Haemorrhage

Hospital Carnage

Written by: PP on 31/05/2011 02:09:35

I'm all for niché-appeal in the music industry, but there is and should be a limit for everything. Goregrind, in general terms, is one of these oddities belonging underneath the umbrella term of metal - or perhaps death metal would be more appropriate - where the word extreme isn't, err, extreme enough to cover the full extent of what the bands are trying to achieve. Haemorrhage, a five-piece outfit from Madrid, Spain, have been at it for twenty-one years now releasing eight albums in the process, "Hospital Carnage" being the latest one and another example of faux brutality that infests this entire genre aside from only a handful of decent bands to be found in it.

Now what exactly do I mean by fake brutality or extremity? A great deal of the album's duration is spent on decent death metal-esque riffs, which will immediately remind you of the likes of Carcass and Dead Infection, and that's fine. Even the extreme growl/shriek combo used by their main vocalist still passes as acceptable though an acquired taste, certainly. But what really puts the vast majority of music fans and non-elitist critics off about bands like Haemorrhage is their utilization of frankly disgusting sound effects, whether they be burps, gargled vomit effects, or vocals that come from so deep within the lungs that they sound like little else than a continuous stream of projectile throw-up after a heavy night out. It's okay to be extreme, even brilliant at times (see: Brutal Truth, Cattle Decapitation, Napalm Death etc), but what is the point in something that classifies as bad taste, no matter which way you twist or argue it?

Fortunately for Haemorrhage, their inclusion of such irritating and off-putting elements on the album is nowhere near as aggressive as Repuked did on their awful, awful album earlier this year. Still, it's impossible to convince anyone that their alternate vocalist's contribution is anything but pure meaningless noise designed to up the extremity level of the album artificially. That they've been doing it for 21 years now makes it all the worse in my ears. Fans of ultra extreme music will probably appreciate it and probably erupt into a volcanic shitstorm of epic proportions in the comments , but the truth is that everyone else will either shrug or seek something to cover their ears with.

4

Download: Anything
For the fans of: Repuked, Carcass, Dead Infection
Listen: Myspace

Release date 23.05.2011
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