Reek Of Shits
Bloody Obstetric Technology

I got my hands on this album quite a few months ago but only now have I decided to give it a listen: why? Because the Reek Of Shits are terribly annoying to me, and I must say that if it weren't for my morbid passion for all things Death metal, I wouldn't have even bothered to look for it.

“My six readers” (allow me this extremely presumptuous Manzonian quote) are surely struggling to understand what I just said: and it's actually very simple because I deeply detest the Reek Of Shits ever since they released one of the most tasteless and indecent covers in the history of metal with their previous work “I Can Feel Your Wounds Are Bleeding” (worse than “Filth” by Waco Jesus). I remember that at the time I refused to buy the CD and now I have “acquired” this new album just to hear what they are up to, without giving them the satisfaction of buying a CD with such a cover. You can understand then that I approached this band from the Czech Republic, which has been active since 1998, with a lot of prejudice: but the rating shows that, at least partially, I had to reconsider.

The proposal, as can be seen from the name of the band and the album, is one of Grind with many Death influences and purely macabre and Gore themes; having said that, I'm sure your doubts have increased since bands of this genre are now a dime a dozen. However, one listen changes the game and proves that the 'Reek Of Shits' do not follow the so-called “mosh” path (meaning the sticky, excessively extreme sound) but pick up the trail of early Carcass. These five Czechs know how to play and know how to write songs of this genre: good technique (although not stellar) and really excellent songwriting. It's a shame that the overall sound only works in a few excellently pulled-off episodes.
The work of the guitarists is good, not very technical (as the genre requires) but enough to give the CD a more than dignified feel. Needless to say, the riffs are true boulders and manage to create an infinitely compact sound carpet: however, they do not renounce a certain almost rock component, which emerges in more episodes and, in my opinion, degrades the work. I am indeed convinced that the most convincing songs are precisely the ones where you feel most the heaviness and pure devastation that these guys manage to generate.

Songs like “Porno Hazard” (with an admittedly goofy title), “Symphony Of Assassin” or “On The Anatomy Desk” lend themselves well to symbolize what I mean: heavy, dark, never too fast, and capable of unleashing an incredibly violent atmosphere. The drummer delivers a good performance but, like his peers, not astounding; lots of blast beats, lots of slowdowns, and a great variety of rhythms (however missing those standout passages). The bassist, as per usual, might as well not exist since no one would miss him. The same cannot be said for the vocalist, aided by one of the guitarists: indeed, the vocal performance is truly excellent and varied, capable of ranging from the deepest and cavernous growl to the most piercing screams.
As I mentioned earlier, however, in total, the work barely reaches sufficiency. In fact, the only pieces truly worth it are the three I mentioned earlier: those who are familiar with the genre can easily do without the other eleven, which is not a good sign at all. With this, I don't mean they're miserable, but they bring the level of the album down to something already heard millions of other times. Impeccable is the compositional side, distinguished by the number of ideas and great variety, but the sound is poor and ends up repeating itself within the album and replicates a model already experimented with in a thousand ways. Out of the fourteen very short songs (average duration of two minutes), a little more than a third are saved, and, as a famous contemporary “poet” used to say, “the rest is boredom.”

Another note of merit to the production, which favors the guitar sounds but manages to keep the voice and other instruments alive. In conclusion, this “Bloody Obstetric Technology” is an album that has a head and a tail, but it doesn't serve to give a good dose of pleasure to the experienced metalhead nor to initiate the newbie: a decent release, but nothing more.