Split Level Housing: Blue Holocaust/Morgue Breath "After The Fall Of Man/Hongo Atroz: Double Mushroom Attack" Split 7 Inch Review

     The After The Fall Of Man/Hongo Atroz: Double Mushroom Attack is a lengthily named international split between two blast heavy grind-gore bands from either side of the Atlantic—France's Blue Holocaust and California's Morgue Breath. I was a little apprehensive about this release as I am not the biggest fan of certain ardent strains of goregrind and I have never even heard of Blue Holocaust prior to the submission of this release for review. So it looks like we're going to discover this doomsday duo together.

        Blue Holocaust is a long running goregrind band formed in 2001 from Toulouse, France. Now, Blue Holocaust is a new band for me and apparently the band is a one-man solo project helmed by a gentleman named Pierre de Palmas. Pierre has a long list of accredited accomplishments that include being the founder and editor of the grindcore/goregrind webzine, Braindead Zine. A virtual publication where he has posted grindcore and goregrind music news, band interviews and album reviews. The zine seems to mostly be relegated to social media and YouTube these days as opposed to being at an official website address, or at least I couldn't find one anyways. As a founder and editor of a review blog, myself, I sympathize with the struggle of finding the time to make something like that work and sustain. He is also a member of fellow Toulouse gore peddlers, Vomi Noir, as well as being an artist that has produced work for several gore centric bands in the genre including Haggus and Sick Sinus Syndrome, among others. 

    Stylistically, I would put Blue Holocaust above most of your average goregrind bands. I find that most goregrind bands I hear either borrow heavily from the more extreme forms of death metal or from the more boring iterations of mincecore. Either of which can focus extensively on guitar grandstanding or mind-numbing alternating bass and snare, two-step drum beats. Instead, Blue Holocaust tend to keep things fast paced with excessive blast beats, D-beats and gnashing cymbal catches. The band is heavy on the grind and less so on the stereotypical gore sound. If it wasn't for the standard overly deep goregrind gurgled vocals and the obvious giallo-horror aesthetic I would have thought that this was a purely grindcore record. But thankfully Blue Holocaust have chosen to be it's own unique mixture of these elements to bring a refreshing brand of "grind-gore." 

    

    The entirety of Blue Holocaust's side of this split is a concept album of sorts. In addition to the Armageddon-esque visuals of both sides of the split, After The Fall Of Man is lyrically themed with the tales of apocalyptic destruction—such as the mass extinction events brought on by nuclear war, the agonizing and gruesome effects of radioactive fallout and even a ground zero detailing of a zombie based outbreak. Not only are the lyrics on theme, but each track is proceeded and occasionally succeeded by old post-apocalyptical B-movie sound bites that give you more of that retro sci-fi/horror Blue Holocaust brand of schlock infused blasting. It almost reminds me of some kind of grindhouse/grindcore/Mad Max version of Conflict's The Ungovernable Force. I love that the nuclear war shtick is called out immediately in the first sound clip of the first song. 

    Tonally, After The Fall Of Man is some of the best production the band has had to date—even when compared to the just recent 2021 release, Nilbog Attack split with Houkago Grind Time, and especially when compared to the band's 2004 debut full-length, Twitch Of The Death Nerve. The ladder being an earlier blown out and lo-fi variation of the band. After The Fall Of Man is a more refined and traditional grindcore sounding release compared to most of the band's past installations. 

    For whatever reason, the Blue Holocaust on this release reminds me of Code 13, albeit a radiation riddled, gore diseased and metastatic grindcore mutant version of the band. But there is something about the vacuum cleaner guitar distortion and the throw away solos that remind me of that charmed Doomed Society luster. Obviously, Blue Holocaust is a totally different beast—unabating blasts and frantic chord smears taking the place of the gang vocals and catchy hooks of the aforementioned Havoc Records hardcore. I should probably stop name-dropping Code 13 so often. I don't know, maybe this is just the radiation sickness talking.

    California's Morgue Breath are the perfect pairing for a split with Blue Holocaust. While maybe not being as experienced as their veteran split-mate, the Los Angeles natives have skyrocketed in popularity since the band's formation in 2019—and very much akin to Blue Holocaust—began as the one-man project of founder, Ivo, before adding members from other grind darlings like Sulfuric Cautery and Shitbrains to form a full lineup. 

    Very much from the start, the band established a solid concoction of death-grind and goregrind. Even if the first release, Postrarse Frente La Flema, may have been just one man alone, Morgue Breath has always brought the blasts and some of the chunkiest, catchiest riffs in this niche genre. The band's first release as an ensemble was 2022's full-length, Expectoraciones Exequiales Desde Las Profundidades Fantamiasm​á​ticas and right away the addition of Sulfuric Cautery drummer, Isaac Horne's contributions can be heard in the album's hyper blasting and snare pummeling. Production does take a mild dip on the sophomore release, but the band makes up for it on this latest 2022 release, Hongo Atroz—their split with Blue Holocaust. This record is easily the band's most polished, although I don't think the snare was done full justice in the mix.

    Not running short of similarities of their flipside mate in human anatomical amusement, Morgue Breath also seem to favor the grindcore sound—or death-grind in Morgue Breath's case—ahead of the goregrind. Their guitar work emphasizes the death-grind with its dark and sharp tremolo riffs and layered distortion. Pair that with the chronic cymbal catches and you get some explosive compositions. 

    The one obvious attribute running borderline between the two subgenres is the mostly monotone burly and bubbly guttural growls that bark out what I assume are an all Spanish lyrical diatribe. I'm not privy to the lyrics, but I think it should be obvious by now that all the album titles in the band's discography and the song names are all en español. And for those listeners that don't speak Spanish, I can assure you they are all about a collection of some sort of internal organs leaking some sort of bodily fluids or dealing with something of a necrotic nature. Which is a nice change of pace for an American based band as well as a good way to avoid running the risk of an overly cliché track listing. 

    Although, I do concede that maybe not all the songs are in Spanish. Track four, "Gas Del Ass"—while yes, technically it is in a form of Spanish—is a cover of Polish goregrinders, Dead Infection's "Gas From Ass." I'm clueless to whether or not the lyrics were translated or not. Morgue Breath has made a tradition out of recording at least one cover song for each release. Previous releases saw covers from bands like Icons Of Filth and Brazil's Lymphatic Phlegm. Obviously, there is an eclectic well of inspirations for the band to draw from. 

 

    At the end of the day, or at the end of days in the case of this split, the aptly dubbed Double Mushroom Attack split is an equal yoked effort by two bands that are similar in style and execution. Both Blue Holocaust and Morgue Breath bring a slightly diluted and palatable version of goregrind that might prioritize the grind, but still keeps things gross. I think this record is a great launching off point for the casual grindcore listener to maybe delve a little deeper into the underbelly of the genre, while at the same time still pleasing the goregrind purists and traditionalist. Goregrind can be an acquired taste and this split is a great sounding entryway. 

    Blue Holocaust and Morgue Breath also serve as an American and French collaboration that stands as proof that music is truly a unifying and international language. It also is a testament to the legacy of the old school goregrind and its links to the new school—at least if you are of an age where you can admit that millennium era music is old school now. In either case, this split pays just as much homage to the truly old school goregrind of the 80's and 90's as well. 

    After The Fall Of Man and Hongo Atroz are each high ticks on the old Geiger counter—sickeningly lethal and virulently cancerous. This split acts as a brutally depressing reminder that a painful and irradiated end is extremely fucking nigh. But hey, sometimes deformities can be fun too. 

FFO: Squash Bowels, Intrepid Corpse, Trucido, Sulfuric Cautery

Listen to the album—

Out now on EveryDayHate Records:

https://everydayhate.bandcamp.com/album/blue-holocaust-morgue-breath

Gang Violence: Merked - "Merk-Mob" CD Review

     Well, spring has officially sprung and so has my depression. Annually, the dark despondent days of winter leave me in the deepest of dour dispositions, and now it seems as if spring won't be any sort of a reprieve. Did you now that suicide rates spike in the spring? Suicide numbers double and even triple in the spring when compared to winter. The facts seemingly subverting expectations of the assumed popular opinion that the winter weather and the holidays increase depression. Summer doesn't seem to fair much better than spring, either. Links to summertime depression and suicide are attributed to—of all things—pollen count and FOMO. I once heard summer referred to as the "mean season" due to the increase in homicides and other violent crimes during the season. I guess the theory is that the heat combined with the more people out and about, the chances of potentially violent communal interactions increase. 

    Now, keep that "mean season" mentality in mind. Think about the violence and fermenting rage behind that solstitial colloquialism. Add to it that springtime allergen of melancholia. Now, enter Merked and their 2022 full-length, Merk-Mob. This twenty track album might as well be a physical manifestation of an especially indignant chip on the band's shoulder. 

    Oakland California's Merked can be unofficially viewed as the sister band to previously reviewed hardcore/powerviolence band, Choke. Bassist, Fedge, moonlights as bassist for both Choke and Merked, as well as being co-founder of both band's label, Enemy Of The Goat Records. The man has a pick between his index finger and thumb and the other fingers dipped into a few different pies.

    Merked formed in the tumultuous year of 2020 amongst the spirit breaking pandemic lockdowns and the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests spurred on by the unjustified murders at the hands of law enforcement. Merked was forged in the midst of all that drama and I think the callousness and cynicism is embedded in the band's DNA.

    In 2021 Merked released their debut self-titled full-length cassette that played like a crust punk/hardcore shaped peg shoved into a grindcore/powerviolence shaped hole. Merked's lyrical content read like a series of angry notes that were stuck under the windshield wiper on the car of that neighbor you absolutely hate. The band takes issue with the most tedious aspects of the human condition—mostly about how people should take accountability for their actions, how people themselves get in their own way and pulling yourself up by your boot straps. A very conventional hardcore style of unsympathetic positivity and perseverance. 2022's Merk-Mob finds the band in very similar waters. 

    Merk-Mob is the band's second full-length and is much in line with their previous works. Although, the band's crustier aspects have given way to plodding sludge, they still stay true to that hardcore and grind-violence mixture that was established as the heart of the band. The heavy sludging trudges are probably what you'll notice first about Merk-Mob. Right away the band stomps into the album with some thick and nasty headbanging dirge riffs. Merked is tossing around a lot of weight for a grind-violence band. The mix of the CD is geared towards a low bottom end, which is only accentuated by a high production value. Finally! A band that utilizes the bass guitar and places it prominently in the mix. The bass guitar adds a real depth and texture that is lacking in a lot of records in the genre. It allows for not only a heavy sound, but a tonal thoroughness.

     With the combination of the slurry guitar riffs, the bouncing and coiled basslines, the crashing drums and the band's high exploitation of syncopation, Merked's version of sludge-violence is aggressive and coherent. It reminds me of those work safety videos where a machinist gets an arm yanked off in a spinning motor and the asymmetrically weighted appendage revolves around in systematic thwacks against the hard metal. 

 

    Things aren't all bass filled slogs, though. The band blasts their grindcore sensibilities just as much. Songs like "Landmine In The Mind", "Ongoing" and "Payback", among others, wear their grindcore influences more on their sleeves. Some blast beats might only be a split second flick of the wrist every other measure, but the heavy pounding of the drums are just as effective when blasting as the are setting a rhythmic drone. Most songs tend to drop in and out of the grindcore and sludge genres pretty effortlessly. Thirty percent of the songs are under a minute and some forty-five percent of the songs are under thirty seconds, so the band is never bogging the listener down on one side or another. Song compositions tend to rise and fall and deconstruct themselves marking Merked with an almost trademark off-kilter, loose style of powerviolence. 

    Another of Merked's purely grindcore traits is in the harshness of their vocals. The gravelly, guttural crust roars are repurposed into powerviolence barks and then add to that a smearing of screeching high vocals behind it all for, again, a sound that bears a lot of weight in the band's heavy-askew grind-violence. 

    Lyrically, the band is still not beating around the bush with their messages of distain for people's lack of awareness, both intellectually and morally. While not mincing words, the band is certainly nixing a few of them. The song lyrics on Merk-Mob might only be a single sentence long hate-filled haiku that is straight to the point. And maybe "hate" is not the right word. It's more of a vivid annoyance or lack of patience for the aforementioned human follies. One song that doesn't need lyrics to get the band's views across is track six, "Soothing Sounds Of Slaughtered Rapists"; rather, the liner notes merely state that:"Merked approves and encourages the torturing and killing of all rapists." The song itself is a slow instrumental with audio samples from cinema of agonizing screams and squelches. Most of the album is layered with sound clips ranging from Hellraiser to The Office to just the sound of incessant gunfire. That alone should fairly denote the level of cynicism on Merk-Mob. 

    Merk-Mob is a amazing sounding record that is deceptively heavy and excellently produced for a grind-violence CD. The detuned, bass centric tone pairs real nice with the extreme contrast in tempos. In my opinion there is a big Dystopia vibe that makes me think that Merked might break into "Backstabber" at any moment. Obviously Merked's influences of crust, sludge, hardcore and grind have songs brimming with unpredictability—snarled-faced, head nodding sludge riffs that can give way to blast beat chaos before taking a right turn into bouncing hardcore beatdowns. With almost three-quarters of the album being under a minute, cramming in all those genres is an art. I'd recommend picking up a physical copy of the CD to get the full depth of the band's low production, in addition to a twenty-first track that features a recording of a live set from the band that doesn't sound too bad itself, as far as production goes. Merked hooks it up real nice for powerviolence punks who are now of a certain age where crowd killing is as dumb as it looks, "punk time" shows are truly just inconvenient and scene toxicity is no longer acceptable. 

FFO: Dystopia, Choke, Mindcollapse, Iron Lung, Weekend Nachos 

Listen to the album:

https://getmerked.bandcamp.com/album/murk-mob