$LAMUARY 2026 – Week 4

Ah, the crunch. The cromnch, if you´re a cat and insist on lolspeak. Erotic Mutilation has it in spades. After a short intro that only encompasses the entirety of the trailer to Frank Hennenlotter's classy re-imagining of Frankenstein (Frankenhooker) we immediately get into it. This is the type of album where the guitar tone somehow manages to be crunchy in ways that I can´t explain, in ways that are so arcane to me that I wouldn´t know what to do to my Amp Simulator to get that tone. A tone that sounds like stepping on a very crunchy leaf, repeatedly, treated with extra distortion, noise and other nonsense. A guitar tone as brittle as the bones of the artist after what I assume is years of methamphetamine abuse or the cockroaches that will spring forth the second you lift any object in his government-provided housing. Why underground slam acts choose this tone, I have no idea. It can´t be incompetence alone - it takes work to get a tone that is this simple jack. And it only does so much in hiding the lack of riffs.
Rating: 3/10

I recently started a new job, returning to a cozy office to send out emails and fill out excel sheets, and the big benefit of a job like that is the increased listening time. Often, this listening time will be sort of fragmented, so I tend to favor short releases that I can slot in in-between two clients, so I am always on the prowl for EP's. While browsing the metal archives for EP's released in January, I stumbled upon an artist called Furious Massturbator[sic!]. I originally suspected him to be a Perky Macabre type character, releasing terrible material at a frantic pace in what seems to be a hyper-fixation or a desperate plea to push away the all too common weltschmerz of today. To my surprise, Furious Massturbator can actually play guitar, he can actually produce and he can actually construct songs that work well within the short form of the deathy goregrind that is his chosen medium. Furious Massturbator is many things. He´s a polyglott that takes many different influences into account. He´s a poet, with a dramatic story about methamphetamines, loss, recovery and ejaculation unfolding in the little blurbs below his EP´s. And he´s also a savvy little fuck, censoring the titles of his albums and their covers so I can actually find them in the bandcamp search. Chapeux, Mr. Massturbator - you´re my pick for the best artist in show this January.
Rating: 6/10

When men are 5 years old, they choose one of a few things to base their entire personality about. It could be construction equipment, especially popular during the bob the builder years. It could be the signifying uniform of fascist state operatives the police or being a fireman. The 5-year olds who know whats good, however, choose dinosaurs. Some men never grow out of it or, in what I suspect is the case for Terrordactyl, regress so much through their exposure to HEAVY FUCKING HAMMERS that their brain comes back around to being fascinated by hulking, prehistoric birds. Shame on these musicians for not depicting the dinosaurs on the cover as chonky floofy beings, as would be accurate to current science. And also shame on them for taking what could be decent Slam and adding club oriented, hypebeast style electronics to it. What this has to do with dinosaurs, I do not understand - but it is possibly the only other musical style this band has experienced in their short time on this earth.
Rating: 5/10

Lo-fi isn't for only the koolest, kvltest black metal kids anymore. Armed with what sounds like distant construction noises and wooden block plonking as drum hit replacements, Moribund of the Scrotalic embodies the spirit of macaroni art in the $$$$$lamuary lineup. With little structure to speak of, every minute of Secluded Horrificator dilates for what feels like dozens more in its unadvisable tapestry of agonizing percussive irritants and persistent lack of riff rhythms. When a child first explores with clanging noises, an inquisitive hesitance often precedes the racket that ensues. Moribund of the Scrotalic, on the other hand, seems to be in full control of their porn-clip-addled, talent-lacking death metal vision. I'd call it slam, but even the worst of true slam at least has a recognizable pattern. The only pattern here is that it all blows.
Rating: 1/10

Ok, yeah, it's just beatdown. I'm really tired of beatdown bands tagging their work as slam. I want shit-for-brains death metal when I look for slam, not powerviolence with even less nuance. Slime gives away their two-step stance by having a costly logo and name derived from aggression, not hyperbolic word slaughter. The classic, dry snare snap against down-tuned chuggery feels calculated for a 10-person crowd with one guy throwin' pit karate and STILL getting in the way. I'm not sure this effort of predictable riffage goes much further than that. There's better gym fodder in this world.
Rating: 5/10

In this already micro-trend of garbage internet slam acts, a sect of New Jersey slam acts that lean on industrial grooves and pulsating, programmed rhythms for their special sauce. Truthfully, I'm talking only about Fart Thrower. Exiting Mortuary is another branch of the flatulent minded auteur, but with 100% less farts and 100% more hardcore energy. In this lane of slight differentiation, Exiting Mortuary finds an extra momentum in multi-tracked shouty hardcore vocals and a snappy percussive bounce. Warped and good-vibes hip-hop inspired electronics find themselves always present as both a personal stamp and point of interest. But in this lower comedy affair, the smarter twists and atmospheric touches feel a little more like slamming background noise than a full-attention expulsion of deathly wonders.
Rating: 5/10