$LAMUARY 2024 – Week 3

Whenever it is January and the time has come to don the hazmat suits, gas masks, and enter the slam infested sewers, our hope is that, even if we can not find much music that is actively good, that we at least find music that amuses in its awfulness. Sadly, very little of it seems to exist. Micturator is such a case. The artist has chosen to construct what he calls an "experimental cyber slam album". Entirely made up of cheap virtual synth instruments that often recall the 32 to 64 bit era of video game music, the project is pretty much doomed from the start. The general sound quality of it is so comical that it was impossible to take the material seriously even if the writing was inspired. At least I can longingly reminisce about a certain graceless, style-less orangutan while I listen...
Rating: 3/10

Indonesia has built a solid little brutal death metal scene in the last couple of years. I could theorize on why the gore filled, low brow brutality of slam is so appealing to the majority Muslim island state, but it would go beyond the scope of a tiny blurb like this. Luckily, there are other things to talk about: While the vocals don't bring the necessary brutality, In Heaven of Fear does some interesting things with small excursions into melodic and "relaxing" death metal territory. With the aforementioned weak vocals, mainly uninteresting breakdowns and awkward spoken word sections, it just about evens out, though.
Rating: 5/10

It is not a good sign when not even your album cover can't keep eye contact. Erectile Bypass is very open about what this is, at least—two painfully short demo songs which sound like the artist was trying his hand at making a metal production for the first time. The material is surprisingly clean for it, but also digitally sterile and the guitars have that horrible, impact-less guitar tone which incapable bedroom producers often use for a lack of knowing any better. The lack of vocals is the final nail in the coffin.
Rating: 2/10

Opening up with the longest DM vocal burp I heard in quite a while, I hoped I was in for a delectable treat of stupidity. Unfortunately, Impalement are relatively capable and this two track demo is competently played and performed, for the most part. The vocals and their monotonous delivery are a huge issue even on this short length, but the biggest problem with it is the production that makes the guitars indiscernible and puts the aforementioned weak vocal performance front and center. Maybe drink less bud before recording next time.
Rating: (low) 4/10

I don't fault underground artists for having bad production, I really don't. But adjusting volumes should be as simple as moving a slider around in your digital audio workstation. How could any band decide to have the samples be this loud and the actual songs be this quiet and muddy? Is this an attempt at comedy that I do not have enough brain damage for?
Rating: 2/10

While this album is on the better end of the spectrum for goregrind, it is also stuffed to the brim with samples. More than half of this album are voice samples. While I get a chuckle out of some of them—opening the album on the Krabby Patty Formula announcement is certainly a choice—it is not the artist and his humor I am chuckling at. Sure, he picked the samples, but is this really artistic expression? Albums are not meme compilations. Or rather, they should not be.
Rating: 4/10

Slam is at best a minor component in this bands vastly unoriginal vision of tech deathcore. As "Infant Annihilator", the scene's enfant terrible, clearly inspires this work, but Divided Specimen lacks the talent or creativity to match that act's best material. In addition, the band has that...suspicious...guitar tone a lá Rings of Saturn. After all, if your guitar tone sounds that artificial to begin with, nobody will know if you speed it up! [Satire, not to be viewed as allegations that could lead to an expensive lawsuit spanning multiple years].
Rating: (low) 5/10

I am saddened that the band abandoned the Sasquatch image they apparently had on previous releases, as it would have suited the simplistic caveman approach that the band had. Material like this really needs to nail both production and performance, and Abortion Slamputation fail in both aspects, with weak vocals that sound like Gollum whenever they go into the highs and production that's somehow both bone dry and lacking attack.
Rating: 4/10

Badly produced black metal albums often sound like you're in an open field and the band is playing very far away, only the echoes of a faint performance being audible. Bad slam demos often sound like your band mates threw you out of the band because you slept with the singers girlfriend and you can only hear the music through the rehearsal room door while you stand outside and ponder your life choices. You don't need to know why I know this. What you need to know is that this is one such album.
Rating: 3/10

Ok, we get it, it's slam. We know you're going to use a very specific riff. We know it's gonna be at a dumb dumb tempo, then a dumber dumber tempo. We also know that the likelihood of a one-man vanity slam project is high, maybe even just a test to see how programming drums works. Behold the Slitted Carcass plays directly to these expectations with no surprises, no samples (ok actually there is one sample on the last song but why??), no humor (see my point about the sample), and no interesting tones. Pass.
Rating: 2/10

Pitch-flushed vocals? Check. Riffs that go nowhere? Check. An unfortunately reverbed drum programming job? Check. I guess I shouldn't be too upset because this really isn't slam, but I guarantee that once your six minutes with this pass by without revealing some sort of Shrek sample (or some sort of groove or memorable riff or sick vocal turn or anything else musically noteworthy), you will be just as upset as I am.
Rating: 2/10

Someone made me listen to their friend's shitty indie noise rock band by tagging this with slam. Fuck you. You ever pop into some open mic club where a pair of assholes brought a third-hand telecaster that hasn't been tuned in ages, a three piece drum kit, and some stupid little toy piano thing? Well if you've never had the displeasure of enjoying a late night coffee to the public cringe-binge of a shitfest like that, sit yourself down with Six or Nine Love Songs. It sucks.
Rating: 1/10

Not as much of a slam record as it is a groovy goregrind record with aggressive hardcore shuffles, Human Toilet Garbage Piss goes down like a comically-sized, corn-encrusted log down a low-flow toilet. You never expect the subject matter in albums like these to be poignant. But there's a conciseness and cohesiveness to the cries of "SOMETIMES YOU PISS, SOMETIMES YOU SHIT" amongst flush-fluttered gurgles and slowly intensifying riffs that ties the room together. The short run works well for this kind of acute abdominal evacuation, as the riffs, while supremely forward-moving and adorned with pick scrapes ("BAC," "Ferrari Toilet Bowl"), never lead true breakdowns or slams or solos or any sort of climactic embellishment. PISSSHITTER lives for the groove, the flush, the piss, the shit, and, most importantly, the fun of it all.
Rating: 6/10

This starts, grooves, and ends like just about any brutal death metal song with slam-ish leanings you can think of. There's a quick-pick riff that leads into a groove that leads into a slower groove all strewn about gurgle-bree vox. None of it, in itself, is bad. However, unique tones do a lot of heavy lifting in this scene—Defamatory Fetish has none of those. Line-in, dry guitar recordings with maybe a touch of re-amping; programmed drums with stock, sterile sounds; throated vocals passed loud and center, Psychopathic Sadism could be anyone's debut. Just change the low-effort, low-effect samples in tracks 3 and 4 and you can have a follow-up. Or a new band! Your call. Just don't expect much, not even from the Disgorge cover song.
Rating: 3/10