Labels: The Flenser
Review by: Alex Deller
Interesting things going on with this debut full-length, and while I wouldn’t say it’s a total hit there’s enough going on to make me want to keep poking around. Sonically is where things fall a bit flat. The riffing is fairly virtuous, dodging between the chigga-chigga-chigga sounds of early 90s Cannibal Corpse and the expansive dissonance of acts like Gorguts or Ulcerate. All well and good, yes, but much of the shading is lost thanks to a production job that keeps everything on the same even keel whether the band are trying to prise open your ribcage or conjure a sense of nightmarish fear. This all detracts from where things get really interesting: Cheeri Musrasrik’s vocals, which take the form of a weary, mournful groan that’s by turns terrified and terrifying, making her sound like a sad ghost lost in a stone labyrinth. Then there’s the lyrical content. Lofty names like of Yeats, Zola and Genet are mentioned, while words touch on topics like prostitution, BDSM and autoerotic-asphyxiation … themes that are interesting to read explored from a female perspective rather than the teenage boy revenge fantasies and 25-years-after-the-fact riffs on ‘Addicted To Vaginal Skin’ that death metal can sometimes descend into. Chalk it up as flawed, then, but flawed at least in an incredibly interesting way. More, please?