Slit, Writhing Elizabeth "Engulfed in Rot, She Will Take Delight in Slaughter" CD
[self-released]
Hmmm... when I saw that this entire CD (the band's debut EP, no less) was a live recording released in hopes of saving up some money for a studio recording, I couldn't help but think that this Canadian act had made a poor decision. Upon listening to the disc I can't say that I was wrong. This is a soundboard recording, so there's no crowd noise or anything like that, and it actually sounds pretty good for being live, but still... it sounds unbalanced. There's almost no bass in the mix at all, so it sounds really hollow, and the clean guitars are very hard to hear. I do like the really crunchy and nasty guitar tone, the drums sound okay, and the vocal growls are fairly forceful, so I can get used to it after awhile. However, the songwriting is really not interesting to me at all. Most of the tracks are very short (hell, they blast through six songs in less than 10 minutes), but it's sort of bland and typical death/grind with some tempo changes from blastbeats to slower grooves, etc. There are way too many pinch harmonics and generic mosh grooves or tremolo picking patterns, and really nothing stands out at all. "Autumn in the Orchard of Death" does start out rather promisingly with a dark clean passage, but as soon as the distortion kicks in it's back to blasting old school styled death metal without any real kick. The CD comes in a clear sleeve with a small business card insert with contact information on it, and a small transparent insert with the band logo, tracklist, and recording information on it. The face of the disc itself shows an image from an old painting that appears to be nude women being raped or killed or something. The placement is somewhat obscured so it's hard to tell. I don't know. In the end it's really not the fact that this is a live recording that hurts them so much as it is problems with the songwriting. There aren't that many slips in the performance or anything, it's just a boring CD. I've heard worse, even from studio sessions, but without more interesting songs, what can you do? (3/10)
Running time - 9:46, Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: nothing really stands out to me]
Slit, Writhing Elizabeth - http://www.slitwrithing.cjb.net

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