Flesh Grinder
Coroner's Inquest Suit
5
Noisy Hispanic goregrind - you know exactly what this sounds like. Imagine Reek of Putrefaction with about the same production and technical skill but songwriting of lower quality than the Carcass classic. Surprisingly, this release is actually slightly better than I expected it to be. Most bands who use gore pictures they found on the internet for their cover art are absolutely atrocious, but Flesh Grinder are bearable. There’s something charming about sloppy music that is performed with passion, which is this record’s redeeming social value. There isn’t much in the way of songwriting or musicianship, but it’s kind of fun nonetheless.
These songs consist of nonstop blast occasionally interspersed with solos and slightly slower segments. If the drumming was less sloppy and the production tighter, this could probably have been considered good. As is, it is basically a novelty album that deserves only about one listen. The band are not without good ideas, and some of the material is genuinely interesting. Unfortunately, promising riffs and sections usually give way to mindless blast, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but which also isn’t going to earn them especially good marks in songwriting. Though their music does a fair job of aping Carcass and Pungent Stench, with a cover of the latter’s “Blood, Pus, And Gastric Juice” evidencing this fact, they don’t really move beyond tribute. While there is nothing wrong with clone bands per se, it is usually expected that said clones be of similar quality to the originals, and Flesh Grinder are pretty second rate.
While not the most technically skilled band out there, Flesh Grinder are not without merit in this category, and some of their riffs strike me as being fairly complex. The drumming obviously lowers their score in this category, although I am well aware that in their genre, imprecise playing isn’t always a negative. The production is pretty bad, but it isn’t outright terrible. There is way too much static, the guitar tone is off, and the vocals are recorded poorly. Nonetheless, all the instruments can be heard, making the mix a hindrance but not absolutely killing one’s ability to listen to the record.
To recap, this is an average disc from an average, derivative band. If you really like the genre, you will probably have fun listening to this. However, those who can only stand the luminaries of the grindcore scene would be better off avoiding this. The reason that people lionize Carcass is that they did it better than everyone else; case in point, Coroner’s Inquest Suit.
