It's about time I got something to review that is nothing short of pulverizing. The name of this band is pretty out there, but to hear the music for about 30 seconds was enough to get past it and give them a chance.
I'm finally hearing a band that understands how to be heavy as fuck without sounding like a pile of shit. Way back when, a now-legendary band named Carcass came onto the scene and set a new standard for heaviness. Many god-awful clones appeared, and not many of them ever went anywhere. But some bands took influence from Carcass and made killer records. One such band -- one of my favorite bands -- is Exhumed. Another one of my faves is Macabre, who have some of the sickest lyrics imagineable and have always been very fast. The thing that sets them apart from every other band is their ability to merge this zany humor and downright kooky childlike music into their brand of death metal, which must be heard to be fully understood and appreciated.
Macabre is absolutely incredible to behold live, and I highly recommend both Macabre and Exhumed, but here's the relevance: Birdflesh is like a perfect union of Exhumed and Macabre.
Birdflesh is not a technical band. The riffing is usually very straightforward and easy to follow. The arrangements of the riffs and drum work will keep your head banging and blood pressure rising. Just when you think you'rw about to smash something due to a surge of adrenaline, they make you laugh. And I mean that in a good way.
I'm guessing the lyrics (which I haven't seen) are far from serious. I am sure there's plenty of death and destruction and chaos, but the bottom line is this band is probably a nutty group of guys who know not to take life too seriously and just wanna play sick fucking music and have a good time.
This record is extremely heavy, and is not a digital nightmare of modern technology like way too many records these days. The sound is killer, it is crushing and fairly audible and totally reminds of me of the early days of grindcore, when a few bands towered over the rest with great sounding records that really made an impact on the metal scene. This band deserves that kind of recognition. They have made the perfect record. There's a few moments that annoy me, but nothing worth going into. In other words, I never hit the skip button and leave out songs when listening to it. To listen to the record in its entirety which has over 20 tracks only makes you want to hear it again when it's over. For grind this is extremely memorable music. It's not all speed, but it has tons of blasting and a good groove as well.
If you miss the over-the-top crushing grinding death metal of days long past, you need this record. I understand modern recording studios have been good for metal; they take the music and bring a level of control to the listener. I can tell you in the mid-80s, most engineers were clueless on how to record and mix music this brutal. I hear some great bands these days who seem to have let producers take the edge right out of the record to make things more audible. Sometimes it works, sometimes it makes me wanna puke.
Birdflesh made a record so heavy you may puke in the spirit of metal, and it sounds absolutely incredible. This is a must-have. If this record was done in the early 90s it would have fit right into the roster of Earache Records when they were releasing all the cutting edge bands of that decade. I cherished that era of metal and this record stands alone in its preservation of an art form that is not easily duplicated. Most bands of today left this style behind or they completely suck at it. Birdflesh fucking own it. Buy this record and see what I mean, you'll thank me for it!
In closing I will say I visited this band's
website after writing the review. The pics are hysterical. I think I hit the nail on the head when I said "the bottom line is this band is probably a nutty group of guys who know not to take life too seriously and just wanna play sick fucking music and have a good time." They also have numerous other releases, mostly split releases with other bands and singles. I'll be getting some of those ASAP. This is a smack in the face after being lulled to sleep by the numerous boring releases of all this new sub genre metal I keep receiving. Man would I like to party with these guys. If you visit their site, you'll see they're comedians as well as musicians. Awesome!