Kalmex and the Riffmerchants "Electric Bukkake" CD
[Intolerant Messiah]
You know, most of the stuff on this label is high quality material that looks great to boot, but not so with this one. The music sort of sucks and it looks awful. To be blunt, the layout blows ass. There are lots of bland photo collages, the cover art is weak, the text looks boring, etc. It's just plain looking. The lyrics suck it up, too. "Sometimes I fuck so hard I break shit, Electric bukkake on your face, One huge nut on the human race..." No thanks. Not my thing at all. If you're gonna try to be funny, be funny. That shit's just goofy. I'll pass. In fact, I'll pass on this entire disc. I just can't get into it. Original? Yeah, there's nothing out there that sounds quite like this. But why would you want to sound like this? It's basically chaotic and insane grindcore mixed with midpaced sludginess, a little raw metal, and an overall sense of experimental weirdness gone awry. Thin snarling vocal screams, tons of changes and flat out noise textures, plenty of samples (some of which are actually quite amusing - the only humor of value on the entire disc for my money), some clean and acoustic guitars, keyboards, etc. But it's not cohesive at all. It's just one big jumble of different styles and influences with no linear flow or construction at all. It's all too long as well. The songs average five to seven minutes, the record runs almost an hour, and it's just a complete mess. On top of everything else, the recording's just too damn rough. The mix is really unbalanced and puts the bass out way up front ahead of almost everything else, the drums are a little flat and dry, the guitar tone is raw and sort of unnatural, and the vocals are just rugged in the midst of it all. Some of the clean guitars sound excellent, but as a whole the record sounds literally as inconsistent and jumbled as the songwriting. I'm sure that's partially intentional/desired, but it doesn't work so well. The drummer is fucking great and offers up some amazing fills and tons of nice intricacies in his patterns, but that just doesn't save the songs. Some of the laidback riffing with acoustic guitars is great too, but the keyboards fucking suck and ruin those passages in my opinion. I'll give 'em credit for doing something that no one else is really doing within most grind-related circles, but that only gets you so far, because this record stinks. With a smoother recording, serious (or at least funny) lyrics, and a little bit more of a real sense of architecture to the song structures... they could have something. Still not something I'd probably be into, but... there are some passages of worth here, just get rid of those fucking keyboards at all costs. I hate to say it, but this is one of those discs that I just knew was gonna suck. I've been dreading reviewing it ever since it showed up because the artwork and song titles definitely clue you in to what awaits. I can't really imagine what kind of listener would really appreciates this, but they must be out there. Enjoy. But me? Next. (2/10)
Running time - 54:45, Tracks: 8
[Notable tracks: I don't care for any of 'em]
Intolerant Messiah - http://www.intolerantmessiah.com

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