Visceral Disgorge
Ingesting Putridity

On YouTube, just type "slam death metal" in the search bar and click on a random band (maybe the most macabre, filthy, and outrageously disgusting one) or a compilation, and in the suggestions, you'll find yourself in an endless spiral of slamming brutal death metal bands with dubious album covers and incredibly imaginative names.

Some time ago, I was calmly (?) listening to this sea of bands, perhaps in the hope of finding something unique among all those bands that by now sounded similar (I'd dare say identical) to each other. After enduring almost half an hour of the usual over-recycled rhythms, the usual triggered bass drums, absurdly distorted guitars, and vocals easily comparable to a regurgitation held in one’s mouth, my ears focused on a band: Visceral Disgorge.

Upon first listening, I immediately understood that they had something that set them apart from all the others.

Probably if you were to listen to them along with their "countrymen" of the same genre, you would curse me with phrases like:

<< What the hell are you saying?! Don’t you hear that they're all the same?! It's always the same crap!>>

And here's where you're wrong! (I like to think I'm right.)

Oh right, I haven't yet told you who these "very peculiar" Visceral Disgorge are.

Visceral Disgorge was formed in 2007 in Baltimore, United States. The band became, in part, sadly famous due to the death of guitarist Steve Rosenzweig in 2014. Nonetheless, the members continue to perform (few) live shows, mainly in the States.

The album I will talk about in this review is their only full-length released so far, released in 2011.

Regarding the earlier conversation about the great variety (irony, take me away) that can be found in the slam brutal death genre, the question naturally arises: What makes Visceral Disgorge so special?

Aside from:

• the guttural voiceyoudon'tunderstandawordhesayssoit'suselesstoreadthelyrics (yes, because there are also lyrics, but they don’t cover meaningful themes, it’s always the same stew of gore, pornography and the like.)

• the very distorted guitars (a small note for the 6-string nerds: at first, I thought they had an extremely low tuning, but later I discovered they use C# tuning, that is, 1 and a half tones down.)

• the pounding drums.

• the typical cadenced rhythms of slam.

What makes Visceral Disgorge so exclusive that they cannot be considered the same as all the others?

There really isn't a valid reason; I simply like them more than all the others (did you think I wasn’t messing with you?)

Since I have no valid reasons to place them a step above other slam metal bands, at least I’ll tell you the noteworthy highlights I personally noticed in this work that satisfied me musically.

First of all, the blast beats of the drums aren’t traditional blast beats (that is, the alternation of bass drum and snare), but a particular type: the hammer blast, meaning the succession of bass drum and snare hits in unison.

This seemed positively unusual to me for the genre. I’ve always listened to regular blast beats while wandering through the names of slam brutal death, but I’ve never encountered such a change in characteristics.

Second point in favor: the riffs are never too complex, and together with the drums, they create "groovy," violent, and compelling rhythms easily memorable.

Finally, the vocals can easily be embraced because they're only there to complement the whole.

The only thing that opposes this simple but impactful slam brutal death album is the monotony of the songs: if you listen to the album from the first track, by the time you reach the last, it will seem like you've been on the first song the whole time.

SONGS TO LISTEN TO: Forced Fed Shredded Genitalia, Necrocoprophagia, Skullfucking Neonatal Necrosis (at minute 4:39 there's a very amusing quote from Sergeant Hartman taken from "Full Metal Jacket" that precedes the last slam riff of the album.)

I’m gonna give you three seconds; exactly three fucking seconds; to wipe that stupid looking grin off your face or I will gouge out your eyeballs and skull-fuck you! ONE! TWO! THREE!

Oh, one last thing: I created the tab for Forced Fed Shredded Genitalia (thank me later.)