Monster X - Indoctrination (2003)

Grind-y straight edge hardcore. I first discovered Monster X back in high school via their split with Spazz, when I was still young enough to be blown away by the mere existence of guttural vocals. Rediscovered a few years back while re-organizing my records, and shit, those gutturals still rule. They're more expected over the grind parts, but there's a really cool dissonance to hearing them over more traditional hardcore. Great band.

Also, I stopped drinking recently -- didn't really 'quit' so much as noticed that I wasn't drinking anymore and decided to embrace it -- so if you don't count my prescription speed or my openness to microdosing psilocybin every now and then, it's almost like I'm straight edge, too.

There's 45 tracks on this thing, go look at the track list on Discogs.

Live fast die young was just a fad for fucking losers

You should also listen to:

Chicken Bowels - Chicken Bowels (1987)

Kill the Man Who Questions - Sugar Industry (1999)

Plasma - Gorefuck (2000)

Dang, the Halloween season is slipping like blood, stomach acids, and miscellaneous human viscera through my fingers. I'm still very much preoccupied with my job search and will be for the foreseeable future, but I refuse to completely leave y'all hanging like dismembered corpses in a shed out back.

So in honor of the holiday that makes all of my creepiest tendencies temporarily socially acceptable, here's Plasma, who make some of the most disgusting, sloppy, amateurish gore metal I'll ever post on here. Chugalug guitars, plodding drums, and creaky, clogged drain vocals slapped together with practically no regard for composition or musicality. It's like they heard Mortician and were like, "Hey, that's pretty good, but I wish it wasn't so cerebral." And flat-out refused to spellcheck their song titles.

The Anon who called Mincer "CRAP" (their emphasis) is really gonna hate this one.

Track listing:

1. Koprostatic Cunt Catharr

2. Larva Infested Clitoral Melanom

3. Saprogenic Vaginal Canal

4. Drastic Totalextirpation of Female Genital

5. Sordes and Pus in Vaginal Gore

6. Imminent Vulva Dissection

7. Feast Upon Carcinogenic Vaginal Tissue

8. Purulent Inflamation of Clitoral Abscess

9. Metrektomie

10. Unrecognized Decapitated Crania

11. Corpse Devourer

12. Exttirpationed Vagina

13. Molodrous Inquest

14. Ulcerating Vagina

Drink from the septic tank

You might also enjoy:

Patologicum - Hecatomb of Aberration (2003)

Anal Bag - Ultimate Disgust (2011)

Napalm Death - Time Waits for No Slave (2009)

The crowning achievement of a decade spent getting back to what Napalm Death does best: punishing, riff-y death-grind. My introduction to the Napalm Death fold was via the soundtrack to the first Mortal Kombat movie, and that song still fucking crushes, so even after discovering the classic material, I've always been a steadfast 90s Napalm Death apologist. One of the few, the proud 80s metal bands who made it through the 90s with their dignity fully intact, they spent the decade pushing towards both more accessible and more experimental sounds that nonetheless maintained a solid through-line to their earlier material, and avoided sudden leaps into goth-rock*, nu metal, alt-metal, or whatever the fuck this was. And, questionable album art aside, they kinda just stayed cool.

That being said, all their 90s albums sag a bit. As strong as the songwriting was, and as interesting as it could be to hear them playing these unorthodox, angular guitar lines, the weaker stretches ended up feeling like a whole lot of ducking and weaving without a solid knockout punch. So Napalm Death's turn-of-the-millennium return to 'straightforward' death-grind was welcomed by all, myself included. The sixth album to spring from this resurgence, Time Waits for No Slave capped off a decade spent making some of the strongest, tightest, most effective mosh-bait ever produced, and it's my favorite of the lot. Anyone who doesn't fuck with this band is a stupid dumbass.

*Not gonna front, I like this one.

Track listing:

1. Strong-Arm

2. Diktat

3. Work to Rule

4. On the Brink of Extinction

5. Time Waits for No Slave

6. Life and Limb

7. Downbeat Clique

8. Fallacy Dominion

9. Passive Tense

10. Larceny of the Heart

11. Procrastination on the Empty Vessel

12. Feeling Redundant

13. A No-Sided Argument

14. De-Evolution Ad Nauseam

Permanent daze

Disassociate

Synthesized grace

Life in a cage

More beefy grind:

Brujeria - Raza Odiada (1995)

Internal Rot - Mental Hygiene (2014)

Flesh Grinder - S.P.L.A.T.T.E.R. (1999)

Brazilian goregrind with overt death metal leanings, particularly in the lead guitars. Choice early Peter Jackson movie samples, killer riffage, and cool little touches like the slimy, echoing midsection in "Cutaneous Anaphilaxis" and the completely unexpected, surprisingly pretty acoustic interlude. Shit, now I gotta watch Bad Taste for the 50th time.

Track listing:

1. Intro (Stomachal Emanation)

2. Chronic Mucocutaneous Candidiasis

3. S.P.L.A.T.T.E.R.

4. Thecnics to Extract the Female Reproductive System thru Anal Canal

5. Cutaneous Anaphilaxis

6. Cavernous Sinus Thrombosis

7. Granulomatous Inflammation with Elliptical Macrophages

8. Acute Syndrome Resembling Infectious Monucleosis

9. The Amorphous (Nonfibrous)

10. Chronic and Recurrent Regurgitant Lung Disease

11. Adverse Effects Seen in Immunologically Compromised Hosts

12. The Adagio of Pathologist

13. Developing Malignant Cancerous Tissue in the 8th Inch of the Large Intestine

The gruel is ready

More blood, intestinal fluid, and horror movie samples:

Holocausto Canibal - Sublime Massacre Corpóreo (2002)

Corpsefucking Art - Splatter Deluxe (2003)

Endon - Mama (2014)

A mind-melting, eardrum-shattering cacophony of Japanese blackened noisecore insanity. Harsh noise, samples, drumming that's akin to free jazz but with blast beats, tremolo-picked guitars, serrated synths, and unhinged, shrieking vocals. Produced by Atsuo of Boris.

Track listing:

1. Etude for Lynching by Family

2. Parricide Agent Service

3. Acme Apathy Amok

4. Pray for Me

5. WIWTWM

6. Just Like Everybody

Perversion till death

Further into chaos:

Musica Transonic - Musica Transonic (1995)

The Armed - Only Love (2018)

Fukpig - Spewings from a Selfish Nation (2009)

Heavy-as-fucking-fuck d-beat with buzzsaw guitars and an impenetrably dense sound that, along with some melodic tendencies, dramatic choral keyboards, and general studio weirdness, suggests industrial black metal.

Track listing:
1. The Horror Is Here
2. Necropunk
3. Switchblade Romance
4. As the Bombs Fall
5. As Millions Suffer
6. Bombs of War
7. Cunt Hive
8. Mother Nature's Fears
9. Millions Dying
10. Thrash Armageddon
11. Their Cries
12. Negative Mental Attitude
13. Caught Out
14. Inertia

Delight in the dying of the light

Similar sonics:

Morgue - The Process to
Define the Shape of Self-Loathing (2002)

N.K.V.D. -
Hakmarrja (2014)

Patologicum - Hecatomb of Aberration (2003)

Polish grind-y brutal death. Simplistic, extremely heavy guitars, formless gutturals, sloppy drumming, and a few long-ass horror movie samples, including one from Bad Taste.

Track listing:
1. Extremely Deforminded
2. Rectal Love
3. Bloody Adventures
4. Castration Anxiety
5. Massive Neck Injection by Infected Junkie
6. Vaginal Pus(sy)
7. Hacken-Creutzfeld Jacob
8. Famous by Urge
9. Tragedy in Supermarket
10. No Meat, No Eat
11. Condemned to Rot
12. Genital Vapor
13. Against Tolerance
14. Pavulon Ambulance

A walk among the corpses
Fills my heart with pride

You'd also like:

Dead Infection -
A Chapter of Accidents (1995)

Chainsaw Dissection -
Malodorous Decomposition (2005)

Morgue - The Process to Define the Shape of Self-Loathing (2002)

Sick French death/grind. A hateful, impenetrably relentless mass of brutality, with cyber-grind underpinnings that eventually bubble to the surface in a full-on breakcore denouement.

Track listing:
1. Homesick
2. My Life Is Sicker Than Your Band
3. Kerri Lenardic
4. There Is No End of the Harvest
5. In-Between Storms
6. (Pig) In Human Form
7. Heart Shape Substance
8. 1909
9. Meridian / Untitled

Doors of no return

You should also check out:

Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition -
Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition (2001)

Internal Rot -
Mental Hygiene (2014)

Mortician - Zombie Apocalypse (1998)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Mortician - Hacked Up for Barbecue (1996)
Mortician - Chainsaw Dismemberment (1999)
Mortician - Domain of Death (2001)

Ladies and gentlemen, one last Christmas present just belatedly landed in my mailbox, courtesy of my better half, and I am proud to announce that I have finally reached my final form. So years ago, there was this clueless newspaper article about the dangers of heavy metal music, and of the many hilarious assertions the writer made, my favorite was that death metal musicians wear sweatpants "to display their athleticism." Well, call me LeBron fucking James, 'cause I am now the proud owner of one (1) pair of Mortician sweatpants.

Track listing:
1. Devoured Alive
2. Incinerated
3. Zombie Apocalypse
4. Slaughterhouse
5. Hell on Earth
6. F.O.D. (Fuck of Death)
7. Horrified
8. Charred Corpses
9. Dissected
10. Blood Harvest

Guts are torn apart
Pulling out the hearts
Bones are left to rot

More along these lines:

Chainsaw Dismemberment -
Human Internecion (2004)

Carnivorous Vagina -
Bagno di Sangue (2005)

Euthanasia - Swarming Maggot (1993)

Related:
Clotted Symmetric Sexual Organ - Are You Excrements? (2000)

Just under 10 minutes of raw-as-fuck Japanese goregrind. Completely, disgustingly lo-fi, and punctuated by Nightmare on Elm Street samples.

Track listing:
1. Putrid Cadaver
2. Swarming Maggot
3. Rotting Genital
4. Bloody Rejection
5. Malignant Necropsy

You're mine now, piggy!

More like this:

Malignant Tumor -
Crush Syndrome Surgical Problems
(1997)

Gore Beyond Necropsy -
Noise-A-Go Go!!! (1998)
+ Go! Filth Go! (1999)

Carnivorous Vagina - Bagno di Sangue (2005)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Carnivorous Vagina - Istinto Omicida (2004)

Second full-length of Mortician-worshipping Italian death/grind from the charmingly-named Carnivorous Vagina. Drum machine, synth, samples, incomprehensible guitars, and unintelligible growls.

Track listing:
1. Sangue
2. Rampant
3. Deranged of the Hills
4. Embodiment of the Demonic
5. Rimorso
6. Disfigured
7. Embalmer
8. Maimed, Chopped, and Slaughtered
9. Autopsia
10. Fierce
11. Coven
12. Malignant
13. Ossario

Massive bloodshed

You'd also like:

Holocausto Canibal -
Sublime Massacre Corpóreo (2002)

Psychotic Homicidal Dismemberment -
Haunted Catacombs (2007)

Exhumer - Bloodcurdling Tool of Digestion (2008)

Italian brutal grinding death. Hyperspeed drum machine and surgically precise guitar-playing to match. Short but packs a punch.

Track listing:
1. Act I - Putrefaction: The Legion of B. Cadaveris Mesentericus
2. Act II - Cadaverous Fauna: Death's Workers
3. Act III - The Final Judgement: Colliquation of the Corpse and Skeletonizement
4. Necropsychopatic Exhumation
5. Boredoms to the Digestive Apparatus
6. Malignant Necrosy
7. Agony of the Soul (Instrumental)
8. Necropsychopatic Exhumation (Demo 2004) [bonus]
9. Boredoms to the Digestive Apparatus (Demo 2004) [bonus]

The bones finally with no flesh suffer the worms' mania

More like this:

Disgorge -
Forensick (2000)

The Sickening -
Death Devastation Decay (2009)

Exhumed - Anatomy Is Destiny (2003)

Third album from the gods of gore metal -- who, for some reason, people LOVE to pretend never put out anything good past their first record. Those people are wrong, and this record proves it: they didn't lose the spark until they broke up and reformed as a more polished, less interesting version of themselves.

Anatomy Is Destiny finds Exhumed taking on a more varied, dynamic sound that emphasizes guitar interplay and more thought-out song structures, while keeping things as gory and fun as ever. Many songs really take off midway through -- from the harmonized leads on "Waxwork" to the d-beat mosh-bait on "Consuming Impulse" (pretty sure they covered Disrupt at MDF the following year) to the driving, palm-muted breakdown on "Death Walks Behind You", it's the bridges that take this record over the top.

Track listing:
1. Anatomy Is Destiny
2. Waxwork
3. The Matter of Splatter
4. Under the Knife
5. Consuming Impulse
6. Grotesqueries
7. In the Name of Gore
8. Arclight
9. Nativity Obscene - A Nursery Chyme
10. Death Walks Behind You
11. A Song for the Dead

Masticate your own genitals, choke on your bludgeoned testicles
With a hunger that will not be denied
The sweetest of meats is your soft, fatty teats
That I'll be stuffing your face with tonight

If you like this, try:

Nominon -
Diabolical Bloodshed (1999)

Those Who Bring the Torture -
Those Who Bring the Torture (2007)

Naked Whipper - Pain Streaks (1995)

Siiiiiiick German grind-y black/death metal. There's a single, physical AND mental illness-ridden branch of my family that's Catholic, headed by an uncle who once, in front of my gay brother, said he "despise[d]" gay people, and every time I post something like this, I get a glimmer of hope that ol' Uncle Hatemonger somehow becomes aware of this blog -- through Facebook, maybe -- and dies a little inside when he discovers my love for songs like "Whore of Damnation" and "Nunrider". It's the little things that get us by.

Track listing:
1. Pagan Pussy Gore Intruder
2. The Ultimate Molestator
3. Whore of Damnation
4. Perverse Delight
5. Nunrider
6. Impure
7. Anal Queen
8. Painstreaks
9. Naked Whipper
10. Hyperincest
11. Nuclear Solutions - Creation of a New Demonic Age
12. Nunrider (Live)
13. The Ultimate Molestator (Live)
14. Whore of Damnation (Live)
15. Perverse Delight (Live)
16. Pagan Pussy Gore Intruder (Live)
17. Impure (Live)
18. Hyperincest (Live)
19. Naked Whipper (Live)
20. Painstreaks (Live)
21. Anal Queen (Live)
22. Nuclear Solutions - Creation of a New Demonic Age (Live)

Experience in excrements

If you like this, listen to:

Abhorer -
Zygotical Sabbatory Anabapt (1996)

Black Devotion -
Ceremonial Rituals of Demonic Chaos (2013)

Disgorge - Forensick (2000)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Disgorge - Chronic Corpora Infest (1997)

Utter, chaotic brutality from the Mexican (not to be confused with the American) Disgorge. Some of the sickest shit ever. Had a few stragglers left in the record store around closing time tonight, so we decided to help them make up their minds by blaring this little slice of heaven. One of them, a really nice regular, said that it made him feel like jamming an icepick through his eye. And what a beautiful album cover, you're welcome.

Track listing:
1. Jism Adipose Carbonization
2. Spasmobliterance Filtrates Scabs
3. Scid
4. Urethrive-Decortico-Xanthomatose Muco Gestated Scaffolds
5. Jaundice of Hookworm
6. Haemorph Endarteriectomized Punzed Eozinophile
7. Purpuric Cytoskeletal Glucid Oxidase
8. Crevice Flux Warts
9. Depths Carmesi
10. Silks Sphincter Anal Lumen

Regressed in the obliterance of your lumen

You'd also enjoy:

Sarcastic -
Macabre Human Mutilation (2000)

Pulmonary Fibrosis -
Organ Maggots (2007)

Wilt - Wilt (2017)

Crusty, Bolt Thrower-worshipping Seattle death metal. Impenetrably thick and punishingly heavy. Played a show with Wilt and Swordwielder a few years back, and my band at the time's vocalist disappeared right when we were supposed to go on, fucking up the order of the whole show and pissing off everyone, Wilt included. Good times. Free/name your price via bandcamp.

Not to be confused with the dark ambient project.

Track listing:
1. Cold Road of Despair
2. Sermon for the Bootlickers
3. Punisher of Faith
4. Fertile
5. Territory
6. Initiations Rites
7. Sterile
8. Scarecrow
9. Salt Mine
10. Isolation

We all suffer

More crusty metal:

Asschapel -
Fire and Destruction (2003)

Stormcrow -
Enslaved in Darkness (2005)

Dystopia - The Aftermath (1999)

Related:
Asunder / Like Flies on Flesh - Asunder / Like Flies on Flesh [Split] (2000)

For better or worse, The Aftermath changed my life. Sample-packed, aggressively miserable tracks -- culled from various EPs, splits, and comps -- from the darkest, heaviest, and probably overall best crust band of all time. A melting pot of sludge, hardcore, grind, and warped psychedelia that still sounds unlike anything else. Also, the riffs. The fucking riffs.

Track listing:
1. Population Birth Control
2. Father's Gun
3. Self Defeating Prophecy
4. Sleep
5. Socialized Death Sentence
6. Backstabber
7. They Live
8. Anger Brought by Disease
9. Jarhead Fertilizer
10. Taste Your Own Medicine
11. Instrumental
12. Diary of a Battered Child
13. Cosmetic Plague [Rudimentary Peni cover, hidden track]

Gun in my mouth
I pull the trigger and my brains come out
The same story
A dead child
A father's gun

Also listen to:

Grief -
Torso (1998)

Damad -
Burning Cold (2000)

Malignant Tumour - Crush Syndrome Surgical Problems (1997)

Ultra-raw, filth-encrusted Czech goregrind. An aural hatefuck for a world with no value.

Track listing:
1. Foetorex Ore
2. Desensitized [Regurgitate cover]
3. Acute Haemorrhagical Necrosis of Pancreas
4. Pemphigus Vulgaris
5. Necromantic / Parasitical Cysts
6. Hypermenorrhoea
7. Dysphagia
8. Diseases of Oral Cavities
9. Gronorrhoea (Live)
10. Ingrowing of the Alien Things in the Body
11. Acute Rheumatics Fever
12. Lymphogranuloma Venerum
13. Sperimicid Spermatogenesis
14. Statim
15. Grind Gut - Wrenching
16. Diphteria

Shit hell

Also listen to:

Holocausto Canibal -
Sublime Massacre Corpóreo (2002)

Autophagia -
Postmortem Human Offal (2003)

Those Who Bring the Torture - Those Who Bring the Torture (2007)

Crushingly heavy, grind-infused Swedeath decimation. Short, precise, riff-packed songs that'll have you slaughtering your neighbors in no time. Pretty much a tour de force of kickass riffs, with some quasi-d-beat parts for good measure.

Track listing:
1. An Affair of Entrails (In a Filthy Liaison with Disgust)
2. Murdered Thrice
3. Filth Bag
4. Drudgery at the Graveyard
5. Chains and Saws and Chainsaws
6. Death Came as a Friend to Them
7. Professionally Curing the Disease
8. Defiling the Carcass
9. Skeletal Cage
10. Prone to Penetrate Pus
11. Distaste for Ordinary Scum
12. Never Too Cold for Carnage
13. Drilled with a Jackhammer
14. Banquet of the Grotesque
15. Shriek (Like the Pig You Are)
16. Sickened Skin Infestation
17. Inducing Abomination - Reciding in Dirt

Under the surface I lay dreaming
In a spew-infested hell

If you like this, try:

Nominon -
Diabolical Bloodshed (1999)

Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition -
Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition (2001)

Appalling Spawn - Freedom, Hope & Fury (The Second Spawn) (1998)

Elite Czech progressive brutal death metal. Angular stop-start riffs, woozy clean sections, a strong melodic presence, and utterly incomprehensible atonal chaos, all with brutal gutturals to keep it nice and gross. Literally one of the greatest death metal records ever made.

Track listing:
1. Manthra of Hope
2. My Heaven
3. Sublime Fury
4. Azure Waters of Inthera
5. By Sword & Heart
6. Voyage to Inward Freedom
7. Celestian
8. Open Arms of Celestial Home
9. Messengers
10. Selfmonarch

A vision of unlimited touch

If you like this, try:

Caducity -
The Weiliaon Wielder Quest (1995)

Molested -
Blod-Draum (1995)