Urine Junkies

Since this album is coming up on it's 25th anniversary I thought I'd review it since it's been one of my favorites by Abscess throughout their career. I wasn't sure I was going to like this because it was somewhat different than their previous band Autopsy. For those of you who don't know this is the band that Chris Reifert and Danny Corrales started when Autopsy ended in 1994. So when this came out I was intrigued but I enjoyed it. They didn't lose that Autopsy flavor it's just got more punk and hardcore mixed in. These are 3 demo tapes with 18 songs put together on one CD. I thought that was a great idea to release this as their debut. The demos all have different productions just so you know...you'll hear quite the difference with each set of songs. All of these demos were raw and dirty recordings just so you understand this ain't for the fans who like clean and well produced records.

So let's start from the 1995 demo which kicks off this album. I love the instrumental '29th Lobotomy' which has a classic Autopsy style riff that is really great and the single note riff is cool it stays in your head for a while. 'Urine Junkies' starts off real fast and then slows down and Chris Reifert does this long ass scream which is insane. His voice on all these songs is crazy and is very much like he sounded in Autopsy but he does more screams and belches which is quite funny at times. You really need to pay attention to the lyric sheet if you're trying to follow along with his vocal patterns. He says alot of the words really quick and some of them are garbled be warned..its very hard to follow him while reading the words. The 2nd guitarist Clint Bower sings some lead vocals on a couple of these songs his voice is more higher pitched he has a black metal rasp that sounds great. He sings lead on 'Depopulation' which is a great fast track and his voice really shrieks it's crazy.

You can tell Mr. Reifert was influenced lyrically by GG Allin with songs like 'Horny Hag' which is hilarious. It's about a really ugly fat girl that is nasty to look at. It's funny as hell to read these lyrics. The songs are short for the most part but you have slow sections in each song which is a good balance with the fast parts. These guys know how to craft a song very well that isn't riding on one riff for too long or being too technical. Some really great doom riffs here too which is great for fans like me who prefer the slower heavier riffs.

Next comes the tracks from their second demo from 1994 and the production is really dirty the guitar tone is stripped down and the drums are really raw sounding. It starts off with 'Blacktooth Beast' which has hilarious lyrics about another ugly girl that's even worse than 'Horny Hag'. This is one of the hardest songs to follow the lyrics for...Reifert really says the words so fast it's really hard to understand him. He starts coughing too and makes fart noises in the last part which is crazy funny and you'll be cracking up hearing that. 'Suicide Fuck' and 'The Scent Of Shit' are absolutely a homage to The Mentors and GG Allin again with some really funny lyrics. It's telling someone to kill themself because they're a waste of life. Reifert was totally channeling the punk attitude with these words basically telling people to fuck off on these 2 songs. Just hilarious man. Clint Bower takes lead on 'Altar Toy' which is about catholic priests molesting children it's ferocious too and he sounds so angry. My favorite song from this set of songs is 'Raw Sewage' which is total doom with some really slow riffs. Reifert lays out some really great screams once again that are so crazy it's just nuts. This song rules I thought it was awesome for a change of pace from the fast songs.

Finally we have the last 6 tracks which is the very first demo recording from 1994 that sounds the best. The production on these
songs is a lot better but still dirty. All of these songs are great I like 'Die Pig Die' and 'Unquenchable Thirst' the best. 'Unquenchable..' is probably the hardest song to follow the lyrics to. I've had to really pay close attention to Mr. Reifert's voice its so crazy. It's so ridiculously fast you'll get lost trying to follow that one trust me. At the end of the song he does this insane yelling that's so crazy you'll be like what the fuck? It's so awesome to hear him on that part it's so ludicrous. He really goes all out on all these songs that's what I've always loved about his voice. He makes the craziest sounds he can think of and goes off with it 1000 percent. 'Bloodsucker' is great too another very punky tune that has a great chorus which is catchy and sick at the same time.

So there you have it this is a great album and one for you death metal fans and punk fans to enjoy. It's got both those styles meshed in so it's great and alot of humor in there too. I wished I could have seen them play live at that time. I have seen videos where the band goes crazy on stage and wrestle each other and spit blood everywhere it's crazy shit. I liked it when Chris Reifert came out and sang a few songs. So the bass player Freeway would play the drums and Reifert would go apeshit like GG Allin. He was covered in fake blood and wrapped up with the microphone cords. Then Danny Corrales was kicking him over and throwing him across the stage it was chaotic. Well those days are gone but it's fun to watch those videos and laugh your ass off. Hearing these songs live was awesome though they sounded like the recordings from what I saw on the videos.

This album is one of my favorites from this band. It was a great start and it's so raw and grimy on purpose. That's what they wanted to deliver and they succeeded.

Urine Junkies gives me a hard on and creeps me out at the same time. What a kick ass filthy release from death metal punk legends Abscess! Now i could get into detail with how Abscess aren't together as a band anymore, but i am sure you know that given that you came to this page. Urine Junkies has amazing punk energy and fluidity yet it also is very agony laden and has misery filled doom that only the death metal side of them can bring forth. This album is something heavy and out of control with shrieked, growled, and muffled snarls that seem to come out from behind the hardened chunks of sewage that stop up frozen sewer pipes in the darkest depths of the minds of Chris Reifert, Danny Corralles, Clint Bower, and Joe Trevisano.

You better admire those fast heavy slamming riffs and those chugging hardcore punk rhythms that make you want to kill a few cops and wipe your ass with a hookers face, or should i say it makes me want to do that. Present in pretty much all of the tracks on this album is this distortion and fuzz that lingers over everything accompanied by the banging of the bass pedals, the clapping of snares, galloping of the toms, and clanging of cymbals you have a train of freaks going at well over 600 miles per hour. My favorite song is Anally Impaled! I love the start of this song where the pedals slap against the bass drum skin and the semi funky punk riff that i love as it oozes out into this slow miserable death metal riff and Chris Reifert sounds like he is shaking salt on a human meal with those cymbals haha . Another song that is absolutely mind bending is Horny Hag. That song is fast and so energetic and not to mention street filthy. It's a song about a big old horny slut with cellulite on her butt.

Yet another set of tracks that this train merges onto is a song called Depopulation! What a wild ride ! I love this song and everything it's about and let me tell you if you have never once thought about lowering the world's population then stop listening to Abscess let alone death metal in general. I can only dream of running wild through the streets of multiple states shooting bullets at everyone from a m14, but then again maybe one day that dream will come true. What else can i really say about this track? It's just kick ass. The spectacular instrumental 29th Lobotomy is a sort of like a hammer knocking on your skull casing repeatedly in attempts to extract your lost sanity. There also comes forth these filth caked blood gurgling mind blackening guitar whines and whales that sort of remind me of those waves of heat energy you see up the highway in the hot summer except imagine that as darkness.

Blood sucker is that type of song you can guzzle a six pack to. It's fast, rhythmic, and heavy. It has that rock n roll vibe to it that lets me enjoy myself amongst the insanity. When Clint Bower and Chris Reifert yell blood sucker over and over it makes me want to slide Rawhead Rex into my VCR and enjoy some hellish horror. I like it when Chris yells fuck at the end. That's it for my review for Urine Junkies by Abscess, you better like this album or I'll get that horny hag to stop by your apartment and sit on your face with her poop encrusted reeking bung hole.

Abscess is the band that Chris Reifert formed post-Autopsy, and it sounds like a natural extension of what you'd hear on 'Shitfun': punk-infused oldschool death metal with unsavory subject matter and a generally raw, primitive sound. This compilation of the band's first three demos pretty much captures Abscess as they're supposed to sound: crude, unformed, gross, and angry. It's pretty cool even if it does start to wear thin after over 40 minutes of this stuff, but it's good in small doses.

The ingredients: power chord riffs ejaculated from a gritty, filthy guitar/bass combo, punk and rock-based drumwork that eschews any sort of technicality in favor of simple groove, and Reifert's unmistakable, grotesque post-Tardy howling. Add a pinch of feedback and guitar noise sections that go on for too long and the occasional wild, thrashy solo, and you have Abscess. The songs are simple and short, crafted out of two or three riffs each and a few stanzas of ugly lyrics, and only very occasional blast beats or double bass. The sound quality is pretty rough but better on the first and third demos than the second, where the guitars are buried under the vocals of Reifert. It's a bit silly to ask for high quality production for this music anyway. It'd be a waste of time and money.

Later Abscess is more of the same, so you could probably just pick up any album and you'd essentially be hearing everything the band has to offer. All of Abscess' material is fun, catchy, and hideous though, so if you like one you'd probably want the rest anyway. I'd say this is a good place to start, and not just chronologically: it shows the band in their most primitive and Autopsy-influenced stage and packs some of their best songs. Really, it has 'Suicide Fuck', probably the best thing Abscess ever did, so at the very least get it for that song.