Vomit Remnants – Hyper Groove Brutality (2017) – Restarted in 2015 by only remaining founding member Keisuke Tsuboi, the newest version of this Japanese BDM act features Fetal Decay/Human Enslavement frontman Dimitry Orlov on vocals. This makes the new venture an international collaboration between Japan and Russia, thanks to the magic of the internet. It hits hard too, delivering frothy mounds of gore within the drum acrobatics and sheer insanity spilling from Orlov’s jaw. If you’re looking for the very definition of slimy, goopy gore metal then you’re going to find it here. There are a couple of breakdowns in the formula where Orlov switches to a more audible approach, but even so – Ken Ishida keeps things entertaining with threatening bass riffs and some interesting leads here and there. The formula actually comes off a little like old school Cannibal Corpse with a little more technical quirks and groove, which is probably why it’s called Hyper Groove Brutality in the first place. The record also features a few interesting oddities in lieu of it’s non-metallic moments, which add to the flavor of the disc and make it one of my favorite listens in the genre right now, for sure. I could jam this one all day. It simply fucking rips.
(By the way, the end of “Extinction Of Worthless Humanity” is one of the best ways to end a song of this nature for me.)
(8 Tracks, 34:00)
8/10
Fallen Man – We Are At War (2017) – Fallen Man are something I found on Bandcamp, a trio from California with their hands in the waters of black, death and industrial as well as a little hardcore. It’s actually one of those rare cases where it sounds much better than it is, and you can stream the whole thing on their page (below, of course) to see if you agree. The first thing that I noticed about these guys was the frontman’s horrifying vocal rasps, which came with a great deal of passion and fury. That is what I like to hear. It’s a disc like this that you don’t exactly expect to grab you by the balls until it does, and these guys do not follow any set genre rules, so you don’t walk away feeling that you were listening to the same song for an approximate hour.