Review of Blood Freak - Multiplex Massacre

One of the great things about underground metal’s DIY attitude is that no matter how niche the style, there are always talented, hardworking bands trying their damnedest to cop it. The resultant oneupsmanship contests amongst similar bands can be annoying, but the tendency towards genre overcrowding also makes possible the existence of simple pleasures like Razorback Records’ roster. Blood Freak is an archetypal example; Multiplex Massacre is Maniac Neil (Lord Gore, Frightmare, etc.) relying predictably on his preoccupation with cheap horror flicks and late 80s/early 90s extreme metal to appeal to a very specific audience…namely, people like me who are into that shit. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a-okay, artistically credible or no.

With a grainy schlock film intro theme, Billy Nocera “conceptual aid,” and enough corny gore song names to make the bloodthirsty 13-year-old kid in me smile, Blood Freak makes it obvious from the outset that there will be naught a serious moment to be had here. This shit is somewhere between the modern death-thrash hybrids of Deathchain or labelmates Ghoul and the primitive gorilla heaviness of Obituary and early Death, and there’s a nice sprinkling of rattling, fuzzy Carcass-styled blastbeats and gurgling vocal tagteams throughout. Maniac Neil really delivers on this one, with an excellent variety of delightfully filthy thrash riffs, some spot on Jeff Walker vox, a gorgeously bludgeoning guitar tone and a great retro-but-not-too-retro production job. There’s no real need to break this one down track by track, as virtually every song is a sub-three minute, high speed affair involving equal measures of frantic blasting and bestial, downtuned thrash. Blood Freak are tight, fast, and not particularly memorable, but eminently headbangable. Multiplex Massacre is like a heavy metal potato chip; it’s not particularly filling or nutritious, but it can hit the spot for that odd neck-wreck craving.

I sort of wonder why Neil feels compelled to put out Blood Freak albums when he already plays with decidedly similar Razorback labelmates Frightmare, but I can’t complain. Frankly, one is as good as the next to me; these retro acts are all kind of redundant by definition, so tight execution is the name of the game and this fella delivers. Multiplex Massacre was a blast to listen to and I’ll probably never come back to it, so I can heartily recommend it only to connoisseurs and your drunk ass whilst looking for something to rock out to.

Release Details

Blood Freak

Multiplex Massacre

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