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Pus Vomit > Degrade the Worthless > Reviews
Pus Vomit - Degrade the Worthless

maybe it should degrade itself then huehue - 35%

MutantClannfear, May 9th, 2011

After Filipino slam death metal band Human Mastication left a slightly sweet taste in my mouth, I decided to pursue more bands from the region. So I chose one of the other big names of the scene, Pus Vomit, hoping their music would be equal to or above Human Mastication's.

Nope. Not even close.

Before I start, I just want to point out how fucking stupid this band is when it comes to naming things. For one, their name: Pus Vomit? What is that supposed to even mean? If sticking two yucky nouns together in a completely random fashion was a good idea, don't you think other bands would have picked up on the idea before you did? And even then, you could choose a better combination than that, even picking words out of a hat. You might as well name your band Vagina Entrails. Another thing the band fails at is naming songs: "Dead Remains"? Are there any other kind of remains? Then you have "Soaked in Her Own Blood"..."God Help Me Rape the Dead"..."Retching Lacerated Entrails"...it's some of the most generic names I've ever heard for brutal death metal. Even Waking the Cadaver are better at naming songs when it comes to originality.

The album opens with a fake testimonial from Albert Fish (and anyone who's looked up anything about the man at all can tell you there were no recordings of his testimonies; the band would have been much better off using a real sample of a killer like Arthur Shawcross or Jeffrey Dahmer, not a fake one of someone like Albert Fish), and everything the band has to offer is revealed within the first minute of "She Died a Virgin". Laceration Testicle have a guitar tone much more open and free than most brutal death metal bands, and the riffs aren't bad, but they all feel too similar to stick in my head for an extended amount of time. They're not so boring that I'm considering running over my foot with a semi truck, but it's obvious the band needs to step their game up in the riff department. The drummer is probably the best musician on this album. Unlike most Southeast Asian slam, Feces Leech's drummer seems to have saved up enough money to buy a snare drum that doesn't sound like a trash can, and there seems to be a bit of actual technical effort in his work (fills are always appreciated, no matter how brutal your music is), so he's probably the high point of this release.

And using deductive reasoning, you'd be right in saying that Bile Tumor's main weakness is in its vocalist. He's decided to use nothing but inhales, and he's not good at them at all. They sound more annoying than the ones in Waking the Cadaver's demo, and they stay at the same pitch and tone throughout the entire album. In addition to that, during the blasts, he sometimes goes off-beat with the instruments. In summary, he sucks balls.

So, Prolapse Bladder, ditch your vocalist and tell your guitarist to write some better riffs to write some better riffs, and I may actually like you. Until then, this band isn't terrible, but there are much better options in the world of slam death metal. Ignore this.

Gore Soaked Guttural Brutality - 90%

pervertedodium, July 25th, 2009

The first thing I noticed about this release is the sinister air of iniquity and vile sense of ugliness that it conveys. Now, whether it was intentional or not, the artwork’s color scheme (or lack there of) hints that there is something very different about it compared to the many modern death metal albums currently saturating the scene. Put it in a row with any five brutal death metal CDs that you have which were released in the same number of recent years and Degrade The Worthless, the debut album from Pus Vomit (Philippines) sticks out just like a dead finger nail.

Speaking of dead, there are no less than four tracks here with a title containing that particular word. In fact, all song titles look as if they were pulled out of some serial killer’s personal journal containing writings about the gruesome acts he plans to do or had already done to his victims. Herein lies words that are perverse, straight to the point, and strangely enough, all too personal. It all seems so real.

The music itself tends to mirror the concepts presented. Each track is attacked with a level of “fuck it all” recklessness that it almost threatens to fall apart; much like the mind of a killer realizing the consequences of what he had done but goes on doing it again and again for his own satisfaction. In this way, Pus Vomit’s music has something in common with early Lividity: it does not care about having the fastest blasts or being the most technical band out there. What they do accomplish is to deliver a brooding, dense, almost suffocating brand of brutal death metal that incorporates, no… molests elements of hardcore and sludge. Note that sludge parts are not blues based grooves. Instead, they are more like a fucked up soundtrack to having an elephant step on your head and having the giant move its foot back and forth so as to drive your face deeper into the ground.

Not everything about Pus Vomit material is about simplistic brutality though. The drumming for example exhibits such a penchant for spicing up parts with imaginative rolls, fills and cymbal accents that it effectively pushes forward sections that are otherwise built on cycling riffs – which in a way, is a technique quite similar to that used by Lust Of Decay. The guitar playing is an amalgamation of various influences ranging from Cannibal Corpse-like marching riffs to modern day Dying Fetus beat downs and Devourment style slams. The guitarist has once even said that he is a big fan of Inveracity. Obviously, it would be hard for one to pigeonhole this record into a single stylistic category. And that for me is a very good sign. The vocals on the other hand, depending on the track being played, shift from mostly accompanying the rhythms, then into more abstract arrangements. Compared to the earliest of Pus Vomit releases, the vocals here are more guttural, essentially ditching the earlier pig squeals that have painfully become so trendy in “brutal music” the last few years.

So if you’re the type of listener who is looking for the most technical arrangements, fastest sweeps, and rhythms so tight that it would cause you to asphyxiate faster than you could say “David Carradine”, I suggest you look elsewhere. But if you crave something that is well produced but at the same time raw and powerful, and is the musical equivalent of cutting off your own limb then keeping the severed body part in your bedroom just to watch it rot, then its time that you eat up some Pus Vomit.