Description
Squash Bowels are back again with another album of guttural grindcore! Brutal beyond belief, but sprinkled with groove and memorability, Grindvirus is one tasty grind treat with plenty of gory panache. European release on Selfmadegod Records.
Review from Teufel’s Tomb
A great way to cap off a completely crappy day at work – because as much as I like doing CD reviews, it just doesn’t pay the mortgage – is coming home and finding a CD or two delivered in the mail. For an immature guy like me, it makes me like a kid at Christmas, screaming and throwing a fit if I don’t get what I want.
Yesterday’s arrival was none other than Grindvirus, the brand new release by Polish grindmeisters Squash Bowels. Squash Bowels have been around since 1994 playing a consistent, if formulatic style of grind. Upon giving the CD its first play, my expectations were a bit tempered. This is because even though I enjoyed both No Mercy and The MassRotting-The Mass Sickening by these guys, I found both albums to be a bit lacking in variety. While they were both brutal and intense, I thought most of the songs sounded too similar and tended to get redundant quickly.
Well – stop the presses, back the truck up, hold your horses, and any other fucking cliché you can use. Because this CD, as they say, changes everything. As this review is being typed, the CD is on its’ 8th play in about 24 hours. Forget potential, Squash Bowels has put it all together as far as I am concerned.
The band has gone through some changes, and all for the better. New guitarist Andy plays with a fluidity that I found lacking in previous efforts. Instead of simply pummeling you with a buzz-saw style approach, Andy throws some awesome fucking riffs on “Sheep Dag,” “Shit Oneself,” (great title, by the way) and “Child Victims.” Drummer Marius comes to life as well, adding some creative rhythms to “Bacterial Fertliser” and the gruntstramental “D.I.” One of my gripes with No Mercy was the lack of variance in the drumming. That is definitely not the case here. The band seems more willing to throw in some tempo changes periodically, which allows the songs to develop and progress. Because the songwriting is better, the tempo changes don’t take away from the intensity of the CD one bit.
Finally, we have remaining member Arthur on bass and vocals. Arthur is in fine form here, offering both manic screeches and low guttural vocals throughout the disc. With the improved musicianship, the vocals stand out more and fit the songs perfectly. The band maintains their sense of humor with titles like “Don’t Look A Gift Horse In The Ass” and “Nose-Lunger” (yum!).
In the few months that I’ve contributed to Teufel’s Tomb, I have yet to submit a review that I deemed an Essential buy. Well, you can consider that cherry popped in a big way. As always some may disagree with that assessment, but this is my fucking review not yours. Feel free to go write your own review and have your mom tape it to the fridge if you want. I’m sure she’ll be proud of you. For the rest of you, stop whatever it is you’re doing right now and go get this fucking album.
