Horror of the Zombies

Let's face it: If you're a big fan of grindhouse, giallo and cheesy gore films from the golden era, there's a chance that you've delved deep into the gore splattered world of death metal and grindcore. If not, then you'll be amazed at how many bands base their music and concepts off such theatrical genres. Sure, before death metal and grindcore was an established thing, many punk and thrash metal bands were already exploring those themes, but to a more lesser extent. By the time the mid-to-lates 80 came around, more and more bands became more daring with their lyrical content. Impetigo are just one those many bands, especially since they were part of the original wave of early grindcore bands. Granted they started as a more energetic hardcore punk band, with their earliest release being "All We Need is Cheez" in 1987. However, they would start to shift their sound into heavier territory, which showed on their following following releases: "Giallo", the 1990 promo, "Buio Omega", the debut album "Ultimo Mondo Cannibale", and of course, the subject of this review, "Horror of the Zombies".

Horror of the Zombies picks up where Ultimo left off: Songs surrounding the sickest and cheesiest aspects of horror films, however it seems Horror takes on a more "serious" and darker tone compared to it's predecessor, songs are much longer which owes to their embrace of brutal death metal infused grindcore, and the lyrics are TONS more gory. Tales of urban crime, cannibalism, bacterial diseases, zombies, cannibalism, the list goes on as extended.

The way Impetigo writes riffs on this release is something to REALLY pay attention to. We're greeted by a selection of fast paced shreds, groovier goregrind sections that sound like they came from Reek of Putrefaction, some amazing death metal tremolos, and of course, doom-laden slam parts. The tone itself is very sinister and the low end reverberates on each song, which further backs up the more darker tone Impetigo started favouring on this release. Second only to that is the bass, which is just pure meat and slime that compliments the already tough as fuck riffs. In fact, the overall vibe gives me old school Japanese hardcore vibes like that in bands like GISM.

The drum sections are very much in traditional grindcore fashion, but with the groovier aspects of death metal thrown in as well. In fact some of the drum beats have an almost Scum-era Napalm Death feel to them, even the song "Mortuaria" sounds like it borrowed the opening riffs from the title song of ND's debut. As well as these beats, we have mid-paced grooves, ferocious blasts and nicely done half-time breaks.

The vocals done by Stevo are a MAJOR step up from Ultimo, going from gravelly grunts to more straight up death growls, often layered to sound way more ghoulish and sinister. The campy, fun factor is still present, like on "Cannibale Ballet" where Stevo's vocals are pitch shifted down a few octaves. It's honestly the most menacing vocal work I've heard in the deathgrind genre and it's effectively done to perfection.

Another aspect I want to credit is the atmosphere, especially where the samples are concerned. Impetigo absolutely LOVE their gore and splatter movies, particularly those like "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" and the infamous "Cannibal Holocaust", the entire album feels like the soundtrack to a disturbing giallo flick from the 70s and it's got everything it needs to really get the listener thinking about these concepts. It's a nice mix of dirty murkiness and just pure menacing horror that's decipherable throughout.

Impetigo know EXACTLY how to bring horror to life through deathgrind, each songs is written really well in both composition and lyrical capacity, you could almost pass them off as transcripts for gory movies. It's quite clear the writing was a really fun process for these boys, and while not ABSOLUTE perfection, it delivers and it's made its mark on underground music for years to come. If you're looking for less serious deathgrind that still manages to be menacing in deliverance, Horror of the Zombies has got your back.

Favourite tracks:

Mortuaria
I Work for the Streetcleaner
Trap and Kill Them
Staph Terrorist

Carcass and Repulsion may have laid the foundation for grindcore and death metal’s fixation with gore, but Illinois’s Impetigo injected the genre with its bizarre and rampant use of film samples, usually with little alteration or integration into the music itself. It would normally be worth mentioning samples on a metal album only in passing, occurring as they do as incidental to the music, deployed in order to enhance a given moment, or nudge the audience in a particular cultural direction. But Impetigo are for all the world an unremarkable deathgrind outfit – albeit an early iteration of the genre – that make such liberal use of cinematic clippings throughout their work as to be their calling card. Their second album, 1992’s ‘Horror of the Zombies’ saw a marked raising of the bar in terms of song writing when compared to their debut ‘Ultimo Mondo Cannibale’ (1990), and solidified many of the nodes we now associate with the subgenre. This could hardly be called a dazzling feat however, given that the subgenre in question is famed for its limitations and primitivism as much as the gore and violence.

Musically there is really not that much to talk about. The riffs are about as basic as they come for death metal. The tempos are not fast or relentless enough for this to be considered pure grindcore, making the primitive rumination of this work all the messier. The guitars seem to struggle to keep up with the drums when faced with a blast-beat, preferring to swagger along at traditional punk tempos. The bass is distorted to fuck, meaning it essentially functions as a rhythm guitar. Vocals are perhaps the most interesting feature of the mix. Sticking with a surprisingly controlled death growl that allows many of the lyrics some audibility, but Stevo Dobbins is capable of throwing in some pretty monstrous outbursts when it counts, gifting the music the closest thing it has to dynamic range.

In taking the most basic iterations of death metal riffing as it was at the time, working in near compulsive horror film references by way of samples, lyrics, and cover art, Impetigo were arguably breaking new ground. There is a “d’fuck you gonna do about it?” rejoinder to any criticism that sophisticates are capable of levelling at this band. This is death metal tapping into the newfound nihilism of early 90s Gen Xers with renewed vigour. Sure, death metal (and metal at large) had toyed with irony before, the shield that emotional distance from art it can provide. But Impetigo took this a step further.

This is a world made up entirely of references to other pieces of culture: spare parts from death metal, magazine and comic book clippings, reels of tape, the scribblings of a teenager after watching ‘Return of the Living Dead’. But if parents, prog enthusiasts, or the just plain confused were to attempt to point out the creative dead end awaiting this pursuit, there’s a simple “we don’t give a fuck” catch all response that defies the dictates of artistic progress. For that reason it’s certainly arguable that – fun as Impetigo are to dive into now and then – they did metal a great diservice. Sarcastic detachment from art which – in the case of Gen X – was achieved by way of understanding the world through pop culture is ultimately the enemy of art as a pursuit that aims to transcend the limits of time and place. The latter requiring a degree of commitment that simply won’t tolerate downbeat sarcasm. It is these crimes that Impetigo are guilty of, far more than the raw simplicity of the actual music that greets us on ‘Horror of the Zombies’.

To be fair to Impetigo, to truly believe with conviction in a stitched together collection of pop culture references and half-formed riffs is just not an authentic position to hold.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

Horror of the Zombies is not much of an evolution upon its older sibling Ultimo Mondo Cannibale, which is to say that it remains the most basest of death metal songwriting, minimal riffing that would make even Autopsy of this period look more complicated. But as I said with the debut, it was never meant to be. Impetigo celebrated the crudeness of the form to a fault, far more obsessed with how they dress up their tracks with lavish serial killer samples than they are at crafting any sort of nuance within the rhythm progressions, drums or vocals. For a lot of their audience, nothing more was needed, and if I'm being honest, I feel much the same provided that the experience on the whole provides some memorable atmosphere or guitar parts, which Ultimo Mondo Cannibale didn't.

But this album does. Granted, this thing is dumber than a rock. The chord progressions all seem like the emergent British grindcore gods of the late 80s being strung out and slowed to a moderate hustle, or crawling along with the first few notes that come to mind. There's a little more to riffs like the one that opens "I Work for the Streetcleaner", which seems like it could have wound up on the Death or Obituary back-lot, but in general there are painful few here that stand out among others. What gives the record its charm are the frilly, weird leads that almost sound like insects approaching your ears when they appear, because you're just not expecting them. Or the blunt growls and garbled grind snarls of Stevo Dobbins. The bass guitar is thick, and buzzes you like the swill at the bottom of the communal coffee pot when nobody bothered to bring in any new filters for a new batch. The drums clang and thump along like an array of pots and pans in the background, not to say that they don't catch and anchor all the right grooves, which make up well over 50% of the album, these sodden, loping, knuckle-dragging bludgeons that well-represent the gaudy undead crew on the cover.

The samples are pretty good, if you're okay with bands using them so often, and they certainly set the tone that this band loves its cult horror, murder and exploitation, which is in my estimation their most influential aspect. You'll recognize direct film references like "Wizard of Gore" and "Trap Them and Kill Them", all of which would go on later to inspire (and even name) many other bands, so these Midwesterners had their shit together when it came to their taste in the obscene. I like when they go even more over the top with the atmosphere in something like "Cannibale Ballet", where the drums set the stage for some warped, freaky vocals that seem more like some emulation of a soundtrack rather than a metal tune. Frankly I'd listen to an entire album of Impetigo engaging in such absurdity because it suits them well. The lyrics are solid, simplistic but effectively written with some ghoulish imagery, and there are also a lot of grooves on the album that still sound perfectly moshable by today's standards.

Like Ultimo Mondo Cannibale, this is so primal that it just doesn't age, there is some gruesome impulse at the core of all of us which can appreciate how straightforward this is, and certainly if you haven't heard the band but enjoy records like Severed Survival, Cause of Death, To the Gory End or The Dying Truth then this is a decent, if not exceptional gibbet of gore slathered in that old Wild Rages Records cheese. If your battered VHS and DVD collection looks similar to the local butcher block, then its a given. I don't always break out Impetigo's records as much as their peers from that seminal period of death metal, but when I do, I prefer Horror of the Zombies.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Horror of the Zombies is the awesome followup to Ultimo Mondo Cannibale by the Illinois based gore gods Impetigo. 2 years has made quite a difference for this band. When I play songs off of Ultimo for people and then expose them to this, they refuse to believe that its the same band. Once again I will be reviewing the Razorback records re release.

First things first, Horror of the Zombies has a much more structured and varied approach. Upon first listen, things seem to have been toned down in the brutality department. This is not true at all, the music is just not as blunt and primitive as before. I'm not saying that Horror of the Zombies is anything like Human it's just that this is a little more evolved.

The songs presented here are longer, and have more structure to them then before. Songs like 'I Work for the Streetcleaner' and 'Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue' go past the 7 minute mark. This album has a lot more in common with old school death metal, there is not too much grind going on here. I forgot to mention that this album is a lot more atmospheric then Ultimo Mondo Cannibale.


The production on this album is thick and full. The drums, guitars, vocals, and bass are all very clear. The bass in particular is very meaty and distorted, although the tone is not as visceral as on Ultimo. The lyrics are very much in the same style as the previous album, so not much has changed there. Steveo's vocals are much more subdued here, the are standard death growls as opposed to the manic howling found on Ultimo.

I talked about the atmosphere a while back and I would like to elaborate on that. There are two songs on here that really aid in that atmosphere of total horror. 'Mortuaria' and 'Cannibale Balllet' are repetitive and just plain sick. Those two songs flow very well into each other and are the most “atmospheric” songs here.

The music is still very much old school death metal. Impetigo are influenced by such bands as, Massacre, Autopsy, Repulsion, Master, and Autopsy on this album. Like I stated before, the songs are much more together then before. There are no bad songs on here per say, just weaker ones.

The re release has expanded liner notes by Stevo, 2 extra live songs, and different artwork. I cannot recommend this album enough. It truly is a gore masterpiece, everything about it reeks of a B grade zombie movie. This is for horror loving death/grind freaks out there only!

Sick, twisted, and absolutely fucked up. Impetigo's Horror of the Zombies is one of the most fun albums to listen to when in the mood for horror and gore. This is easily the band's best album, and unfortunately the band chose not to try to follow this up to date. The band broke up after it was released and although they have reformed for some anniversary shows, have not put out another full length album.

Impetigo blends death metal and grindcore beautifully into one of the sickest sounds ever. The riffs are not fast but are groove-laden and catchy. The bass rumbles along underneath the riffs providing more earth shaking tremors. The drums are possibly the best musical attribute on the album. They are some of the most interesting patterns in extreme metal. The drums are not played particularly fast, but they are technically very impressive. They are constantly present and blend with the music extremely well.

The vocals sound as if zombies were actually recorded. There are some vocal effects that are used to great effect, enhancing the listening experience that much more. The vocals are double-tracked and are often deep, decayed growls that sound as if they are coming from the grave. Every once in awhile vocalist Scott Dobbins will unleash a blood curdling shriek or do something else unexpected which further adds to the horror of the music.

Lyrically, Impetigo deals with gore, horror, and more horror. The band incorporates several clips from horror movies into the album. I recognize Wizard of Gore and Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, but there are others along the way. This further adds to the storytelling aspect of the songs. The band references these obscure horror movies and provides clips to go with the references.

The production on the album is incredible. It is thick and dirty sounding, yet clean enough to hear everything that is happening on the album. If all grindcore sounded like this, I would probably enjoy the genre a little better.

This album is a ton of fun. If only Impetigo had stuck around a little longer to follow it up. The band is a cult favorite, but they could have gotten much more acclaim had they kept at it. As it is, this is a great, somewhat obscure album.

So, here we have Impetigo’s masterpiece of zombies and gore. I consider this album to be a classic of old school death metal/goregrind. From sick and twisted lyrics ranging from spreading staph to necrophilia, sicko Stevo never allows a dull moment on the album. While it is a shame that Impetigo more or less split-up after easily their best work, I suppose it is also a blessing in disguise. I really don’t think they could have topped ‘Horror of the Zombies’, however, it would have been nice to see them try.

There were a few interesting production methods that were used during the recording process of ‘Horror of the Zombies’. As I was reading through the additional notes by Stevo from the Razorback Records reissue, he described how the vocals were recorded. There were actually two track recordings for the vocals. One track went directly to the mixing equipment and the other track was miked through an amp with a blown speaker. This brings me to the sound of the vocals, which I find to be superb. Upon listening closer there really does appear to be multiple vocal tracks, and the above would certainly explain that. Of course, I noticed this on my first listen through, but I also didn’t read through the notes until later. Stevo’s vocals are matched perfect with the gritty and dirty sounding production. Honestly, if a zombie were to really exist and decide to play death metal, I think it would sound pretty close to Stevo, and that would be deep raspy and very dirty sounding. As if his voice had been decaying and wasn’t completely there.

As I stated in the paragraph above, the production on ‘Horror of the Zombies’ is just fantastic. The production is very dirty and thick. Of course, this carries over to the guitars which are down-tuned and deep as if buried six feet below. They basically sound like down-tuned buzz saws, and are very groovy. Impetigo seems to like to create a deep groove in each song, and basically don’t stray to far from that niche. As far as tempo, the tempo is most often in a mid-paced speed for the majority of the songs. However, on occasion the tempo will speed up dramatically, but only for short bursts. For instance, ‘Wizards of Gore’ has some fast tempos mixed into a sort of default fast doom pace. ‘Trap Them and Kill Them’ also shifts back and forth in tempo, they actually play quite fast in bursts on ‘Trap Them and Kill Them’.

As for the drumming…I just adore them. The drumming on ‘Horror of the Zombies’ is some of the best I’ve heard. Not for shear speed or technicality, but for the fact that it just fits so beautifully with the songs and what the guitarists are doing. I particularly love the sound his bass drum has on this album. It has a perfect deep pitch and he rarely, if ever, uses double bass. Most of his bass drum work is done with a single kick at varying tempos, sometimes in a traditional rock beat style (sometimes much faster than a typical rock beat also). The drumming almost sounds somewhat primitive, but that is exactly how it should sound when you are essentially creating a zombie ballet. The most technical drumming I would say, is on the ‘Defiling the Grave’, which has a faster pace, with some interesting snare rolls.

One track that deserves special mention would be ‘Cannibale Ballet’. This song is really creepy, and it actually gave me goose bumps on the first listen. The vocals are especially sick on this song, as if grumbled by a real zombie, but they do have effects on them. This song is also made up of percussions and ambience without any guitar/bass work. Regardless, it is extremely creepy and one of the weirdest songs I’ve heard. True horror material, it is indeed a cannibal ballet.

To conclude, I must say that this album is certainly one of my favorites, as well as a classic goregrind album. A must own for any and all death metal fans new and old.

2 years after the cult classic Ultimo Mondo Cannibale Impetigo is back, and it's easy to see that they've progressed a lot. Longer, better written songs and a lot of more effort were put in to the lyrics.


What makes this album so great? It's pretty simple, this album just reeks of gore and decay. In fact, this album is pretty much the epitome of horror movie inspired death metal. It had a very big impact upon death metal and especially goregrind, with some sick-as-fuck lyrics (but without overdoing it, which goregrind often has a handfull of). Yes, the lyrics are on of the biggest pro's on this album, dealing with topics like necrophilia and horror-like violence. It's clear to see that these guys were/are big horror and explotation-movie fans, with the song Cannibale Ballet being (more or less) a tribute to the infamous Cannibal Holocaust film.


The samples used in the songs fit the music perfectly, ranging from bits out of horror movies and a portion of what looks like interviews from Henry Lee Lucas and Daniel Rackowitz. Often a bit lenghty, but they really are choosen wisely and gives you an idea of what is coming ahead.


The music itself is not just the regular triggerd blasting and 1 riff that goregrind seems to suffer with, but actually pretty good thought out song structures and changes in speed. Still a lot of raw velocity and some blasting, but the songs often slow down, going with some heavy downtuned riffs at a chugging midpace.
The riffs are primitive and very heavy, but the solos are well done. The drums are mostly for speed but the drummer tries a lot of different stuff, not just blastbeats.
The vocals are my absolute favorite part of the album, Stevo has improved his growls and his screaming a lot. Now they're not the kind of Chris Barnes ridiculously deep growling, but still pretty low and guttural. He's able to do some fucked up stuff, like the high screams in I Work For The Streetcleaner.

If you are a fan of death metal, grind, or horror movies, you should definatly check it out.

The second full-length album of Impetigo after glorious "Ultimo Mondo Cannibale" (1990) is a masterpiece of horror and filth. It reeks gore and decay. I can name tons of goregrind and death metal bands that were influenced by "Horror of the Zombies" for example Exhumed, Impaled, Machetazo, Tu Carne, Amoebic Dysentery, Frightmare, Lord Gore, Waco Jesus, Fondle Corpse, Haemorrhage, Cock and Ball Torture or Funebrarum. It is unquestionably their best work with raunchiest songs and lyrics. The CD booklet of Razorback re-issue contains more superb liner notes by Stevo who has written 7 pages about the entire history of making this album plus makes comments about all 10 tracks. "Horror of the Zombies" is the goregrind/death
metal classic in every sense of word - an entire album of morbid death riffing, insane gurgling and growling, and perfect and simplistic drumming. Of course this album is slower and more repetitive than "Ultimo Mondo Cannibale", but it's also a lot more memorable. It's an audial representation of the sickest horror/exploitation flicks ever made. Being a major fan of horror cinema I utterly adore this slimy monument of deranged filth.

Favourite tracks: "Boneyard", "Breakfast At The Manchester Morgue (Let Sleeping Corpses Lie...)", "Defiling the Grave".

The one reason why this CD has been in my stereo for roughly 5 years is because of the sound quality. This album is one of those that has its very own atmosphere, and it creates a world for you to live in. this particular world is one of Amazonian jungles inhabited by malicious sex hungry cannibals and other deities, corpse molesting vampires, zombies, people who piss in food items to spread staph, necrophilia and degradation. It is an awesome world, and reminds you in turn of cheesy b-rated gore movies, if for no other reason then because every song begins and ends with a quote from some movie, mostly zombie flix. They do tend to go on for a little while, but they create a good atmosphere for the songs, and they are worth listening to because they are funny. And they are also worth it because what comes afterwards is fucking awesome, and the intros just make you anticipate the songs even more, and when you hear them, the pay off is totally worth it. The music can be described as gore thrash. It is thrash influenced gore grind, before gore grind had any characteristics to speak of. There are many crossover thrash and just pure thrash metal riffs, mostly slow or mid tempo, while the fast parts are like early Dead Infection era gore grind. There is sometimes use of vocal distortion, but mostly we just get this raspy, kinda low, narrative voice that is just supremely creepy and gets in ones ears. The songs all rule. There are no fillers, every track is simply awesome, not just ‘Boneyard’ that every one covers. Even though it is a sweet ass song, to be sure. Anyhow, this album is a fucking legend and it deserves all of the sweat that people give it, it is the best work form Impetigo, and has all of their best tracks. If for some reason you are a moron and decide to own only one of their releases, this is the one to go with.

As I listen to this album, my hands pulsate, as I envision fresh blood spilled across my room, after a recent chainsaw massacre. The room reeks of decay and putrefaction, mangled, dismembered body parts hang in random places around the room, decorating it in a morbidly ornamental fashion. And in the middle of it all, I sit there, at my desk, with my hands still pulsating, and my ears echoing with the whirring of an idle chainsaw that sits by my legs, inundated with blood and intestinal remnants.

That's what listening to this album is like. The gorific landscape it creates is mesmerizing. Don't dismiss this album just because it is authored by a goregrind band (as a metal elitist myself, I know what that's like). Give it a listen.

This album incorporates the obvious aspects of death metal, grind, and snuff films made in the 1970's. The sound is heavy, almost sounding like a sped-up doom metal band, at times. There aren't any typical blastbeats (from what I remember), so don't equate Impetigo with the typical grind/grindcore band... They're not. They remind me, refreshingly, of Carcass. While they're sound is not as technical and melodic as that of Carcass, they stay true to the brutality and heaviness of the album and don't stray away from the gore and gut-wrenching imagery of their lyrics. Also, like many grind bands before and after them, Impetigo utilizes an array of samples as openers to their songs. I was content with their choice of samples, as they really fit the melodies and lyrics of the songs perfectly.

I can safely say that Impetigo is truly one of the leaders in the forefront of the grind genre. Their style is defining and not cloned. They have their own sound, not like, for example, the typical black metal band or the typical grindcore band whose sounds you can hardly differentiate and recognize. This band is on par with others like Ghoul, Impaled, Lord Gore, etc. This is an album definitely worth checking out.