Now didn't I just comment about the slew of extreme metal bands coming out of Italy?
And here's another strong act, this time the gore grind of Balatonizer!
Occlused in Ottusity is about what you'd expect a grindcore band to be, although the
trio does incorporate a little more in the way of death metal elements. That only means
that the 32 tracks here (right, they're not exactly of epic length) feature slightly
more variety than your standard grindcore fare. It's blasting (from solid drum machine work),
pig grunts, growls, and that whole "be quick or be crushed" thing.
With song titles like "Brutal Devastation," "Anal by Anal," and "Eaten," lyrical subtly is
found nowhere during the proceedings.
The kicker is that Balatonizer includes in the sonic mayhem "real audio recordings of
local mobster business dealings and local criminals." Is this for real?
I mean the rants and chaotic conversations spoken in Italian do in fact
sound like the stuff of Mafia dealings and criminal enterprise, but I'm intrigued
by the band's inclusion of this stuff here.
Did they get wind of various meetings and underworld events and say, "Hi, we're from
Balatonzier. Would you mind if we sat in on your little gathering and record
it for purposes of inclusion on our goregrind CD." I've got to know more here.
I also got a kick out of a line from the press sheet stating, "Where Brujeria is
a big joke, Balatonizer report the violent truth of their surroundings."
Well bully for them. I just know that if I were in a goregrind band, I wouldn't be
cruising around in areas on the wrong side of the tracks looking for criminal
fodder for my goregrind project.
Well anyway, a couple of other items worthy of mention are that guitarist/programmer
Marco Failla is an artist for Marvel Comics Europe and the CD inlay doubles as a mini
comic strip. Pretty cool I'd say.
Comparatively speaking, Occlused in Ottusity is a better than average goregrind band and
the boys weave a load of interesting samples and compositional twists into the music
to make the rider more enjoyable. In other words, I like the stuff and got a good ass
whippin' out of it, and that's really all you can ask for from a goregrind band.
Review by Scott Alisoglu
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