The debut full-length from this one-man act out of France boasts the tag "giallo inspired gore" along the side of the traycard, so what would you expect but 32 tracks of drum machine grindcore in 37 minutes!?? Sadly, like many such projects, the CD suffers from one key problem: A weak recording.? From what I can gather the songwriting seems competent: Quick blasts of no frills gore grind with utterly gargled low vocals that rarely hit a minute in length, keeping the tempos changing up from mildly groovy breaks to straight tremolo picking blasts or moderately paced thrashiness that has a little more character. And of course there are some horror movie samples here and there, thankfully kept under control. But the production? Ehhh. The drum programming is nicely handled, and the unnatural guitar tone is almost tolerable, but the vocals are ridiculously indecipherable and totally overpower the entire mix so that you can't really make out much of what's going on at all. Therefore, to be honest, I'd pretty much had enough by the seventh song, so making it through the entire disc was a bit of a chore. Occasionally there are tracks like the atypically paced "A Butterfly With Blood-Spattered Wings" to spice things up and provide some variety, alongside the thrash mastery that peeks through in the title track, but really, the recording is simply not adequate at all. The vocals need to be clearer and lower in the mix, the distorted bass needs more differentiation from the guitars, and the guitars need to be heavier and more powerful in order to properly counterbalance the drum programming. A cover is included of "She Met Her Fate on a Cold NY Night" by Savage Man Savage Beast (who I've never heard of), but it fits in perfectly with the originals of course, so there's no real variation there. The layout looks pretty damn solid. The illustrations are a little crude, but I like the color scheme and the rough drawings fit the style well, they're not shoddy or anything, and it all works. Also cool is the fact that all of the text is handwritten, which adds a nice aesthetic here. Lyrically of course everything is inspired by extreme violence and gore... what else!? "Blunt and senseless battery, Chained and beaten into oblivion, Fingers crushed, shattered nose, Belly squashed, left to bleed and die." I don't know, the dude who does this band also runs the Braindead website (subtitled "The Goregrind and Grindcore Webzine"), so my guess is that he's an absolute diehard aiming for that kind of crowd. I'd almost think he'd be critical enough to want to push for more quality and creativity in his own work, but... honestly, without a better recording this disc has little to offer even as a tribute to the staples of the genre. The quality artwork definitely had me expecting something more powerful from this one, but it definitely takes something a little more substantial for a release of this nature to grab me. Maybe next time. Tracks like "Plumage of Crystal" or "The Iguana With the Tongue of Fire" would definitely kick ass with a clearer and more in your face recording, so... the sound quality is certainly something to consider working on in the future.
[Murder the World]
Running time - 37:14, Tracks: 32
[Notable tracks: A Butterfly With Blood-Spattered Wings, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Plumage of Crystal, Cat O' Nine Tails, Strip Nude for Your Killer, The Iguana With the Tongue of Fire, Under the Eyes of the Assassin]
Murder the World Productions - http://www.murdertheworld.net
