$LAMUARY 2025 – Week 3

Excrement really is the last stage of the cycle of life. In a way, the consumption of shit might lead to a kind of higher existence, coming full-circle in the cycle of ouroboros. These philosophical ramblings are not legal or life advice and neither are they related to the album, but the promo gives very little to talk about. More than half of this promo is comprised of samples that add very little to the album — hell, they barely relate to the theme, unless the 40 second closing monologue (!) deals with the ramifications of the consumption of shit. The ramifications of my consumption of this piece of shit luckily does not boil down to Staphylococcal Shit Poisoning but rather an uninterested boredom. Even goregrind needs more time to breathe than this. Maybe have your goregrind promo actually consisting of goregrind next time?
Rating: 3/10

We live in a time of information overload. Look, all I want is to feel something! Where other poeple indulge in alcohol, casual sex or even more radical, direct forms of self-harm, I take the cowardly way out and listen to slam, instead. For that to work, it needs to be either fantastic or horrendous. The middle-ground just cannot fill the void in my empty soul nor my shrunken, grinch-like heart with blood. Voidseeker indeed seek the void instead of filling it and are crushing my heart, squeezing out every last ounce of blood. This is as mediocre as it gets, brutal death metal that neither makes me want to clench a fist to punch the empty space around me nor violently slap my forehead in the characteristic facepalm motion. In short: I wholeheartedly disagree with brant213's Bandcamp review. And if we can't trust a Bandcamp review in these troubling times, what can we trust?
Rating: 5/10

Be careful what you wish for. Just in the last blurb, I lamented that I had too many average albums in my slam queue this time. Crime Slug very nearly broke me. Despite its short (barely 10 minute) runtime, I prayed for it to end basically from the get go. Move in Silence is the ill-fated attempt of fusing white-boy rap and wigga slam. Repetitive slam riffs support repetitive flows — the lack of rhythmic range in the vocalists rap flows becoming an obvious corset to the rest of the music. The vocalist in general is the greatest bane to this album, having the rare case of what I would call a punchable voice. Crime Slug makes me want to commit crimes of retaliation against the artists involved. Crime Slug manage to commit crimes even on the album cover: Past cover attempts saw the artist dial up the inherent racism of a 90s Dragon Ball character and now, he has taken it upon him to besmirch 90s shooter classic Goldeneye. I propose Crime Slug actually moves in silence and not releases anything next time he has an afternoon scheduled for a shitpost.
Rating: 2/10

Variety is a tightrope walk. Some of the best bands manage to serve up a variety of different ideas without losing cohesion to their album. Other fantastic acts manage to construct albums with very few ideas, making songs out of these very same elements without ever getting boring — showcasing their talent in exploring a single idea to its utmost depth. Behold the Slitted Carcass are maybe trying to do the latter, serving up riffs that are technically different, but yet end up sounding the same either way. This ends up being the worst of both worlds, as the band is annoying to begin with, getting only more annoying as the album goes on and excursions into other things than just slamming in quarter notes — like awkward noise or distasteful samples — neither work nor add the necessary variety.
Rating: 4/10

Gorenoise, does not typically have a cohesive aesthetic, often living in the same realm as noise acts do in abstract transgressions. Spume, however, leans on a cartoonish body horror visual to make their mark. Surrealism in music, though, can be hard to achieve without getting heady or theoretical about it, particularly in low-brow, guttural affairs. But Xenomold Geomorphologies contains a surprising charm in its flagrant and obnoxious drum tones, with an accompanying guitar tone so low and buried that its presence becomes visceral and physical at the higher volumes it demands. Alongside a vocal identity that's gnarled and pipe-tingling, Spume has managed to create a discernable flow in this fermenting mass of decayed rhythms and wheezing leads. I'm not sure whether it's actually good, but I am tempted to keep trying — proof that the slam can bring us all together.
Rating: 5/10

I suppose it was only a matter of time before early Slipknot angst and groove riffs infected a slam act — or rather an act that wears the slam tag. Paleface Swiss does not slam, though they do find an adjacent deathcore-styled breakdown that you hear in acts that have slammed in the past, like Ingested. It's truly uncanny how much this vocalist sounds like the manic bark and laugh of a young Corey Taylor, at least until they bust out rapping far more related to Insane Clown Posse. A couple tracks have straightforward, thuggy deathcore energy, but outside of those, Cursed will stain your algorithm with stupid riffs, stupider hair-dos, and terrible music, all in under 30 minutes that feel far longer. Run far away from this.
Rating: 2/10

I know I spent some time with Spume explaining that clenched bowel sounds may be able to transcend a white noise abrasion through smart vibration and physical tones (that's what you got out of it too, right?). Fecal Smear Test does not follow that same path, though, despite having a seemingly similar toilet vocal performance, shit-level guitar smear, and overly clangy drum presence. Infinite Stench harbors, instead a goregrind identity further masked by aggressively programmed drums — you know, the kind that see how shitty a snare can sound at 1/64 notes — and songs with no discernable builds. In smart music, cacophony plays as a form of contrast, but when you're all shit and no substance, like Fecal Smear Test, you've delivered, instead, cacaphony.
Rating: 2/10

Necrobolism do not have to mention that they are a one man band in their Bandcamp bio. It's hard to tell whether the lurching groove present in all these songs is a result of once-recorded riffs set to a drum track that attempts to hit just ahead of the beat, or whether it's just sloppy. If we are forgiving with Necrobolism, there's a sludge-like tilt to a lot of what's happening. But as an instrumental outfit (alongside completely out-of-context samples with little humor), little happens that's worth hearing twice. Also, every song ends on a fadeout or awkward hard stop. I suppose, though, that Necrobolism is brave for sharing their first recorded material, at least.
Rating: 2/10

Other than being characteristically loud and cricket-chirp vocals forward, The Origins of Mutilation doesn't do anything truly wrong. Plenty of the intros get the blood moving ("Visceral Incision," "Genocide Motivation"), and an equal number of breakdowns have speaker-shredding bass blowouts. But in between these peak moments, Fresh Wounds could be any number of bands with a Larry Wang vocal impressionist. But a real Larry Wang feature would show a little more vocal abandon — not necessarily better music. Spare your ears the trouble.
Rating: 4/10