Slams, F-ing Slams. (Dysentery, From Past Suffering Comes New Flesh, 2008)

In the United States, Death Metal has held up its mighty reign for years. There are many different sub-genres that can be considered the best within this primary genre. Specifically speaking, Massachusetts does not usually have any ties into a strong Brutal Death Metal (BDM) scene; however with the recent assault of extreme power from BDM band Dysentery, this may change. Dysentery has been ruling the underground for roughly a decade and has a few memorable releases under their “hell bent for leather” belts (yes that was a Judas Priest joke). Most notably and prominent is their first full length release “From Past Suffering Comes New Flesh”. This album has some very straight forward Death Metal moments, but also has some of the most brutal “slams” I have ever encountered. Track by track I am overwhelmed and awed by this bands impressive ability to make my head fucking bang. The drums are blistering, the guitar work catchy, and the vocals are diverse and range fantastically between the harshest highs to the most guttural lows. It shall be appropriate to review this journey of an album through analysis of certain individual tracks.

Disassembling the Entities: This track begins the album with a sort of Deathcore type chug riff that starts off the Groove just right. This opening track also helps transition into the next song’s sporadic intro riff.

Decimation of Fear: This song starts up with a rapidly quick riff that compliments the implementation of some of the more pig squeal type vocals that are portrayed throughout much of the album. If I were to invite a new listener to the art of BDM I would choose this song to portray what this shit is all about.

Unfolding Creation: Beginning with a catchy rhythmic shrill this song has a lot of power backing it up, along with an immense groove and slam that makes the hair on my arms stand up with chills (I’m really into Brutal Death Metal). On a bit of a side note, this track and a few others would really gain by having the vocals turned up a bit on the mix, they are very quiet and the songs lose a bit of the atmosphere due to this imperfection.

A Malignant Future Awaits: My personal favorite, this track sounds like more of a traditional Death Metal track with a classic style intro. The vocal transition a few seconds in is definitely something that I would use to help define the phrase “brutal as fuck”.

I would highly recommend checking out this great Brutal Death album. If you have not heard of this band or would like to check them out, you can find them at Myspace.com/dysenterygrind or Facebook.com/dysenterygrind. I promote this band specifically due to the fact that they are trying to get more likes on Facebook then the disgraceful “death rap” group (or whatever you want to call them) Insane Clown Posse, which I find humorous and cause worthy.

-Jordan Barsamian

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The Three Absurdateers (Birdflesh, The Farmers' Wrath, 2008)

Do you remember those ridiculous teen years when your fascination of the morbid and absurd was often displayed in a "sickening" and totally un-pc expression of humour? Despite popular belief that we all grow out of this stage, the truth of the matter is us men don't and every so often chuckle to ourselves over something as cruel as seeing mentally challenged people attempting Shakespeare. Well good news folks, there exists a band that can simultaneously cater for our inappropriate humour whilst treating our ear drums to a nice Ground and Pound: enter the bizarre world of Birdflesh.
Birdflesh hail from Sweden, most likely from a colony of nut cases and aside from being comfortable in women's clothing and presenting themselves as the biggest wardrobe malfunctions you can ever conceive, they also play a eccentric strain of Grindcore which is drenched in all manner of idiocy and humour, befitting any man who enjoys humour, post modernism and/or most importantly Grindcore.

The Farmers' Wrath is their 2008 and to date their latest release, and by a long stretch is the most bizarre of their long list of releases. Opening up with the words "welcome to the lunatic asylum" the tone has been set for the rest of the album to come, from Funny Ice Dwarfs to True Glove and The Purgatory Passion this album has them all by the dozen whatever it is they actually may be.
Visualise the originality,humour and occasional absurdity of Monty Python, well now let us make it 100% absurd all the time, throw in a large chunk of something ghoulish in lyrical and musical nature, next add infrequent totally unexplainable sexual reference  then lastly give a healthy dose of some killer catchy Grind, and before us we have some of the wackiest and funniest Grind.
Parody and joke bands have all been done before and as a concept may no longer be an original idea, however in the method and quality of presentation Birdflesh are miles ahead of competitors, and even if we ignore the humour they are also miles ahead of most bands in playing some addictive well written Grindcore.  The secret to Birdflesh's  success can easily attributed to the fact too many artists focus on making the lyrics as humorous/absurd as is in their ability, this often leads to a gross neglect to the musical ability, with Birdflesh  the music is just damn catchy and good, you are already drawn before you hear the most ludicrous possible combination of words known to man, 
True Metallica fans(you know the first 4 albums, before they went shit) and Metallica haters will surprisingly join in unison to sing along to the song Some Kind of Mongo a parody of the song and also an irrevocable disgrace to cinematic history, not to my knowledge has  a song ever had the power to unite such a disparate groups of people, Impressive.

Somewhat a rare occurrence for me is that I generally don't sing along to 99% of whatI listen to, generally to spare embarrassment or that most of what I listen to is devoid of comprehension without a lyric sheet and even then it is difficult, however I find myself singing along to The Farmers Wrath in parts I know the lyrics too, and to be honest with songs as catchy as Leprosy on Jeopardy, Some Kind of Mongo, and Wheelchair Impaler there is no reason not to sing along, other than to prevent yourself an awkward conversation that you have no intention to mock such disabled people.
The brilliant thing about Birdflesh  is that it takes a break from Grindcore's heavily reinforced anti-this and that or most savage things possible ethos, and instead make some demented fun Grindcore.

Official Birdflesh Website
Birdflesh @ MySpace

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