Today has been a day of corporal usurpation clinically demonstrated by regurgitation of the Pepsinogen to which ends diabolical juices excreted bioblasphemically from the grimtestinal tract in a most mondo-clinical manner. If you didn’t understand any of that, but were enticed to read on anyway for purely comic reasons, then you should get along fine with Balatonizer’s OCCLUSED IN OTTUSITY.Put away your Rush tee-shirts ladies and gents. This CD is about as progressive as Linkin Park trying to take music lessons. However, Balatonizer possess a much more brutal (and more proficient) musical outlook than the aforementioned band, complimented by the hilarity of their song titles, which are certainly of much more appeal.
In the true grindcore tradition one cannot tell where one song starts and one begins. Sound samples from movies as well as general tormented screams accompany the infinitely indecipherable vocals, and grinding riffs and blast beats are the order of the day. If the albums aural output were any less melodically discernable, then it would warrant comparison to the sound of an elephant having a triple orgasm after having engaged in an extended masturbatory session with the statue of Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square. Why an elephant would be masturbating with the status of Lord Nelson, and how it managed to climb to such a height is no concern of mine. Although the budding zoologists among you are more than welcome to write a thesis on the topic if you want. I can see it now ‘Elephantoric Masturbatory Practices With Inanimate Tributes To Fallen War Generals: A Zoological Study’. Bloody marvellous.
Truth be told, the style of Balatonizer has never held much appeal for me, yet I find grindcore to possibly be the most therapeutic of all musical styles. Thus, the way I judge a grindcore album is by whether or not when I’m in a pissed off mood, it manages to calm me down and dissuade me from going on a mass murdering rampage with the aid of a broken umbrella and a toothpick. Being as I am not writing this from the confines of a prison cell, you’ll be glad to know surgeons around the country did not have to extract toothpicks from the cerebrums of various passers by this weekend. Plip, plap, plop.
I must draw attention to the packaging of this album. The CD wallet features a comic book style depiction of the band meeting some purple demonic creature and then going on a general killing spree. The fact that one of the members is depicted as wearing a Transformers shirt is always a good thing. This coupled with the fact the front cover has pigs on it immediately suggests quality of the highest order. How could an album with agitated pigs on the front cover possibly not be entertaining?The album contains the odd instrumental. I would say short instrumental, but being as the majority of the tracks here are less than a minute long, it would be a waste of my vocabulary. Almost as much as that convoluted sentence, but there you go. What you get for your money is 32 tracks of well produced unapologetic grind. Production is usually the flaw of most grind albums, but here it is executed pretty well. The guitars are a bit muddy sounding, but to be honest it compliments the mood of the album. Drums are precise, although the double bass is thin. Vocals are audible, but if you want to understand them you’re better of listening to HammerFall. Albums like this aren’t best appreciated in terms of individual instrumental dynamics, the same way as the album is not best appreciated in terms of its individual tracks. Appreciate it as one amalgamated colossal anarchy driven noise bomb however, and you’re in for a most pleasurable ride. Nonetheless, to say this is just mindless is to do the album discredit. Whilst there’s nothing overly innovative here, Balatonizer demonstrate when it comes to producing traditional grindcore of a most brutal order, they know their shit.
The random sound samples are very amusing. They usually consist of someone shouting something in a foreign language which I do not particularly understand, but being as you can’t understand any of the other vocals on the album either, this isn’t an issue. Rather it adds to the comic value of the piece, for it cannot be said that Baltonizer don’t possess a sense of humour. This last track which is a serene, almost classical, instrumental piece emphasises this.
It won’t convert any newbies, but OCCLUSED IN OTTUSITY is a well produced amusing and thoroughly therapeutic piece of aural chaos. Any album with a track called ‘Anal By Anal’ has got to have some entertainment value, even if it’s unintentional. In Balatonizer’s case though, I’m convinced they’re more than aware of their own ridiculousness, unlike the overwhelming majority of black metal bands. The perfect soundtrack to a voyeur session concerning masturbating Elephants.
I request more albums with pigs on the front cover from metal in future. Oink.
Rate: 3/5

By The Holy Ferret