Dead & Hungry

So here’s one you can file next to Hypocrisy in your collection. Once again, France comes through, making headbangers everywhere toss aside their berets and slap themselves in the testicles. Hypokras is death fucking metal with some thrash freaking metal tossed in, and there is many a moment where fans of the above style will be forced to zip down the front of their pants, pull out their dick, then pull out one pants pocket and ask anyone if they’ve seen a one-eared elephant recently.

Let’s start with the bad, since there is less of it. The production is kinda weak, not really giving a lot of oomph to the low end. As a result, it almost sounds black-metallish from time to time, and we all know that is bad news. The drumming sounds a little programmed, and I can’t tell if that is the case or if their zombie drummer is just really tight (see below for explanation). And a few songs just whiz past the listener without really making a dent – we are all aware that there are albums full of fast death metal songs just for the sake of fast death metal songs. It will always be so. There is no changing it. Just skip ‘em, and go on with your life.

Now for the good. French horror movie samples = awesome. The song titles “Symphony For The Hanged Priest” and “Deceased In Alcoholik Orgasm” – also awesome. The latter is a great tune, as is opener “The Cursed Birth,” the pummeling “Divine Illusion,” the title track, and my personal favorite ditty that opens up with orgasm noises (take that, White Zombie!) “Heretik Whores”. Many a good riff is busted out, many a mispronounced English word is either grunted or hissed, and many a bass note is unheard.

On a side note, these seriously have to be some of the funniest band photos ever taken. Right up there with “Back from the Grave” and the dudes coming out of the coffins, that shit was great too. Or Steve Tucker popping out of the swamp with a mic in his hand on “Formulas…”. Or the stage name Guy Mann-dude. Crack open the tiny booklet and you get one giant muscled Frenchman in an executioner’s hood, another one in some Nascar sunglasses ready to CRUSH you, and a third pic obviously taken from some horror movie of a corpse with a bullet hole in its head – I think that’s Sir Genocide if I’m not mistaken. Must be tough to play drums when you’re a zombie. Those brain-cravings and detachable limbs cannot help you lay down the gravity blasts.

The cover art is bad, by the way. Get to work, gang. Fire the twelve year old, buy a computer, or hire a Polish guy. And speaking of getting down to business, they haven’t released a full-length since 2002. On their MySpace page, it only lists two members. Maybe losing that drummer to Shaun of “Shaun of the Dead” slowed down their recording schedule.

So in summary, “Dead and Hungry” is an entertaining album from France, where the death metal hordes seem to be amassing. Will it be the best disc in your collection? Probably not, unless you really like your whores heretical, uh, I mean heretikal. But if you enjoy death/thrash with questionable production, a possibly mechanical zombie drummer, and a lot of baguette-based bready riffery, you’ve come to the right place.

7 French horror movies out of 10.

Originally posted on: www.globaldomination.se