Impetigo
Giallo Antefatto

"Do you enjoy the smell of the compost bin? Do you sleep in the cat's litter box? Are you used to spitting in the air and catching your spit in your mouth mid-air? Here, straight from the United States, is a load of manure to dump into your ears! "Giallo", the EP by Impetigo, has been released".

Most likely, this was the advertisement that, in 1989, was broadcasted by the small radio station of our Car Wrecker of (dis)trust: I pointed out the year of release of this work not only for informational purposes but also because it is the only thing that can explain the success of a piece of garbage like this. But the real problem is that there are still people who enjoy this trash today; otherwise, it would be inexplicable that a label (I don't remember which) took the material from the aforementioned EP and reissued it, including the tracks from "Antefatto", another EP from 1991.

For the series "Easy Money: Garbage from the Past," here is another episode; as I said in the Repulsion review, it seems to have become a trend to remaster old works of forgotten bands to significantly increase revenue and not to lose face in front of the riotous flocks of (Not-so)Sapient Brutallarens: typical of specimens of this species is indeed to proclaim any metal record over ten years old as a masterpiece (even the same ones they considered rubbish ten years ago) and to acclaim the people at the current record label as benefactors who offer them "for only ten dollars" an "unfindable masterpiece." It doesn't matter much if the "masterpiece" turns out to be terrible; if they say so and it's that old, then it's a masterpiece; the syllogism is logically ironclad.

But who the heck are Impetigo, and what happened to them? They are four guys from Illinois who named themselves after a skin disease and who fortunately broke up, though not quickly enough to spare the world some of the worst metal albums ever (if we include also "Ultimo Mondo Cannibale" from 1990 and the last "Horror Of The Zombies" from 1992); some of the worst, yes, but also some of the most important for the evolution of a certain strand of Grind Gore, the most chaotic and annoying one. Practically half of the bands currently playing this genre drew inspiration from Impetigo, the other half from the early Carcass, Repulsion, and early Napalm Death. I didn’t mention these bands randomly just because they play (or played) Grind, but because they are all, including Impetigo, equally important for extreme metal. But let’s get one thing straight, this record was and is a steaming pile even after years; here, the enological principle "the older it is, the finer it is" doesn’t work; even if it's an important record, it is undeniably terrible. And when I say terrible, I'm not referring to the non-existent production or technique, I'm referring to their so-called ideas, which are also non-existent and materialized in noise for its own sake.

Nonconformity? Sure, but of an outrageous futility that doesn't save the band from severe judgment; let’s not debate now whether Grind should be like this or not, because the same things can be done in an equally disgusting but much better way. The only extenuating circumstance is that Impetigo laugh at themselves and deal exclusively with nonsensical themes (it’s impossible not to mention "The Revenge Of The Scabby Man" or "Bitch Death Teenage Mucous Monster From Hell"), another element adopted today by an infinite number of bands. But now let’s see what making Grind means to our guys...

In a nutshell, these guys found themselves in the rehearsal room, plugged their instruments into the amplifiers with the overdrive maxed out, one of them stood behind a microphone to scream, and the drummer started to hit the drums in a not very cautious manner; and at this point, you’re probably thinking it's a damn normal Grind band. And here lies the rub; the singer equally uses growl (still fairly clean) and a series of absolutely ridiculous sounds (both in intentions and in reality), from sorts of vomiting fits to falsetto yelps ending with phlegmatic wheezes. The guitarists play riffs that might almost seem serious up to a point, then they "let loose" a bit and start hammering the strings, repeating the same notes endlessly: strangely, the singer, at least when playing bass, maintains a certain seriousness (a real oddity for Impetigo and generally in a genre that certainly doesn’t reward this instrument). The drummer does the same work on the drums that a lot of people would do on my car (or worse, on my head), which says a lot about the condition of the drum set at the end of each song; the only difference is that, besides blast beats and Thrash/Punk rhythms, he allows himself some slowdowns (which, however, do not contribute to improving the groove of the songs), while I doubt those lots of people would give up even for a moment on rhythms even tending towards Black.

I believe no one is interested in having details on the production even though, in all fairness, compared to the rest, it results in one of the most Grind elements (in the sense that all genre records have productions as bad as this, it's the musicians who are rarely "this bad"); noteworthy are the numerous intros and outros, each one stupider than the last, another element that will become popular among Grind bands. In short, this is not enjoyable garbage; this is just like getting a boot kick in the ass with a ski boot and then another with the boot and ski attached: I really wouldn't know who to recommend it to, considering it can't please those who love technical things, it can't please those who only seek headbanging material, and it can't even please the most enraged Grinders (too stupid and too little rotten).

The only ones left are the collectors of failures, the collectors of ugly stuff (like myself), and those who pick their nose with a fork; to be consumed away from meals.