ALBUM REVIEW: Unexpected Traumatic Experiences – Infected Humans

So it’s 2021, and isn’t it great to put that terrible last year behind and start afresh? Oh wait, the pandemic’s worse than ever, our government hates us and America’s tearing itself apart. It turns out geopolitics and a ravaging disease don’t care about dates on a calendar. In times of crisis we need joy and unity and those are severely lacking from most of our head spaces right now. Fortunately, one of the best things about being a metalhead is knowing there’s a tribe of like-minded people out there, a tribe who all get the same entertainment value and comfort out of this wonderful genre’s requisite ugliness and transgression. Here to slake our thirst is Unexpected Traumatic Experiences, the debut album by INFECTED HUMANS.

The Ecuadorian band prove that a love of all things gory and grim are a universal trait of the metalhead, one that can conquer any cultural and social boundaries. The album is a love-letter to the ugliest sub-genres of heavy music, from its tinny blasts and incomprehensible vocals that recall early brutal death metal to the fleshy, bodily aesthetics that ape the infamous transgressions of goregrind. It’s a ride through a house of horrors, one that will leave you blood-soaked and grinning ear to ear.

The spot-on track titles such as Paraphilic Infestation Of Internal Torment, Interstellar Torture and Ejaculating Illumination (is it really a gory death metal album without a title with ‘ejaculating’ in it?) are a joy to behold, managing to range from sickening to hilarious to kind of genius (Interstellar Torture would make a great band name). They match the album’s sense of playful creativity, which though rarely especially technically strong, is varied and skilled enough to keep Unexpected Traumatic Experiences from being too pigeonholed in any sub-genre of grind or death metal. 

Smatterings of variety, such as the surprising jazz of Chaotic Biological Organisation or the moody atmospherics of the introduction and closing tracks keep the album from becoming too one-note. As does the occasional, blink and you’ll miss them moments of groovy palatability, like on the back half of the neck-snapping Bloodthirsty Sacrifice. Like on most albums of this ilk, this rhythmic rationality will only make sense once you’ve locked into Unexpected Traumatic Experiences’ sense of internal logic, you need to commit yourself to a few tracks and then gradually the layers of skin will peel themselves back and the machinations of its internal organs can be properly seen and understood.

Far from an accomplished work, nor even a particularly stand-out effort in its field, Unexpected Traumatic Experiences is nonetheless a compelling slab of brutal entertainment, a savage thrill-ride through the queasiest corners of the heaviest metal canon. It’s not pretty, nor is it especially skilled, but it’s a small reminder of the sense of life-affirming fun that this genre can provide, and right now, in this strange, strange world, that’s more than enough.

Rating: 7/10

Unexpected Traumatic Experiences is out now  via Gore House Productions.

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