CRUSHUMAN - Self Titled review

CRUSHUMAN - Self Titled

Horror Pain Gore Death Productions

A few years back there was a Death Metal act hailing from Washington, DC called SNIPERS OF BABEL. Despite having a bunch of short form releases to their credit. The band's only claim to fame their 2022 full length Gabriel which also came out on Horror Pain Gore Death Productions. 

This band, CRUSHUMAN, has two former members from that band. You've got Mike Bossier on guitar and bass plus drummer Mike Lumer. Their vocalist is Danny Boiko. So on this their debut full length the band's a three piece. But on a handful of songs they do have some invited guests adding vocals. 

Musically CRUSHUMAN create an extreme sided mix of Death Metal, Grindcore and post 90's Hardcore. Now given all of that, out of these seventeen songs I'm gonna go out on a non extreme metal limb and say I like their Hardcore sounding stuff. Thankfully I don't have a comments section or I'd be pillared for that. 

But hey when you hear songs like "Champions of Ruin", "Syko", "Slock", "Assassin's Special" and "Lose Face", just to name a few from the first half of this album. You can just feel that slam pit worthy energy. Now trust me, this is not Metalcore or Deathcore like the stuff we remember and cringe at. This is metal or maybe Death & Roll to a point. 

Now of course the band lays out a lot of other punishment via the crushing and atmospheric death doom of "There Was Blood Everywhere". Add to that they do the whole aggro-grind stuff. I mean yeah CRUSHMAN has created a real apocalyptic genre defying sound which would probably be a hit with anyone under thirty. 

Since I'm beyond that age group I'll just keep an eye on a neighbor who has a teenager into Metal and a basement. Ya never know, when he and his wife are out of town I'll probably see a bunch of cars parked outside, hear a fuckin racket and will know you've got a house show going on. But hey I might be that cool guy ya see down the street and wave to when I'm out front ranking leaves wearing a NAPALM DEATH shirt. But I ain't buying ya beer. 

https://www.horrorpaingoredeath.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/crushuman

 

NO/MAS - Raiz Del Mal review

NO/MAS - Raiz Del Mal

Horror Pain Gore Death Productions



OK so at first I thought this was a Mexican grind band. But they're from Washington, DC so I figured maybe they were immigrants from Mexico or some other Hispanic nation. But with names like Roger, John, Chris and Henry they sound as Hispanic as a hipster taco joint. 


Another thing I found interesting is that this band played a show in my town at The Bunker. Now there's no actual venue here called the Bunker. Basically it's wherever some kid promoter can find a friend's house to put on an all ages (aka: under 21) show. I found it interesting that one of the recent Bunker shows was held in a extremely wealthy neighborhood nextsdoor to a ritzy country club. Well punk rock dude!


As far as this DC band's release goes, it's around ten minutes of grind with plenty of metal elements, mostly death metal. It's nothing new under the sun or from your parent's basement. The best song on here is "Fuck You" which has some decent death n roll grooves. But the majority of this is 90's era screamed grind mixed in with some hardcore from the same era (or what the new kids call crust).


http://www.horrorpaingoredeath.com/

https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/ra-z-del-mal

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