracks: Menace From The Ocean Floor, Observed Observer. 86/100