Reek of Reviewtrefaction: A Gore House Productions roundup

As I sat at my laptop thinking about what to write about while unthawing THKD from its brief cryogenic slumber, it seemed only appropriate that my first post from California be used to shine the spotlight on a California-based label. I’ve already covered a few releases from Los Angeles’ Gore House Productions, but the label has been cranking out such an impressive slew of quality slam, brutal death metal and goregrind albums that I wanted to do something that would serve as a good overview of what this great label has to offer.  What follows is a trio of GHP’s recent releases not already covered in previous posts, not for the the faint of heart, not for the easily offended and most definitely NSFW.

Colpolscopy – Ready for Gore
Much like their labelmates Stages of Decomposition, Oxnard, CA’s Colpolscopy employ an oldschool take on slamming death metal that sets them apart from the hordes of bands that don’t have the first clue about songwriting beyond stringing a bunch of slams together and calling it good.  This mentality makes them one of the strongest bands on the GHP roster and along with the aforementioned Stages of Decomposition among the most likely to become scene leaders.  On their debut album Ready for Gore, the band demonstrates their superior compositional skills with seven meaty slabs of brutality that you can actually tell apart, aided and abetted by a thick ‘n’ chunky guitar tone, combined with a rhythm section that slams like a brick to the face.

Speaking of slams, the band strikes a deft balance between semi-technical passages and knuckle-dragging slams that keeps each track compelling without an over-reliance on bringing the mosh.  Because Colpolscopy uses slam parts as simply another weapon in their arsenal and not as a constant crutch, they are mercilessly effective when they do pop up, making Ready for Gore one of the most flat-out crushing brutal death metal albums I’ve heard in quite some time. Dynamic, varied songwriting should be a no-brainer, but the sad truth is that a ton of the slam/BDM I’ve encountered of late is either a monotonous blast-beaten mess or thirty minutes of slams that go absolutely nowhere; to be sure, Colpolscopy’s nuanced assault is a breath of fresh air.

Normally I’d say thirty-two minutes is the perfect length for an album in this style, but Ready for Gore is so strong for its entire duration that it actually leaves me wanting more; I guess that’s what the “repeat” button is for.  Colpolscopy have a ton of potential and are definitely a band that fans of this stuff need to keep a close eye on.  Consider yourselves warned.

Clitgore – The Final Cuntdown
I’ve seen many a keyboard warrior of late piss and moan over the fact that metal subgenres such as slam and goregrind promote misogyny, so how does one explain the fact that Romania’s Clitgore, who sport song titles such as “Juicy Pussy” and “Your Smile Looks Better on My Cock” among their repertoire, prominently features female bassist/vocalist Mihaela Paraschiv, whom according to Metal Archives also goes by the handle of “NecroClit?”  Maybe this stuff isn’t as cut and dry as the metal PC police would have us believe, or maybe those of us who are intelligent enough to distinguish fantasy from reality just don’t give a shit.  One look at the cover art and album title of Clitgore’s full length debut The Final Cuntdown makes it pretty obvious which side the band falls on.

Clitgore’s brand of goregrind is a punk-fueled grotesquerie of basic yet bludgeoning riffs, bouncy rhythms and vocals that are more of a traditional death metal growl, rather than the pitch-shifted gurgle typical to the style.  Musically, the band reminds of the likes of The Day Everything Became Nothing and Cock and Ball Torture, although Clitgore’s songwriting isn’t quite on par yet with those genre heavyweights.  Sure, The Final Cuntdown is catchy and fun, but things tend to get a bit samey-sounding as the album goes on; granted, that isn’t much of a problem considering its entire run-time is under half-an-hour.  A few tracks near the end, specifically the title cut, “Tales from the Clit” and “What Cums Around Goes Around” hint at a more varied attack that the band will hopefully explore further on future releases.

Goregrind fans will eat this shit up (pun intended), but the uninitiated might not know what to make of a band like Clitgore. Whatever the case, these European pervoids are off to a promising start with The Final Cuntdown and it will be interesting to see if they are able evolve their sound beyond the album’s enjoyable if somewhat one-dimensional approach.  I’m looking forward to seeing them on the next “Hottest Chicks in Metal” tour.

Swine Overlord – Anthology of Abominations
Swine Overlord will be releasing their debut full length later this year on GHP, but in the meantime they’ve slimed us with Anthology of Abominations, an EP collecting the tracks from their 2012 demo along with their four-way split with Whore Torture, Necrosectomy and Indigestible Suppuration.  The band is a long distance collaboration between New York and Florida based musicians, and the music has a strong NYDM vibe in the vein of Suffocation and Mortician, mixed with modern slam.  I don’t really hear much of a Florida death metal influence, but perhaps this will become more apparent on the forthcoming album.

In spite of the tracks being culled from two different releases, Anthology of Abominations features the dense, claustrophobic production scheme that I think is perfect for slam.  The guitars could stand to be thickened up a little and the canned drums could be louder, but the sound is tightly wound and appropriately abrasive, with a welcome raw edge that’s a joy to hear in a time when a lot of brutal death metal is painfully overproduced.  In fact, Swine Overlord’s demo recordings sound better and more savage to these ears than most bands’ actual albums.

What I like best about this EP is that Swine Overlord sounds genuinely hungry and ready to crush the slam competition, and this bodes well for their upcoming full length.  If Anthology of Abominations is just scratching the surface of what these guys are capable of of, and I’m guessing it is, then they could very well be giving Stages of Decomposition’s Piles of Rotting Flesh a fight for slamming death metal album of the year.

Gore House has tons more good stuff on the way this year, including releases from Extremely Rotten, Phalloplasty and Party Canon in addition to the aforementioned Swine Overlord debut.  Stay tuned for more coverage of this killer label in the near future.

http://www.gorehouseproductions.com/