$LAMUARY 2024 – Week 2

Lust for Perpetual Torment seems to have a weird lyrical theme going on that mixes the Christian concept of sin with BDSM imagery. All of this is entirely communicated through the album cover and song titles, of course, and Uxoricide is a  very bog-standard independent slam release. Most of it is actual slammage, chugging chromatic power chords with little rhyme or reason as to which note is being approached with only occasional excursions into more finnicky material. Overall, they're alright.
Rating: 5/10

A "fun" little split EP. A snare that sounds like a tin can, the trademark down-pitched goregrind vocals and songs that are awfully short and don't develop into anything, but at the same time never feel like they come storming out the gate.
Rating: 4/10

The irony of me praising an anime themed slam album on the '23 death metal blurb only to then be proven so massively wrong about anime themed slam is not lost on me. Fundamentally, the issue is that Yandere Chainsaw Regurgitation Factory aren't ironic about anything. The guitar tone sounds more like djent than slam at times and more than half of the runtime is actually ambient with poorly mixed spoken word. Oof size: Large!
Rating: 3/10

A lot can be tolerated when irony is involved and the album is at least somewhat funny. No amount of irony can save this utterly unpleasant and unenjoyable album. The unreasonably loud, harsh and trebly guitar tone together with the hard-clipping production, unnecessarily long interludes and not a single sample that hits comedically, this is bottom of the barrel.
Rating: 1/10

I am glad to report that the airhorn sample never dies and that hip hop influences are becoming more and more a full-fledged thing. There isn't much attraction to Beyond Belief's sound (they aren't even themed around the Jonathan Frakes show!)—the band plays a pretty average slam and doesn't have the best production. I will admit though: I like the rap bits from time to time.
Rating: 4/10

Rather slammy deathcore that is at constant risk at becoming pure beatdown-bro fodder. While the solid grooves coupled with the good enunciation of the vocalist are initially enjoyable, there is too little variety and the material doesn't go hard enough to justify even the short runtime.
Rating: (low) 5/10

A classic occurrence during $lamuary: A band that likes slamming so much, they basically refuse to do anything else. While the material possesses enough groove and aggression to not get boring during the short runtime, there is little that puts it above any other slam record of this style—even considering the musicians look like they're 17.
Rating: 5/10

Another common Slamuary occurrence: The album that really should not be tagged as slam at all. Progression Towards Total Maceration is a pure death metal album. It reaches for that faux-throwback style with unnecessary thick and sludgy distortion on the guitars and an overbearing and utterly unpleasant delay effect on the vocals.
Rating: 4/10

Finally, the first album with comically loud bass drops - at least I suspect that the loud bassy whooshes which are a risk to the health of my speakers are supposed to be bass drops. With both riffs and songs that lack any structure, horrible clippy production and a vocalist that sounds all too similar to Jabba the Hutt, the most enjoyment I get out of this one is wondering if the cover is ripped from the gritty Netflix reboot of Sabrina the Teenage Witch that I don't intend on ever watching. Avoid!
Rating: 2/10

COSMIC HORRORS presents shitty free-form guitar noodling with no tonality, and low effort bree vox eventually. There's kind of a slam going on with some tracks, but with no builds or tension to speak of, it's mostly just chord chugging with the only direction being the ticking seconds of the track timer. Bad.
Rating: 1/10

A fairly aggressive slam style that leads on both hardcore energy and brutal death metal oomph, CORPSE MAGGOT CREW fits right into the sample-happy, grooving realm of bands like PeelingFlesh and BodyBox. The only issue is that their actual riffs and hooks don't land as deeply, though the rap section in "Do You Want Cupcake?" is stupidly fun. Yes, the high volume guitar pinchies and clangy snare give me a little joy, but not much else calls me back beyond that.
Rating: (high) 4/10

From the get-go it's apparent that this one-man project has no intent on remaining musical. Perhaps Defaced decided to chase the spirit of None So Vile with their style of blown-out and wild brutal death metal, but many of the choices that attempt to find the ferocity of reckless, virtuosic performance end up sounding like brutal white noise ("Car Bomb", "Paper Casket", "Mother"). Perhaps Defaced also values the noise explorations of grind/noise pack-leaders Full of Hell, but lack nuance with blaring synth choices that render many tracks as screeching, static pulp ("Opium Angel" to the end). The choice to include cover songs in this 40+ minute behemoth highlights the lack of hook and cohesiveness in the original numbers, as Defaced's take on Pig Destroyer and Pantera (really, Pantera??) classics show that playing within a better defined structure can enhance the hits of extreme violence that Opium Angel packs in spades. But when three songs out of eighteen are the only things I can call wins, it's easy enough to turn my back on this largely slamless stinkfest.
Rating: 2/10

These Swiss slammers have the dubious honor of presenting both the sturdiest musical chops of the lot so far (check them poppin' bass intros on "Fuckwaste" and "Outroral Regurgitation") and the most outwardly goon-catching subject matter. Each vignette of venereal grooves includes some sort of tie-in from the porn world, whether it's performer commentary, snippets of audible messy action, or lyrics referencing hypersexual, deviant mindsets. If you're the kind of person who likes to listen to porn, not watch it, some of this may land more in a happy audible wheelhouse for you. It's a shame cause These Days & Those Days has the kinds of sneakily skilled songs that could hit like Snuffed on Sight (copious airhorn samples included), but these dudes need to take a break from scouring Pornhub for the right five second groan and moan to tighten up their act.
Rating: (high) 4/10