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XXX Maniak > Harvesting the Cunt Nectar > Reviews
XXX Maniak - Harvesting the Cunt Nectar

A relic from back when it was OK to be edgy/offensive - 88%

GuardAwakening, July 30th, 2023
Written based on this version: 2004, CD, Red Candle Records

It's odd to hear how the times have changed, generic white trash drum machine-based death/grind-related bands are everywhere on Bandcamp these days and they always suck, but back in the days when any kid with FL Studio wasn't free to make shitty "music", there was a bit more, I guess, quality control over what was developed and released. Back in 2004 it was somewhat harder to start a bedroom band, and this right here is the result of 2 nutjobs who actually went through that effort. Whenever there's an extreme band I want to hear that really brings that overtly anti-PC message to their lyrics/song titles/aesthetics and I don't want to settle for Anal Cunt; usually I'll go for Waco Jesus or Pennsylvania's XXX Maniak. This grind duo almost act like a caricature of grindcore in general, taking AxCx's aesthetics and amplifying them into more of a gore-drenched approach. Harvesting the Cunt Nectar is a very, very trashy album and that's what makes it so good even by today's standards.

First I want to say that the cybergrind genre is one of my least-favorite things ever, but this is something that gets "quality assurance" pass from me. To quote one of my friends this band sounds like if "Agorophonic Nosebleed was more MySpace" and I personally can't really muster up a better description of what XXX Maniak sounds like. Everything down to the hyper unrealistic drum machine speeds, the absurd shouty/screechy vocals with the weird EQ effect on them, even some riffs passages seem to be inspired or even stolen from ANb. It's no doubt they were a prime influence. This band, in the early internet days, got mislabeled as "goregrind" a lot, but this isn't accurate at all. The genre of this group is best described as deathgrind/cybergrind, lose all that "pornogrind" nonsense that they get labeled by dudes who think having a hypersexual theme means anything to the sound of the music and you have it nailed down. Also intro samples, yeh, there's lots of them. If film samples annoy you this surely isn't a record you want to hear.

First song opens up with a sample of a guy smoking weed and recalling "Is that the first time you fucked a dead girl?", and in this track the band packs in the theme for the rest of the record in under a minute with intense grind riffs and a breakdown. It's obvious that an album like this was made not to reinvent any of the genre's tropes, but rather to carry all of them at once. Essentially Harvesting the Cunt Nectar acts like it's an album by raunchy/edgy grind fanboys for raunchy/edgy grind fanboys, and it can be seen as an early entry for what would pave the way for similar drum machine/sample-heavy acts that would come out a lot later like Gorepot and maybe even Cemetrery Rapist.

Considering the album is so short, replay value has to be high for this to receive such a high score from me; and it is. The album is fun to listen to just about any time you're wanting to hear well-done bedroom cybergore with funny/amusing samples. I wish there was more to say, but ultimately I've said just about all I need to. To recap: the riffs are solid endeavors that consist of grind / death metal-influenced melodies, and the drum machine sounds about as good as a drum program in 2004 would sound. Only complaints I have would be the vocals are sometimes a little lacking and some of the samples are a little overly-long, but it's all acquired taste. Ultimately I can attest that after 18 years, this shit still holds up. One last thing I want to mention is that the spine of the CD layout features all these bizarre and disgusting 3D generated images that seem to depict people involved in bloodplay / scat porn. Also a disclaimer on the back of the booklet reads this: "WARNING! May cause vomiting, hearing loss, and/or mental disorders if played excessively at extreme volumes." Figured I'd just make note of those things in order to set a tone for anyone curious to hear this.

*palms face* - 15%

MutatisMutandis, July 22nd, 2008

"Fucked By Lightning" and "Buying A DVD Player ( Then Raping You With My Old VHS Tapes)" are unquestionably amazing songtitles. I've laid awake at night pondering as to why I hadn't come up with a title as ridiculously awesome as the latter, not to mention the wet dreams such late night sessions generally invoke. On top of that, the sample introducing the track "Albukkake, NM" is so fucking hilarious, I've easily listened to the track 50 or 60 times since I had the misfortune of picking up this olympian diskus of fetid cow placenta. What, did you think anyone actually enjoyed this shite gimmick of a band? Well, I suppose you'd be right, considering how "sick" and "motherfuckin' brootal!" it is.

XXX Maniak are your standard "sicker than thou art" drum machine backed cybergrind band set to the highest BPM imaginable without crossing over to breakcore territory and busting out the blotter sheets. Contained on this effort are thirty tracks in just under 20 minutes, but trust me, you'll feel like you've been through the "criminally dull sideproject blender" for at least an eon before the bullshit finally lets up and Zombie Slut Rape closes. The interspersed "crushing, fukken' heavy riffs, man!" are so unimaginative and redundant, it's actually kind of a relief to hear the drum machine drown out everything in white noise. I don't enjoy straining my ears to find the merits in overwhelmingly mindless blast-a-thons, and neither should you. What the fuck, am I supposed to memorize the riff placement so any resulting locomotion I express syncs up to where the guitar should be coherent? Coincidentally, the aforementioned slower bits are the lump of mollasses and cornstarch on the lure of just about every positive review I've encountered... again, what the fuck? An incredibly standard juxtaposition doesn't make a release worthwhile when the bulk of the material is just arbitrary vocal howlings recorded over what may as well be a layered, hi-tempo audio sample of bowling pins getting knocked over. I could create more intriguing and juxtaposing breakdowns with a barbershop quartet and a woodblock.

This band is a joke, and a lame one at that. I wouldn't even reccomend this to cybergrind aficionados, because at least Libido Airbag bothers to structure their songs and use adequate production methods. That brings me to my last gripe: the sound quality on here is so crystal-fucking-clear and sterile that even if the music was decent, it would be rendered unlistenably lifeless. Why Scott Hull associates his talented ass with so many horrible acts is completely beyond my comprehension. If you're into cybergrind, pick up some Eyetofuk, Sawtooth Grin, and Gigantic Brain material; if blasting mecha-drums are your thing, don't hesitate to check out Fuck... I'm Dead or Catasexual Urge Motivation. If you're looking for something to regret purchasing, XXX Maniak is your man.

One of goregrind's few masterpieces - 98%

Noktorn, May 21st, 2008

"So is that the first time you fucked a dead girl?"

If the quality of music was measured purely by how many times you can listen to an album without getting bored, 'Harvesting The Cunt Nectar' would rate somewhere near the top of human artistic achievement. Fortunately there are other considerations for musical quality, so a CD entitled 'Harvesting The Cunt Nectar' thankfully doesn't have to appear on any VH1 TOP 66 GRIND MOMENTS special. As far as the pantheon of goregrind goes, though, this does have a similar position of quality; I can honestly say that this is one of the best goregrind releases in the history of the genre. You can criticize it for supposedly being mindless, or overproduced, or shocking for shock's sake, or any number of other things, but the fact stands that it's remarkable, unique, and neck-snappingly heavy music by a couple guys who definitely know what the fuck they're doing. The fact that they've been disowned by a significant portion of goregrind fans as well as the general metal audience is PROOF that they're doing something right.

It makes me happy that one of the best goregrind releases ever ISN'T something designed to appeal to non-fans. Apart from in the dimension of production quality and instrumental ability (to a degree), this operates wholly within the realm of goregrind. It's not an 'exception to the rule' thing like Wormed or Lykathea Aflame; it just takes the elements of the genre and does something amazing with them without being apologetic or overtly accessible. Overt accessibility isn't necessarily a bad thing, but a release is that much better when it's able to communicate its ideas in a way that's wide-reaching but still not intentionally open. No matter how good the intentions are, something is nearly always lost in the translation when a piece of outsider art is made palatable for public consumption, and it's a great thing that XXX Maniak on this EP has done everything possible to STOP the continued co-opting of goregrind by the more mainstream metal crowd.

Where to begin... I guess at the most central point of what makes this such a great release: it feels as goregrind should. In the same way that Catasexual Urge Motivation and Paracoccidioidomicosisproctitissarcomucosis do it (though those artists mechanically display it in completely different ways), XXX Maniak sounds like goregrind should. In a nutshell: evil, transgressive, and horrifying. This is not party-grind, funny cyber stuff like SMES, or mindless gore. It has what the majority of goregrind seems to have forgotten is a crucial part to the genre: a true aura of negativity and darkness. If Catasexual Urge Motivation was the depraved, philosophizing serial rape-murderer, and Paracoccidioidomicosisproctitissarcomucosis was a sadistic sort of mad scientist, XXX Maniak represents the total breakdown of basic human values and social mores in the form of a spree killer. Eventually you get past the ridiculousness of the song titles and the image and you get what they're about: not being funny or merely shocking, but sort of displaying the full pantheon of human evil, which sometimes takes bizarre and seemingly illogical and ridiculous forms.

If you take the grinding industrial drum machine of Catasexual Urge Motivation and remove the sensuous groove, the simplest tremolo riffs of brutal death metal and remove the restraint and even-handedness, and the demented high-low vocals of porngrind and remove the good spirit and sense of fun, you have a basic idea of the sound of XXX Maniak. An explosively loud and surprisingly well programmed drum machine delivers inhumanly fast blast beats along with slightly more sensible modified punk and death metal beats amidst sudden rushes of cymbal and bass drum fills while equally loud and clear guitars play a mixture of the ultra-quick chord changes of Cock And Ball Torture, almost thrashy and surprisingly melodic tremolo riffs, and deliberate, menacing chugs, like a smarter 'Chainsaw Dismemberment'-era Mortician. Vocally, there's a low, grunting growl that's mostly used for background effect while the priority is given to a dazzling array of uniformly throat-searing screeches, ranging from a gurgling Catasexual Urge Motivation variant to a distortion-laced, ripping, tormented scream. Lyrics seem to be sporadically used; some are clearly just random screeching.

XXX Maniak uses the semi-traditional pattern of sub-thirty second microsongs to incredible effect, with each being a simple but incredibly refined idea, as well as being stunningly unique, with distinctive riff patterns and song 'structures'. Aesthetic and music are very unified: you remember tracks by how the music reflects the song title, with samples as crucial to the overall experience as blast beats and yammering, demented vocals. XXX Maniak deliberately throws curveballs in the litanies of antisocial decadence with strange, provocative song titles like 'Lost Inside Yourself', The City And The World', and 'Sunrise Is A Lie'. In general, it's an intentionally confusing release that may or may not have more to it than just what's one the surface, and I lean towards the former interpretation: the music and aesthetic seems too carefully constructed to be entirely meaningless, whether the musician's notice it or not. How else can you explain such carefully employed samples (most of which I think were made by the guys themselves)?

Really, it all comes down to the feeling of real evil and sickness I get off this music, and just how specific that feeling is. It's not the predatory, revoltingly alien feel I get from Catasexual Urge Motivation, or the manic, joyous gore of Paracoccidioidomicosisproctitissarcomucosis, but more the feeling of tension and release, like someone finally obeying the sinister impulse to kill. There's just so much hatred and evil and loathing on this disc that it feels hard to contain on plastic. It's the sort of sick and vile thing you expect to find on a reel of eight millimeter film somewhere in east Germany. It's ugly, absurd, hateful, disgusting, evil, sinister, menacing, and possessing an odd intelligence and grandeur; in short, it's everything that goregrind should be.

XXX Maniak - Harvesting the Cunt Nectar re-release - 60%

Phuling, April 23rd, 2008

I have to admit I’ve never really got the whole XXX Maniak raving. Sure, it’s an ok band, but nothing I’ve ever felt excited about. But when this re-release of their old demo CD comes stumbling down my mailbox, and it features some of the most disturbing and sickest artwork I’ve ever seen, I still feel positive about it, and I’m ready to give it a fair shot. Unfortunately I quickly grow tired of it.

The heavy, extremely well played, goregrind keeps pounding like a two-dollar hooker. The riffs are exceptionally good, and are not just the same five death metal riffs repeated over and over again. Everything from piglet screaming to growling to drunken cookie monster gurgling comes pouring out of the speakers, accompanied by several porn samples. And when it comes to the drumming Agoraphobic Nosebleed quickly comes to mind. The high-speed, often overly speeded, drum machine mangling reminds me a lot of said band. But what differs that band from XXX Maniak is that it becomes a bit irritating after a while. Though different drum patterns are used it still annoys me every now. It feels focused too much on speed. And the fact that it feels too high in the mix, taking up too much room in the production, makes it even more annoying.

They manage to pull off 31 tracks in 24 minutes, even when the ending song is 3.21 minutes long. So that should tell you just how short the rest of the songs are. But, the ending song is just fucking annoying with a bloody techno feel to it – not to my liking. The album features guest vocals from Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Vile, Rumpelstiltskin Grinder (etc) members, but it could just as well have been anyone since no vocals really stand out. Fans of Prosthetic Cunt will for sure love this, but I’m not really getting it.

Originally written for http://www.mylastchapter.net

The soundtrack to a lonely (and horny) scumbag. - 88%

Funeral_Shadow, September 21st, 2005

Goregrind is one of those genre's that somehow been made up from people over the years in metal and bands like the idea of using that as their genre. So overtime, this "genre" of metal has been cast in stone and bands have created a specific style to this "art." Usually, the songs to a goregrind band are really short, quick, sound like shit coming out of an ass (seriously) and...

Well fuck, just check out XXX Maniak for the definition of goregrind.

Now these guys take goregrind to the extreme... this band is extreme sex and gore worship. Just look at the bands name for crying out loud! XXX Maniak is what goregrind is all about and they perfect it like it's nothing. Just listening to this album gives me a very in-depth look into the mind of a sick and twisted serial killer. This album, in a weird sense, sends chills down my spine because it's just that eerie to listen to... I enjoy listening to this album because this is the epidome of true goregrind and also this music really reflects perfectly on sex offenders, perverts, druggies, serial killers and whatnot. This basically isn't some bullshit goregrind stuff like with pointless music; I sense a lot more in these guys music than just gore and sex and I believe it's just to showcase true sickness in a very weird artistic form. And no, this isn't Carcass-style goregrind we're talking about; this is more on the lines of Meatshits and Agoraphobic Nosebleed meets Mortician style grindcore... with a really gorey twist to it with cum all over that (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic.)

For a goregrind album, the music is well produced. Usually, the stereotype about these kinds of bands is that the production is horrendous or the bands are playing terribly out of rhythm and end up like shit (which ironically would be their intended goal in the end!) This album, in a funny sense, is very classy because of the very crisp clear production; it's unethical for a goregrind (or any grind album in the sense) to be produced so... so... just so great! It think the reason why there is such great production done in this album is because the band uses a drum machine for every song on the album. That's just fine with me; this is better than the Mortician-style use of drum machines.

The songs are, surprisingly, memorable and are all unique. I say "surprisingly" because usually most goregrind bands just blast whatever the hell they want and don't care about the "art" or message behind the song. XXX Maniak seems to put a lot of thought into their lyrical ideas and how they want the vibe to be in each song. Some songs have a real despair feeling to them, like "Lost Inside Yourself" which contain some very eerie vocals from Richard Hoek (the mastermind behind Brutal Truth, Total Fucking Destruction)... they aren't stereotypical growls, but the vocals are more like screams from a insane asylum. There are many other guest appearances throughout the album, featuring artists like Carl Schultz (Agoraphobic Nosebleed), Shawn Riley (Rumpelstiltskin Grinder) and many more.

Some tracks, on the other hand, are just all out blast beats and growls/screeches and whatnot. Though, they're listenable and appealing to the ear and, ironically, don't want to make you puke your lungs out. Now I don't know if XXX Maniak intended this stuff to be listenable, but if they did, then sorry, this stuff is quite enjoyable! Tracks like "Death Porn" and "Gorebortion" present this blastbeat quality grind (and I may add that Gorebortion also is really creepy to listen to... try playing this track all alone in the darkness of your room.) There are few tracks that are slower paced than others. Tracks like "Prowler In The Shower" are indeed brutal, but present a more slow-paced tempo to it (well, in certain parts at least.)

I really have no complaints about this album... it's perfect in a gore sense... the only things I can complain about are that the album is waaaaaay too short. I would've love to heard more stuff from this album, but I suppose I'll have to stick to the stuff here for now. Something else that isn't a big deal but still sorta annoys me are the use of samples on every track. Now I got to admit, the samples do give the music more character, but sometimes I just want to hear the actual music itself and not a 30 second long sample. Then again, this appears to be a constant characteristic of goregrind music.

None the less, this is an essential album for any goregrind enthusiast out there. If you're not a goregrind fan, then whatever check this out still! This album in itself is a real journey to listen to and I recommend that everyone should at least take this journey into the sick world of a murderer's mind.

Superb all around... just superb.


Ear Candy: Lost Inside Yourself, Gorebortion, Prowler In The Shower, Skeleton Toucher, Semen For The Basement Slaves... every track is a gory odyssey within themselves.