Grotesque Contradiction

The 4th album from Russian brutal deathgrinders Barbarity opens with a bluesy intro, whence suddenly a pig or something guttural comes along and causes some chaos. Unfortunately this is probably the most interesting track on the album.

The rest of the songs consist of somewhat dull, guttural death metal with a real edge of grind. When I say 'dull', I don't necessarily mean the band lacks energy, they play fast a lot, but never exciting. Chug, blast, squeal, chug, blast sort of style here, with some very simplistic groove breakdowns reminding me of early 90s pit stomp death metal.

The death metal starts on a low note with the title track and never really picks up from there. The production is rather lackluster, there is no sheen to any of the instruments, the bass is inaudible if it even exists. The drums sound alright but they don't exactly have great riffs to capitalize on, and the vocals are just the same 2nd rate guttural grunts you've heard a million times, also not very interesting without better riffing behind them.

As is so often is case, I'm going to have to recommend passing on this record, unless you're a huge fan of every gore-soaked grinding excrement to come down the pipe. Grotesque Contradiction isn't quite so grotesque enough to appreciate it, and I daresay boring, when there are a lot of better brutal albums out there of late, like Severed Savior, Deeds of Flesh and Lecherous Nocturne to name a few.

-autothrall
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