Camp Blood

First of all I should probably start off by saying that this isn't usually my sort of thing. I am an obsessive fan of Carcass, and Reek of Putrefaction is my joint favourite Carcass album. I paid £500 of my money just to fly to Germany to see Carcass, after arranging to go to Wacken the minute Carcass announced their first reunion date there, and nearly wet myself when I found out that the Reek of Putrefaction-era line-up of Carcass had reunited in some form on Jeff Walker's solo album. But bands like Inhume and Dead Infection are lost on me. It seems to be gore for the sake of gore with these bands. The ultra pitch-shifted vocals prevalent in these sorts of bands are usually an instant turn-off to me, hence why I never gave this any thought at all. I merely dismissed this as another throwaway grindchore.

But this... this is in a completely different league. This WORKS. What it does is takes the elements which make up goregrind and strip them back to basics and makes them palatable to my ears. One example of this would be the samples, whereas an ordinary band would merely load ever single song with a sample A) to make up some more time on the album and B) to show their ultra-obscure knowledge of Z-grade horror films, Bile don't do this. All the samples on this album feel like they have a place on the album, the album flows as one (It is a concept album after all, a goregrind concept album, that's a new one) and they add to the atmosphere and overall concept without breaking up the tracks too much.

Another example of this would be the music itself. This is not lightning-speed grind by stretch of the imagination, this is fairly slow-paced, and groovey. It has actual tunes you can get your teeth into and headbang along to. I'm more about the groove myself, than mind-blistering speed. Yes, these guys can certainly fucking play. The drummer is a powerhouse when he wants to play fast, but he is one of the few goregrind drummers who actually understands that if you're really going to ape Ken Owen you have to understand that he didn't play at mach-3 all the time in every song. Yes, he could do it, but he spent more time playing actual fantastic DRUMbeats instead of BLASTbeats as does this drummer. These guys have certainly taken care with this one, for sure. They've ushered the usual "speed speed speed" formula in favour of actually buckling down and writing memorable songs which are simple and effective.

There's more though, the vocals really do work on this one. I felt the pitchshifters worked on Reek because they were used sparingly. However, most goregrind bands totally ripped the arse out of it, and used them all the time, over a base of BLASTBLASTBLASTGRINDGRINDGRIND all the time and it just doesn't work. However, because this album is far slower, the vocals just click and I love them. I don't even care that there isn't anything in the way of variation (A common grievance of mine about pretty much most grind bands) vocally, it just works. It sounds totally fucking ominous and I love it.

The general concept of this album is a stroke of genius as well. The source material (Friday The 13th) is a classic horror film. I don't like Horror much as a genre but the Friday The 13th series is a great set of cheesy slasher flicks. The lyrics are simplistic, not bogged down in gore terminology, and don't cross the line in terms of taste. There's no sadistic mysogynistic lyrics that would make Cannibal Corpse blush. The artwork is a fantastic pastiche on the Friday the 13th poster, devoid of the mindless splatter-and-gore album covers drawn by people on the Sex Offenders' Register and the titles could've came off of any Death/Thrash album. The main reason for this IS the concept itself. If it was some obscure "Cannibal..." film or a torture porn film, I wouldn't care about this at all. It was the whole Friday The 13th aspect which attracted me to this in the first place.

To sum up just how good this is, I shall paraphrase the good folks at Terrorizer magazine while reviewing the latest General Surgery album by saying: Goregrind is like fine cuisine. It's all about getting the right balance of ingredients. Too much of one ingredient and BANG! Your dinner is ruined. On this album Bile have got everything just right. Every ingredient is exact to the gram. They've taken everything which makes goregrind what it is, and then stripped it down to the bare essentials, down to what is needed and refined it to create 13 fantastically groovey, yet memorable tunes.

I am stunned by this album. I expected to hate this with a passion. I would never even give this the time of day if it weren't for the Friday the 13th concept and the reviews on this very site. What I acquired merely out of curiosity turned out to be an absolute beast of an album which, quite frankly, has defied all my expectations. Taking Reek and Symphonies out of the equation, this is one of, if not the greatest, goregrind album ever made and certainly one of my favourites. This album is as simple as you can get. There is grand motivation, it's simply 3 guys getting drunk, having innocent fun and writing music to the Friday the 13th films, nothing more. If you are into the "slimewave" bands such as Inhume, Dead Infection, C&BT, GUT or Dead, you NEED this album in your life. You'll love this. If you're into the more "medical" side (General Surgery, Pathologist, Aborted, Exhumed), then give this a go, you'll probably fucking love this as well.

Highlights: Well, the opening title-track "Camp Blood" is an instant classic and needs to be downloaded by any self-respecting Gore fiend and the sheer ominous DOOM of "Death Curse" will give you the heebie jeebies but if I'm honest, don't download this. BUY it. You won't regret it.

Finally there's a life sign! Bile's debut The Shed's been sold out for ages now, and I honestly doubted something new from 'em would ever hit the scene. But here it is - Heavier, faster and with more gore and brutality than you could ever imagine.

I find myself in lost of words trying to review this album. It's just freaking unbelievable! The awesome power and heaviness is almost unmatched in the goregrind scene. The thundering, driving riffs builds up this massive and heavy wall of sound, leaving you stumbled and numbless. The punishing drumming mangles right through you, leaving the gnarling, gurgling vocals to hack you up and disembowel you.

Heavy-as-fuck, slow, churning sections such as the first two minutes of Death Curse puts you in a drone-like trance, as the mid tempo gets your body moving into zombie condition. And when the grinding kicks in you find yourself covered in blood, your hands deep inside the still warm body, chewing on your victims guts. At least that's what it feels like while listening to this.

I usually name Cock and Ball Torture and Last Days of Humanity as two of my gore favourites, but in the future I'll definitely have Bile on the top with 'em. Camp Blood is simply put a masterpiece! - One by one they'll meet their creator, straight from the hand of the mutilator!

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

Released on No Escape Records, “Camp Blood” is the follow-up to the legendary 2000 release “The Shed” from Dutch goregrinding maniacs BILE.
After having already creamed my pants time after time over “The Shed”, and then upon hearing this release for the first time, I had to kinda restrain myself from making this review into some shameless love letter pledging my undying eternal love to this band. Camp Blood seems to be the complete package, incredible artwork that totally reflects the mind-blowing horror-fueled goregrind masterpiece that lurks within. Anyone familiar with this band or the previous “The Shed” release, will probably have realised “The Shed” was entirely inspired by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. Camp Blood being similar but this time influenced by the Friday the 13th movies instead. Reading this you may expect some cheesy Razorback-like horror band; but Bile has set new standards in every aspect of this concept. Every one of these 13 (obvious) tracks seeps insanely heavy, relentless groove ridden goregrind with low impact vocals for the most part, enabling the music to really take the foreground in this album. Friday the 13th samples flow in and out of this album, not too overdone thank fuck, but just adds to that dark grimy atmosphere which samples like that should. Most of the music follows a classic heavy, simple formula ala Gut, Mortician, Kutabare etc. Catchy Scummy riffs, upbeat drumming and a insanely good guitar tone that seems to bulldoze through every song. The production is flawless, not too polished, harsh but not too raw, fuckloads of low-end without being retardly distorted.
Bile have definitely impressed once again, Camp Blood is without a doubt the best release to hit my ears for a long long time, and one absolutely brutal album every fan of the genre needs.