$LAMUARY 2024 – Week 4

This painfully short demo is more of a beatdown record than straight up slam. However, as I have often said, the vocals are the primary way to distinguish a lot of slam and beatdown hardcore. This demo has no vocals, adding to what I would call a lack of structure, interest and hard hitting aggression. In other words, the music is totally unbecoming of the misunderstood critique of toxic masculinity that adorns the cover most likely unironically.
Rating: 4/10

If the album cover and its shoddy picture editing job wasn't enough of a giveaway, the song titles will tell you that this is your typical internet age shitpost. "Let's go Luigi Destroyer" hints at Nintendo and generations of internet memes, and the chosen sound of simplistic bleeps and bloops with down-tuned tunnel throat vocals on top might be a reference to the video game origins of the project. Awfully short and it barely qualifies as music. Even worse, it doesn't qualify as slam.
Rating: 2/10

After the obligatory overlong intro of a random murder man doing a killing or two, we are treated to about five minutes of repetitive slam. The creativity of these musicians seems to not extend beyond one "riff" per song and while I patiently wait out the album's duration, I wonder if the URL suggests that there are 955 other bands named Endless Decay. To metallum!
Rating: 4/10

I know Stinkrat. Unfortunately I do. Stinkrat made one of the worst albums of $lamuary 2023, and that is saying a lot. The band seems to still obsessively release albums, as if the tumor that would warp the band's perception enough to make them think music like this was acceptable only gave them a month or two to live. But no! They've been doing it for a year straight and the name Rehearsal Tapes suggests it is indeed more than one guy. More than one person willing to meet in a rehearsal room, maybe even pay rent for it, only to make boring, stonery sludge that masquerades as brutal death metal by slapping some horrendous, arrhythmic gurgles and streams for it. 45 minutes of my life I will never get back.
Rating: 2/10

The unique album cover in combination with the band's name suggests something that is maybe a bit more extravagant than what it actually is. This is heavily metal inspired beatdown hardcore, with the only death metal elements being the vocals which dip into pig squeals and tunnels at times. Inoffensive, not particularly interesting and—I am sure the musicians would hate this descriptor—ultimately rather harmless.
Rating: 5/10

Even though it commits the crime of having all songs mixed together into one continuous track, this is a fun little goregrind demo. Through the shitty production shines a band that has some degree of energy, fun and likes to do what they are doing. In the world of ironic garbage music, we need more of this and I wouldn't mind checking out a release of these guys with a more serviceable production—and maybe a better guitar tone.
Rating high 5/10

Similarly to Parasitic Pus, this one has all the songs mixed into one. Unlike Parasitic Pus, this one is beyond the level of messiness and sloppiness that I can justifiably excuse or overlook by virtue of energy and fun. I don't know where one track begins and another ends, but I am not treated to any logical start/stop structure. I often defend grind as being better than its reputation. Puswad is what grind haters think grind is, though.
Rating: 4/10

After an excruciatingly long intro that presents nothing of either worth or interest, Left to the Trogs actually becomes an enjoyable brutal slamming death metal album with a decent amount of groove, the right percussive guitar tone and enough hairpin turns that it manages to not only justify its length, but be somewhat re-playable. Slamuary sets a low bar, but most bands don't even manage to get high enough for the bar to leave a dent in their sunken fontanelles.
Rating: 6/10

I have been known to champion some questionable snare drums in my time, even ones that were too loud and overpowering the mix but never—Never!—have I heard something like this before. This is a snare so loud and with so strong a learning deficiency that it pushes everything else away. This is a snare to warp the universe around itself and we as humans should only gaze on it from afar, for its raw horrendous power cannot be comprehended by the feeble minds of mere mortals.

This album f***ing sucked.
Rating: 1/10

Not sure why this has a slam tag cause Spitn Nailz concerns themselves far more with d-beats and punky yells than anything that resembles a bass drop, beatdown riff, or IQ dropping snare. Unfortunately for them, they don't really do anything interesting with their high intensity kitwork, thumpin' bass presence, and rowdy riff raff. It's a punk album, it probably has a message if you read the words, and it probably sounds twice as good live. Sounds alright recorded too.
Rating: 4/10

Another week of slam, another one man slam project—wait no this one's deathcore. And you know what? It's not bad deathcore either. The minimal setup of (mostly) one guitar track, a bass that's audible as rhythm enhancement, spacious—if cheap—drum programming, and an adventurous vocalist does well for this often chug-overweight style. Gorrister leans both into a chaotic hardcore spirit to tighten the screws on both "accidental_death_visions_" and "skol_", letting the scrape and groove of earlier period Meshuggah guide the way. This back half also sees the vocalist playing around more with vocal reverb tricks and generally experimenting in a way that makes this seven minute release fun to listen to more than once.
Rating: (high) 5/10

Boltcutter likes their grooves dirty, their vocals dirtier, their samples hilarious, and their snare hittin' more rim than your mother on a night before the rent is due. Fitting right in with hip-hop lovin' acts like PeelingFlesh (whose vocalist makes a guest appearance here), including an "Interlude" that would fit on a Wu Tang album, The Slamz settles quickly into an easy to follow flow that makes its thirteen minute run feel effortless. Between simple Jack slams, sudden drops into clanging skanks, and well-timed hits of comedic quips, Boltcutter sits easily atop of the January slam pile... and has my ears waiting for something with just a little more ambition.
Rating: 6/10

What can I say, I'm a sucker for a cohesive theme? And, I suppose, I'm also a sucker for gnarly, low-end riffs and oinky, guttural mic-abuse. Spontaneous Combustion, the only act from Argentina on our slam run (probably), delivers exactly this—no more, no less. The live instrumentation poses a bit of an issue on the recording or mastering side, as the bass drops shake the floor so low it crinkles and the snare has more of an off-putting pow than I'd like. But with tight, if predictable, songs like this, Incineration, at least, displays a band who's trying.
Rating: (high) 5/10

Not much info exists on this artist, but I think it's safe to assume that Crucified Pig fall into the one-man Indonesian slam pool. For a lo-fi project of this nature, some things land well. The drum programming, as tinny as it comes off, has a stronger variety than a lot of what I've encountered this $lamuary, offering bits of tricky cymbal patterns and space between kick grooves and busy sections. The guitar tones (and bass tones for that matter), however, have much less to offer. I assume they're natural, but there's a hollow twang to them which provides some weight to riff statements—not much satisfaction though. In any case, this demo shows that Crucified Pig has the talent to write a few dirty, bluesy, slamming tunes in the vein of a muscular act like Dying Fetus, just nothing mind-blowing yet.
Rating: 4/10