Plastic Baby Living Facility
by Handsome Prick

From Mercury 09/19/2021 23:46 | #273973

(All over the place Deathgrind album. Its Deathgrind first and foremost - but there is also so many little, seemingly random, side detours and strange little things thrown. Plus some killer riffs, solos and a general sense of fun and adventure is what takes this album to another level that I didn't think it would reach.)

So, this is kind of interesting. First and foremost this is a Deathgrind album, very VERY heavy and very VERY fast with very intense growled vocals. Second secondmostfore, this is a sonically scattered mix of its primary genre with punk, groove metal, slowed down technical death and other random shit thrown in. Third, it seems to be a somewhat winking, certainly un-self-serious album and band. While still being creative and unique, this band seems to be in on a joke with that cover and the track names and the name of the band and the occasional whiplash changes into groovy, cowbell-heavy passages, or whatever seems to come to mind.

This is actually a fun album tbh. It doesn't have a particular atmosphere that I picked up on, nor deep themes, its not an album that makes me think conceptually about anything nor does it make me feel a particular emotion - not even anger or rage or hate like most grind does - outside of almost playful non-seriousness and whimsy if you wanna call that an emotion.

Its relatively A-to-B, although its 35 minutes maybe could have been reduced to 25 and it would be more to my liking. The musicians are solid as fuck. The drummer kicks ass throughout and there are some really fucking awesome guitar riffs and the whole album has this thick aggressive and clear sound that can also be credited a great deal to whoever produced the album and that bass player. The growled vocals are fine and the occasional shrieking screams (much much more my style and much more to my liking in music generally) are really solid.

I saw a comment saying that they heard some Pantera influences, and at first I thought that was stupid, but now I can say there is some of that testosterone-fueled anthemic quality that I associate with Pantera, along with the occasional groovy as fuck breakdown which DEFINITELY is Pantera. There are probably other bands that I would notice if I was more skilled and learned on spotting sounds and influences and metal music.

Then more I listen to this the more impressed I am with the fact that these dudes can and WILL go whatever direction they want to go musically at the drop of a dime. The arrangements and songwriting aren't doing much for me, but what IS doing it is the sheer unpredictability of this album while still generally being clearly a Deathgrind album.

Overall, not a world-beating, life-changing, genius Metal or Deathgrind album - but holy shit this is a lot of fun and way way way better than I expected it to be.