Blessings - Bittervatten

Band's like Sweden's Blessings instill a certain kind of emotion in me that I'm not sure I can accurately describe. The relatively young 3-piece blends so many different styles, all of which I like, that I find myself wondering why this hasn't been done as well before. The emotion that rises from the perfect mixing of sounds, textures, styles, and influences, could simply be elation; maybe someone's finally done it?

Pig Destroyer - Fahrenheit 451

Without the bad, we wouldn't know the good. Without great music, bad music might seem good, or even great. Its with this train of thought that I think Pig Destroyer exist. With their recent effort, Book Burner, Pig Destroyer have produced such mind boggling mediocrity that it just  highlights how amazing their second album Prowler in the Yard is and how awful their current album is.

The decline has been pretty sharp since the band followed up their masterpiece with the overly produced and neutered album Terrifyer. While Terrifyer was anything but good, it retained some strain of style and one or two good riffs from Hull. Phantom Limb stumbled in, with it's flavor of the week cover art, songs of ponderous length, and one too many breakdowns that seemed to put the nail in the coffin for Pig Destroyer. With the announcement of another try at the whole "grindcore thing," people like me gained some hope that Pig Destroyer might be able to tap into whatever they had that made Prowler... so powerful.

With a hefty amount of time to work back to their glory, Pig Destroyer have done an impressive job in making one of the year's most inoffensive, sterile, and extremely marketable releases. Book Burner represents most of what I hate in metal. Sterile production, click track perfect drumming a'la robots like Derek Roddey, inane lyrical matter/song titles and guitar riffs that do nothing for me. Relapse, as well as Century Media, Metal Blade, and others, have made their agenda to revolve around this brand of meat and potatoes metal gussied up in surgical production, lack of character, current fads and marketability. Well Book Burner's no different. Some super lame cover art, dumber name, 3,000 different ways to pre-order the album, a slew of guests, and a new drummer spells ca$h I'm sure, but does it spell good music?No.

"The Diplomat," a 3 minute cookie cutter track presented as the album's first single as well as one of the first glimpses into the album's sound offers nothing new. Spending most of its time hovering around a stock chugga chugga guitar line, midtempo drumming and of course breakdown sections, "The Diplomat" is almost as bad as the video made for it (something I'd rather not talk about here).

As for the rest of the album, it's a sprinkle of what Misery Index's been doing since 2006 with a pinch of Terrifyer, and a bottle or two of Ambien. Jarvis, the new man behind the kit, of course made his name playing as a clock for Misery Index, so the sterility in that department isn't surprising. What is surprising is that the best vocals on the album come from Kat of Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Salome fame on "Eve" and Richard Johnson of Enemy Soil/Drugs of Faith  fame on "The Underground Man." Between these two guests, there's more emotion, vitriol, and a pulse than the rest of the band. This is particularly alarming as Pig Destroyer have always operated best in filth, depravity, and twisted thoughts. Yet they've become as harmless as Mastadon or whoever's the big cheese nowadays.

As for the riffs, most lay in between "alright" and "sure." As I write this, the generic-ness surrounding this album is so stupefying that I really can't find words to describe how little of an impact and forgettable most of the tracks are here. The only one standing out for me is "Permanent Funeral" as Hull gives an interesting treatment to a very Destruction-esque riff and makes it work for nearly 4 minutes. While the song should be 2, this might've been the one song that made me look at the track list out of joy rather than malice.


Is it unfair to compare this to Prowler in the Yard, or anything else for that matter? I don't think so, but if I did, the overwhelming lack of character here makes it feel like a different band, a band I wouldn't give two shits about.

So while people, press releases, reviewers and media outlets will continue to call Hull a guitar genius, Hayes " the poet laureate of extreme metal," Harrison a master of atmosphere and Jarvis "the pinnacle of inhuman drumming" Pig Destroyer have effectively created one of the most memorably mediocre albums in extreme metal.

To quote another band that went down the drain, "don't believe the hype."

****On a side note, the biggest offense here, without a doubt, are the bonus cover songs. Pig Destroyer's never been good at covering songs. Their "Burning of Sodom" cover might be okay, but as for their treatment of the Dwarves, the Melivins, The Stooges, Carcass, and whatever else has always been pretty lackluster. But to take rough cut punk classics like Black Flag's "Depression" and play with that fucking sterile robot Jarvis is a complete mockery. The guitars lack any kind of punch and the band rides Hayes's vocals as he does a surprisingly great job ripping things up (especially on that "Wolf's Blood" cover). This is real bad shit here and it'd do your mind best to avoid it or else some of your favorite punk classics might leave a bad taste in your mouth the next time you hear them.

Amputee / Nimbus Terrifix

I love splits for the simple fact that they can be a great sampler or introduction to two (or more) bands you've never heard of and wouldn't want to shell out for a full length. The most recent one I've come across is between Amputee and Nimbus Terrifix and it's interesting to say the least.

Amputee play a super muddy and gurgling style of grindcore that sounds like the bastard child of Crossed Out and Last Days of Humanity. Everything is blown out, the vocals are anonymous gurgles that sound like Assuck blown through a wind tunnel and recorded with a cellphone, the guitars bleed into each song with a large dose of feedback and team up with the bass to become indistinguishable shields of noise that are powerfully heavy. When you do hear a riff they're awesome super metally chunks that rip right into you and would make Steve Heritage proud.

I'll admit I played this once or twice on 45rpm (it's a 33) to find myself puzzled as to which speed is actually the right one. I'm liking what I can hear, which at times is very little, I'm hopeful on upcoming releases they mix things a bit more clearer and cut out the atrocious amount of tape hiss (it sounds like my needle's pulling a cottonball with it).

Nimbus Terrifix on the other hand play a more punky style of d-beaty hardcore and still suffer the tape hiss from hell. Interesting contrast as Nimbus Terrifix employs a much more distinguishable old school punk bass and some hazy Black Flag/Dead Kennedys style riffs in between power-chord bursts. The strength of their side is the simple fact that they never let up and continually pummel you until the needle's done. The weakness, surprise, is the horrible production which constantly threatens the guitar out of the picture entirely.

Those of you that follow my blog should know how much I love shitty production, but this isn't shitty, it's poorly done. It's almost like the production was allowed a dinner plate's worth of space for every instrument and they gave a quarter of that room to tape hiss, a half to the vocals, and crammed the bass, drums and guitar into that last quarter. I like what the bands are doing, especially Amputee, I just want some better production next time.

Forgotten Lore: Malicious Secrets

Whether it's the psychotic crap spasm that's their contribution to the excellent From the Entrails to the Dirt 4 way split, their buried EP Apostle of Him or their downright nasty demo from '99, Malicious Secrets were an absolute backdraft of black metal that played the game the way it wanted to. Their pinnacle being three tracks from the aforementioned French black metal love-fest 4 way, Malicous Secrets were always sure to keep an astounding freight train of energy going. At times the band sounds like a free-for-all, each instrument (and voice) fighting for dominance in the span of mere minutes; drums blasting, noodely leads crumbling apart and vocals just ranting on. If you've ever seen Jacob's Ladder, that hospital scene is the film equivalent of this band.

Part III: Send Me To Hell Day of Wine and Thorns

Their last track from the From the Entrails to the Dirt split.

Largely forgotten in the scope of things, Malicious Secrets were a short-lived project of Mutiilation brain baron Meyhna'ch, Tenebras of French weirdos Nuit Nore and most surprisingly, the best part of the band (the guitars) were the work of TND, some dude who played session bass in Celestia for the early part of their career (oh yeah, then there's some shlub who played bass with the great name X Daemon).

I guess true to their name, I've rarely- if ever- seen this band's name in any kind of discussion, review, or whatever else.It's a shame as this small body of work is so jagged, anxiety ridden and at times nonsensical in the best of ways (kinda like Black Flag when they just got noisy). The guitar playing and strange accents/syncopation of the drums are definite highlights and the main catalyst that drives you through meth frenzies like "Part I: Interior Crack Psycho Angel Bitch" (whatever the hell that means) or "Twisted Mental Void."


If you're familiar with related projects, such at Mutiilation, Nuit Noire or even fellow countrymen/splitmates Antaeus there's some similarities. Meyhna'ch's signature drawl is here, even though the drummer's from Nuit Noire, his style here really reminds me of the guy from Antaeus who tends to do these blast beats that fall apart in a fill at the end of each measure. If you're lucky enough to own From the Entrails to the Dirt, then good for you, but if you're not one of the elite few, be sure to get these tracks, as well as the whole split as it's a great showcase of a now aging French scene (Deathspell Omega's the only relevant band there, and they've made great strides since).

Now go and tell your friends.