GORGUTS

This is now a cult album in the death metal scene. Some rates it as one of the best ever death metal albums. Others are just confused. So let me introduce some order through sanity.

The music is weird avant-garde with it's base in death metal. The vocals are growls. The guitars are off key and all over the place. Very few riffs and themes are what is commonly known as death metal. The melodic parts are mostly taken from the great progressive rock songbook. Yes, Anekdoten is as good comparison as King Crimson and tens of other bands. My Dying Bride too should be mentioned.

The music is kicking off in all directions on this very experimental album. When I was listening to Gorguts first albums, I questioned why this band was included in PA. Obscura has answered that question and my objections has been withdrawn. Albums like this one is the meat and bones of PA. I am rambling on again, you are saying. The reason is that it is difficult to describe Obscura because it is so off-key in places. It is totally avant-garde and impossible to penetrate. Which means it is a fascinating album. Not easy-listening, but fascinating. The brutallity unleashed in Obscura is of hellish propotions. There is a lot of jazz on this album too. This album is a melting pot of everything.

The music is so far spaced out that it is difficult for an unprepared listener to really have any opinion on it. It is a good album for me and it will stay on my rotation list. But I still find it difficult to access because I am not a Zeul or avant-garde fan. Maybe those into Magma will like this album better than I do. But still; it is worth three stars.

3 stars

The demo is OK. There is nothing wrong with good honest death metal. The sound is not that great though. But it is a demo and that's all I can say about that.

The other half of the album is demos for the other releases. The songs did not make it onto the albums before they had been altered. The reason is obvious when listening to them. The songs were not good enough for an album. There is tonnes of these demos around. But not in the public. Most bands tends to store them in safe places and never ever release them. Metallica is the only exception from this rule, as far as I remember.

Gorguts throw away songs is not of the same quality as Metallica's material. The songs are pretty bad, to say at least. But it is interesting to hear the stuff from Obscura which was radically reworked from the demos to the finished album. The songs here are pretty bad, but good on Obscura. That is the only saving grace about this album.

I find this album pretty hopeless and nothing more than a one star album. I am not a big fan of this band. I am sure fans of this band would get this album and then be disappointed.

1 star

All in all, this is THE experimental/avant-garde metal album. While many "Avant-Garde metal" bands create a schizophrenic mix of genres but often come across as gimmicky and trivial when compared to the geniune experimentation found on Obscura.

To finish off I say but one thing. Listen to this album and listen good. Don't give up on first listen because like all Avant-Garde music, its rather diffucult to get into to. Wether you love it or hate it is completly up to you, but there is no doubt in my mind, Obscura is one of the best compositions of the past centuary. Not just in Death metal or in Avant-Garde metal but in music in general.

What the music sound likes? impossible to describe; the only way you can really get to grips with the music on Obscura is too well... listen to it but I'll do my best. Obscura sounds like Robert Fripp rounded up an all-star line up of Captain Beefheart on vocals, Fred Firth on guitar and a couple Free-Jazz musicians and decided to make a death metal album. In other words its the RIO album of death metal; ignoring and breaking down self-imposed barriers and laughing in the face of cliché death metal bands. Over here at the prog archives we class Gorguts are extreme/tech prog but in all fairness it really deserves its own genre, a genre completely unprecedented.

Each song is a melting pot of psychotic atmosphere, incredible technicality and ridiculous originality, complemented by the insane composition talents of vocalist and guitarist Luc Lemmay (who actually had been studying violin and composing classical music at music school before writing this album) the guitars hop and around a bounce of each other playing irregular, dissonant and atonal chords that despite may sound "just like noise" on first listen actually lots of thought and underlying melody underneath the scratching and other avant- garde techniques.

The Drumming is PERFECT. Never does it go overboard and blast away to show off how technical he is instead he crafts melodic lines with his drums in some of the most complex time-signatures and tempos this side of Elvin Jones (speaking of Elvin Jones, despite the persistent use of double bass the drumming sounds like something straight out of free jazz) The bass is also excellent, adding a percussive colourful tone of massive and big bass chords that squash to the size of an ant. Don't take it the wrong way though, each musician is INSANELY technical but do not expect to hear sweep picked arpeggios or a guitar god showing off.

I really could go on for ages about this album but I'll just close with this. No, this album does not have lush symphonic keyboard solos but is certainly more progressive than any prog rock made within the last 30 years, Gorguts' has actually progressed and added an experimental and avant-garde tinge to the world of death meta, where as bands like Änglagård are called prog despite rehashing the same ideas from 40 years ago.

I pity anyone who does not find this album absolutely mindblowing, because they're missing out on the album of the decade.

Also listen to that Violin in Earthly Love... hmmm.

This is the follow up to the highly acclaimed and very weird Obscura album. An album who went in all directions. From Wisdom To Hate is more a linear album with a coherent theme. It is still not a generic death metal album though. At times, it sounds like an industrial album. Nile is also a good reference. This neo type of death metal based on hard-core is also a reference. The rhythms on this album is weird and pretty innovative. The death growls is still there. The music is still brutal as heck. But all the brutality is anchored in some very intelligent designs this time. Gorguts is to death metal what Arcturus is to black metal. What else can I compare this to ? Well, their previous album Obscura. If you like Gorguts first two albums, you will hate this album. This is death metal taken kicked into touch with the 21th century. I struggle to love and even understand Obscura. Maybe that album is a bridge too far for me. But I really like From Wisdom To Hate.

Intelligent death metal; that's Gorguts. And yes, I have both eaten my words and apologised.

3 stars

The music on this album is mid-paced, mid-brutal death metal in the vein of Suffocation. The music is not particular technical. Neither is it melodic. This is a middle-of-the-road death metal album which does not have much going for it. A couple of decent songs and that's it. Maybe the music was good back then. I bought the album back then, but it did not leave any impression whatsoever. Neither does it leave any impression on me today. It is just generic death metal and that's it.

Music like this bored the life out of the guys in the scene and sent them packing into the arms of the black metal bands. It is a cause of death.

2 stars

The music is still neither particular brutal or technical. This is the type of death metal that I find pretty boring. Gorguts simply does not have the x-factor or any talent. They are simply a generic death metal band, producing generic death metal albums. The title track is good though. And that's all.

2.25 stars

Not many pennies was spent on this recording. The result is a very annoying drum sound which dominates the sound. The bass is too much in the front of the mix too and the guitars are still hiding somewhere in Rotterdam. They are more or less not on the album in any case. Just some solo guitars now and then. Or is that a frustrated female cat calling out for a partner ? The vocals is deep growls and nothing more. There is not much of any interesting music on this album. I suspect even fans of this band would give this album a miss. The music, when audible behind the wall of drums and bass, is the usual semi- brutal fast death metal fare. Nor the music or the band has no identity. There is nothing here which can be branded progressive. Just a wall of generic death metal. This is not even a collector's item. Avoid !

1 star

Considered Dead was produced by Scott Burns and it shows. It has a pretty stale generic death metal sound and not much going for it too. It is frankly a generic death metal album and one of the reason why both this studio and death metal got such a bad reputation after a while. The quality is in other words not good. It is a exciting as a piece of bread.

The Erosion Of Sanity sounds a lot fresher. It was produced by Colin Richardson. He too has a long list of albums on his CV. No less than 100 produced albums. The quality of the material on The Erosion Of Sanity is slightly better than Considered Dead. But the music is still pretty much the standard semi-fast, semi-brutal death metal which back then killed the scene and paved the way for some years with grave desecrations, arsons, murders and black metal. We can only learn by our mistakes. This compilation is the type of the mistakes the death metal scene has promised not to repeat.

2 stars