Filth

Waco Jesus promise some filth and it is what they serve with 'Filth', their second full length album. The band's music will make ears of any socially "good" people bleed and its cover art will blind the righteous. So, get that spade out and start diggin'! That sentence can be understood at least in two different ways, by the way...

Claiming to be one of the more popular acts in grind/death underground (spade...), the band definitely can play. The drumming is wild. The guitars are THICK! Too thick for my liking, because guitars are everywhere and all the time too, but they aren't very heavy, actually. Not much pauses, they create a continuing mat of sound. There are memorable riffs, yes, but it's just too incessant. The music's pace is fast for a big part, varying a lot and dropping different breaks and mid-pace grooving. Many different rhythms, for sure. If the music isn't original, the band's style might be at least a bit. Okay, something like Dying Fetus come to mind at times. The song structures are left a bit mysterious to me. Another thing, that can divide one's thoughts in two ways. If only I'd remember anything about the songs after it's over.

The cover art is sick. It is fucking ugly, actually, even though there's one bright motherfucking red rose bud! There's a funny photo of girls fighting and one's squeezing other's tit. Love it. The lyrics are also claimed to be sickest around, but this promotional copy didn't include any. The vocals are maniac duet of lower and higher growls and shrieks. Waco Jesus offer a lot of filth, but this sounds good. In the mix, every instrument is audible. This weird guitar sound is not very powerful, but the blast is provided by the rhythm section.

Hey you grind/death maniacs who're looking for extreme pleasures, this might be for your liking (Cock And Ball Torture, for example). Great listening, when you're feeling beaten or just angry. I bet this is such filth, that some will take this as real shit. I mean this ain't an easy job for sure. Waco Jesus are here to fuck with your mind and they manage to do it. No matter what you think of their music.

(Originally written for ArchaicMetallurgy.com in 2003)

(Examining artwork [as I got a promotional CD] in 2020 via Discogs.com, there's also male attacking woman and other vulgarities pictured. Not supporting such action.)

Let me start by saying that this album is nothing special. It doesn't sound very difficult to me, the songtitles and the album cover are repulsive (but hey, if you listen to death metal you've got to be used to something), and the grunts are actually one of the easiest I have heard.

How come, then, that I have granted this album with a score of 50%, instead of the 20 or lower that you might expect whith this. Because until now I have said the things that spring into mind when first listening this album. Now that I have listened to this several times, it is actually becoming something worth listening to. Still, nothing special, but still enough for some 25 minutes of fun. Some people might say that this score is too high for these riffs and drums that have been done lots of times before and the simple grunt. That is quite easy to explain. This album has something that most other death metal albums do not have: atmosphere. With that, I do not mean the atmosphere that you might expect in symphonic black metal and that sort of stuff; I mean that it is brutal. Pure headbang material. This album is not good for listening how technical or handsome the different instruments are played, this album, in fact, is for me just for the occasions that I want to go berzerk, the songs are definitely aggressive, and that, I think, is the only strength of the album.

This is why I am not granting it an insufficient mark, but also not a sufficient one. It is basically only good for aggression, which, in my opinion, is not good enough to be considered a "good" album. However, the job that they are supposed to do, they do perfect.

There is only one thing that keeps this from being a zero. The first 25 seconds or so of Filth are somewhat catchy, then the song totally goes down the drain. The riffs here have all been heard before elsewhere, and a hell of a lot better. The lyrics are very stupid and just try to be as sexually offensive as possible. The music is generic. The vocals are crappy death metal vox. I love death metal, but not this type of death metal. Even though this album is only 25 minutes long, it is an extreme test of stamina to make it beyond the first half. It really says a lot when some of the song titles include "Blast You in the Face With My Semen", "Punch You in the Cunt", "Sexual Assault" and "I Hope He Beats You". Very immature and just plain stupid. If you want to listen to some good death metal, listen to some Disavowed or Gorguts. If you want to listen to good porngrind...wait, does such a thing exist?