As soon as I laid eyes on the cover art of Occlused In Ottusity, I was
instantly hypnotized by the bizarre coolness of the artwork, featuring
three heads swimming in a sea of flesh hungry pigs. As it turns out,
the artwork was done by Marvel and Image Comics inker Marco Failla, who
just happens to be both the guitarist and the drum programmer for the
Italian three-piece death/gore/grind act Balatonizer.
As hard as it may be to believe, Marco seems to be just as talented at
creating insanely heavy, fast and ultra brutal music as he is at
putting ink to paper. The line-up is rounded out by bassist Rodan Di
Maria and vocalist Mario Musumeci, and the trio shred their way through
32 tracks of drum-machine backed death/gore in just over 25 minutes.
The riffing style alternates between mindlessly simplistic goregrind to
more complex and technical death metal with picking in the vein of
Cannibal Corpse to classic grindcore. The vocals are a thick rasp and
are somewhat reminiscent of Will Rahmer at times. The backing drum
machine is programmed perfectly to suit the style of music the group
plays and isn't a distraction in the slightest and probably enhances
their sound. They're like Fuck...I'm Dead in that a real drummer in the
background just wouldn't sound right at all, although they're nowhere
near as fast as the aforementioned Aussies.
Strewn throughout the album are Italian mobster sound samples, which
the group claim are from real Mafia tapes, but are more than likely
from Italian Mafia flicks. In fact, the theme for this album is based
around the Mafia, and is actually a nice departure from the typical
horror flick sampling that seems to plague every single Spanish
goregrind release.
While they aren't redefining the genre, Balatonizer definitely provide
a solid gore-splattered effort that should make any diehard burp-grind
fan happy in their pants region. It was entertaining enough that I've
listened to it a dozen times in the past 2 days. It's like what
Mortician would sound like if they actually had talent and were
obsessed with the Mafia instead of horror flicks. It's not the best,
but certainly entertaining.
By Teufel
|
