Gorgasm - Masticate to Dominate

Riff mark: 1:16

Brutal death metal from the U-S-of-A, a cattle ranch for these sort of blast-beat sprints of perversion and grunted expletives. This one ain't a bad representation of some of the most obnoxious and forceful music with an underground following, thanks to intelligent (but not overly complicated) guitar riffs that occasionally allude to classical tonality in minor keys, such as the surgical solo in the title track. You could do worse, or better. Cool samples.

Morbid Angel - Radikult

 Riff mark: no

Garbage. It took five years through an eight-year studio lapse to shamelessly piss out this insulting, irritating mockery. First, the band’s a mess. Sandoval’s unceremoniously dropped following injury and Vincent’s back in the fold after a near decade of not, meaning Tucker’s out of a job, too. Dragging behind Vincent’s black leather-platform heels is all the industrial muck and residue from his wife’s BDSM sessions, which he lathers liberally across Illud Divinum Insanus. This is barely a crossover record more than it is ego masturbation, or just bad music altogether. Trey passively plays the submissive through motions of maybe-MA songs like Blades for Baal or Nevermore, but the superimposition of Cavalera-ish vocals from Evil D ruin everything. He just sucks. Too Extreme sucks, Mea Culpa sucks, and Radikult is the suckiest suck to ever suck, a 7-minute black hole of suckage that rips from both Marilyn Manson and (no, really) Body Count. Awful 90’s backyard goth with unlikable synths and those annoying over-triggered quarter-note bass beats (a studio waste of Tim Yeung for half this record). I mean it just floors me that so many critics and e-zines accepted this shit yet similar one-shot hybrid attempts like 34.788% Complete and Blackacidevil are universally chastised (relax, I’m not praising those albums, either). Hurtful. I’m writing this in 2015 and I’m still pissed. Suffering on all levels of hell.  

Leng Tch'e - Too Stupid To Live

Riff mark: It's not really that long

"Blaahhhh blaahhhh blahhhh blah
Blaahhhh blaahhhh blahhhh blah
Blaahhhh blaahhhh blahhhh blah
Blaahhhh blaahhhh blahhhh blah"

There's your lyric sheet. 

Portal - The Swayy

Riff mark: I kind of slighty sort of gave up

As if the principles of atonality couldn’t possibly be broken any further in the damp catacombs of extreme metal, the defiance of Australia’s Portal shatters the simple logics of 12-note chromatics, inventing devil chords from 13^th keys from guitars with double-digit strings. Arguably the most horrific concoction, a primordial ooze shaped from post-ejaculate Stravinsky ethics and Lovecraftian theatrics, set to the orchestration of chaos theory and the absolute nonsensical steering of melodies through twisted woods. Swarth is the novelty of the lunatic, unknown transcriptions and etchings coded in what could possibly be the origins of song, or the complete endings of such: a riddled Mobius strip. Impossible to parallel to existing acts, but allow this mortal a shy attempt: the acceleration of a Morbid Angel apocalypse? The catch: miserable production accompanying miserable music. Tales of terror told through washing machine cycles in a mid-range muffle. Perhaps for the best, as Swarth is a blackened book best open, then immediately shut.

Brodequin - Mazzatello

Riff mark: 1:12

The irony of brutal death metal exclusively themed around torture. Mercifully this one is short and painlessly inoffensive, barely a half-hour of snare-slapping and mucous-clearing. Festival of Death is another self-mutilating victim to the recording mimicry of heavy-volume voice and drum; blinding white light blurs. Weirdly ambient. Impressive drummer on those snare hits; THAT takes endurance. Hey, heard a tom maybe once or twice! Critique unsurprisingly interchangeable with most on the blood-and-guts front.