ALBUM REVIEW: Splatterphobia – Corpsefucking Art
There are far too many people in the world of metal who take life far too seriously. At the end of the day the aim in art is to find something that provokes a reaction in yourself either mentally or emotionally. CORPSEFUCKING ART do the latter. They refer to themselves as a “juggling jester in the court of the insane king” and they are exactly that. Creating a savage brutal death metal sound and throwing in plenty of humour and tongue in cheek moments without diluting the overall product too much. At this stage the band have released a total four full length albums and one extended play and are now ready to drop their fifth full length, the brilliantly named Splatterphobia.
Splatterphobia begins in the exact way you would expect from a death metal band of this ilk. The blastbeats and tremolo guitar riffs immediately set the frenzied tone for the album with their relentless aggression and breakneck speed. The vocals are deep, guttural growls and blend perfectly with a chaotic musical display on offer to ensure maximum the amount of destruction to the listener’s senses. The assault continues with the brilliantly named Satanic Barbecue which begins with a soundbite of what appears to be a horrific murder before diving headfirst back in to the frantic metal onslaught. There is a real sense of old school death metal that flows through this release and this is no more apparent than in the almost percussive vocal rhythm through the verses of this track which sounds like it could have been laid down by George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher himself.
The fourth track on the album Tomator shows exactly how bonkers CORPSEFUCKING ART can be. Ignoring the savage metal packaging that encompasses them, you have to take note of the lyrical content here. The opening line of the song is “A Tomaborg executioner soon to be sent back to the past to protect the achievement of sentient tomatoes” which is pure lunacy and fairly nonsensical but for some reason seems to work when you just embrace the song for the mindless heavy metal fun that it is. The only time we see a slight change in musical direction from the band is on the groove-laden Nightmare City which sees one of the heaviest riffs that CORPSEFUCKING ART have ever created laid on top of the half time double bass drumming. The guitar tone used on this opening section is absolutely crucial to the heaviness of the song and is showcased in a much better way by the way the notes are sustained and sometimes proves that sometimes in metal music less is more.
Splatterphobia sticks religiously to the same formula throughout with very little variation from the brutal death metal instruction manual. All but one of the songs on the album maintain the same high velocity approach with absolutely no remorse or breathing space in and amongst the bludgeoning heaviness. As powerful as the songs are there is however a certain amount of monotony to the proceedings with the lack of variety on display leading to the album sounding like one long track.
This album is to metal music what slasher films are to cinema. Almost humorous in the level of extremity on display and an outright exhibition in gore and horror. Overall Splatterphobia is a solid brutal death metal album but it is exactly that and only that. You can predict the next move that CORPSEFUCKING ART will take before the track has even began and in many instances it has been done before… and better (this point is proven by the inclusion of a cover of a CANNIBAL CORPSE classic). That is not to say that this album is a failure. Not by any stretch, in fact if the goal of the album was to create fun, brutal metal then you can call Splatterphobia a tremendous success. However, if you are searching for anything more than that this will not be the release for you.
Rating: 6/10
Splatterphobia is out now via Comatose Music.
Like CORPSEFUCKING ART on Facebook.