Review: Sarcophaga Carnaria/Castrado Cadaver “Split” CD

Sarcophaga Carnaria (France) begins this split with 10 untitled tracks of 50/50 grindcore. I say 50/50 because it's part killer and part total crap. How does it breakdown? Well, the music is fucking awesome. Expect tons of tempo changes from blasting speeds to crushing mosh parts, a few overt references to crossover hardcore/thrash, a killer recording with a well harnessed guitar tone and surprisingly effective use of a drum machine, and well written compositions that average around a minute-and-a-half each and keep it to the point. What's the catch, you ask? The vocals. I know the old "toilet flushing" comparison has been used and overused throughout time, but seriously... this dude does sound like that - only pitch-shifted down several octaves. So, basically what you get are around 15 minutes of amazingly executed grindcore blown out by horribly disruptive and overpowering vocals that sound like a painful and uncomfortable bowel movement being mic'd up and detuned to depths unfathomable. The samples of women being tortured are also totally lame, but whatever. And why the fuck are there no song titles? Anyway, Singapore's Castrado Cadaver then takes the larger chunk of the disc with 16 tracks and 23+ minutes of rawer and less powerful material with another over the top vocal performance that consists largely of crude snarling and gurgling. They've got a great distorted bass presence (in fact there are no guitars), but the drums and vocals take precedence, so the material comes off a tad flimsy, and I don't like the vocals or the songwriting that much so it wears me out rather quickly. They're not awful, mind you, some of the slower tracks are pretty cool because the bass sound is great and they are doing their own kind of thing, which is cool, but... overall they're not doing much for me. The layout on this one's fucking awful as well, with lots of crude imagery that looks like it was taken off of the internet, text that's sloppy and hard as hell to read, etc. Trust me, I can appreciate D.I.Y. or cut and paste layouts when they're done right, but this thing comes across as neither of those and honestly looks like complete shit for the most part. Neither band includes lyrics, but I'm gonna guess that's no big deal. I don't know, both of these bands have potential, especially Sarcophaga Carnaria (Please start using a better vocal performance!), but this one doesn't quite cut it in the long run.