ALBUM REVIEW: Acts Of Sadistic Cruelty – Kill Everything / NecroticGoreBeast / Virulent Excision / Gorepot

Acting as some kind of deranged matchmaker, Comatose Music have pulled together four of the sickest and most disgraceful purveyors of disgusting brutality to collaborate on a four-way split, entitled Acts Of Sadistic Cruelty. With a title like that, it certainly promises a lot, but will the content measure up?

Kicking things off with No Lives Matter, KILL EVERYTHING provide riffs so thick and sludgy they would clog and hopelessly back up a slaughterhouse drain for weeks. Lurching murderously between sinewy blastbeats and mid-paced chug that could crush bone into powder, it becomes almost immediately apparent that this Texas quartet are not here to mess around. Stepping up the speed and intensity, Maggot Frenzy feels like an eye-burstingly heavy tribute to MORTICIAN’s best work – a jackhammer assault of blastbeats, filthy pinch harmonics and vocals so murky it would be ill-advised to try to drive anywhere near them. By the time this thorough battering judders to a halt, you can almost hear Will Rahmer’s chest swelling with pride. Going forward, if it was possible to capture the audible equivalent of being chased through a cornfield by a deranged murderer wearing someone else’s skin, The Violator would be it. It manages to convey a sense of choking terror and murderous rage through intense, joint-dislodging heaviness.

Judging by their opening track Gangrened Genital Tumor Exhibit, the name of the game in the NECROTICGOREBEAST segment of the split is seemingly monolithic power chords. It’s enormous sounding and slabby, but with a much harsher edge than the preceding section. Following a bizarre, public information film sample about how defecation works, we see the Canadians slip their leash and ramp up the sheer intensity. The quick sections of Purulent Rectal Discharge are ludicrously harsh and juxtapose perfectly with those cyclopean slow riffs, showcasing the band’s clear talent for writing absolute pit-bait monstrosities. With the band’s final entry into Acts Of Sadistic Cruelty, Butchered Transurethral Prostate Removal, we can detect more than a whiff of a CATTLE DECAPITATION influence here, as we see abject brutality thrown around like debris from a car bomb, but with an obvious care taken to the construction and production of the end product. It is the very definition of organised chaos and it is an absolute pleasure to experience.

Turning to the VIRULENT EXCISION portion of the split, we find very similar material to the opening segment, that being thunderous, plodding riffwork and murky vocals. While what is going on here is of a certain quality, unfortunately it does get a little outshone by its predecessors.

The final section by GOREPOT is somewhat removed from everything else on the split. Opening with Bill Cosby’s Favorite Disney Princess is Sleeping Beauty, it’s absolutely mad as a brush goregrind, built off of a spasmodic drum machine, littered with madcap audio samples from some of the weirdest corners of the internet and overlaid with mental pig squeals. If goregrind is your thing, this will probably be right up your street. It’s got some real murk to it and is professionally put together, but for most it may well be slightly too bizarre to entertain. Lifting its title from one of the weirdest news stories of 2018, The Woman Was Saved From A Rapist By The Gay Rapist That Raped The Rapist is a jerky, demented slab of MG-42 riffing and barmy humour. Between this and closer My Ex-BF And Instant Noodles Are Both Done In Two Minutes, regular Obscene Extreme attendees will have an absolute field day.

Overall, Acts Of Sadistic Cruelty showcases some excellent material. Every band on display here has some serious chops and they are all bringing their best to the table. From titanic slabs of riff work, to juddering buzzsaw mosh bait, to utterly insane sample-spattered madness, all stripes of brutal death metal are catered for here. Pick this one up and allow it to burrow under your skin, it’s all thoroughly infectious.

Rating: 8/10

Acts Of Sadistic Cruelty is out now via Comatose Music.

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