Published on Jun 14, 2000
I swear, I don’t think I’m asking for much. My demands are quite
reasonable, and there’s no reason why a good faith effort can’t be
made to accomodate them.
All I want is for practicioners of death metal to try and break
loose from the tired formula it seems like all bands are following.
These days, it seems like every single grindcore/death metal disc I
listen to is exactly the same damned thing I listened to the disc
before.
The latest band from this assembly-line mentality is Sweden’s
Fleshcrawl,
As Blood Rains From The Sky… We Walk The Path Of Endless
Fire. (Geez, guys, you study the latest Fiona Apple disc before
choosing a name for this one?) This quintet take the same
ingredients – lightning-fast drums, heavily distorted two-guitar
attack and a singer who sounds like he swallowed the microphone
with a Drano chaser – and beats them to death mercilessly.
Grindcore fans should be soiling themselves with delight; I somehow
expected a little more.
My early hope for this disc came when I read the lyrics and
found them to be a little rawer than your typical death metal. Ooh,
I thought, we might just have a slightly new spin put on this
genre! Wrong; after the Gothic-inspired instrumental “March Of The
Dead,” Fleshcrawl turn on the juice with “Path Of Endless
Fire”.
To be fair, things start out okay; Bastian Herzog’s trap work
reminded me a bit of Napalm Death’s glory days. And give Sven Grok
(sorry if I’m misspelling any names; I’ve never been able to read
calligraphy well) some credit in that you can occasionally
understand just what he’s grunting about. Admittedly, that’s
something that’s not typical of grindcore.
The problem with
As Blood Rains… is that it gets too comfortable in their
own style, and they musically seem to push the cruise control
button far too early in the disc. Tracks like “Under The Banner Of
Death,” “Embraced By Evil” and “Impure Massacre Of Bloody Souls”
might have had the possibility of being something special and
unique, but thanks to a cookie-cutter attitude toward the music, it
all gets lumped together in one demonic mush.
It’s not necessarily that Fleshcrawl is bad; it’s that they are
following the same formula that hundreds of bands have been doing
for at least the last 10 years. I know it is possible to inject new
blood into the plan and make things sound brand new – and I’m not
referring to re-inventing the wheel. Lungbrush did just that by
daring to put a little humor into the mix, though whether it was
intentional or not has yet to be decided. Fleshcrawl needs to find
their own personal ingredient to throw into this musical primordial
soup to give it their own spin. Until they can do that, though,
they seem to be doomed to take a number and stand in line with the
rest of the bands.
As Blood Rains… dares to hold out a little hope to
listeners before cruelly yanking it away from them. While this is
not a terrible album, it is far too similar to all the other dreck
that has been released in this genre. And in a genre like
grindcore, to be average could well be the worst sin of all.