MUSIC

Morbid fascinations

By Weasel Walter

A&ELETTERS @sfbg.com

FULL CIRCLE

Since its early-to-mid-'80s inception, the beast known as death metal – and its myriad subgenres – has wantonly sought to out-extreme whatever came before it while remaining heavily indebted to the conventions of its heavy metal roots. Obsessed with achieving new vistas of violence, blasphemy, speed, power, and shock value within the restrictions of its tradition, death metal is the aural equivalent of the most vile modern gore films taken to a level that makes the good ole "heavy metal" many know and love seem as quaint as a Boris Karloff movie.

The modus operandi of this extremist form remains overwhelmingly formulaic: Distorted white noise guitars riff away in agitation, bolstered by manic speed-freak drumming, while vocalists emit cartoonishly guttural low-end lung burps alternated with the occasional nail-on-chalkboard scream. Death metal's ludicrously exaggerated vocal eruptions seem to be the first thing that turns off most nonmetal fans and keeps them from investigating further. Well, that's just too bad because generations of extreme metal artists have succeeded in refining extended-technique vocalization to such surreal heights that at its best the stuff unwittingly exceeds the timbral sophistication of both the baddest-ass modern classical works and the most frayed multiphonic saxophone outbursts from the free jazz corpus. It's a form of pure sound art that is bestially expressive and astonishing in technique. Examples of this effect are contained in two new albums issued by the deeply underground Goregiastic Records: Artery Eruption's Gouging Out Eyes of Mutilated Infants and Pustulated's Haematoma.

Multiple assaults of deranged mouth-noise mark Gouging. Ranging from uvula-flapping subharmonic flatulence to whistling harmonic glissandos that evoke visions of Tuvan throat singers gone wild, the dense vocal pileup floats ominously above a layer of sludgy, slate-gray, detuned guitar wrangling. The thick morass is punctuated by frantic, needle-point staccato drum rattling that constantly seems to verge on falling away from any recognizable pulse. This sort of train-wreck chaos is appealing: It instills an organic, human-struggle factor into music that borders on sounding totally alien. After all, it's much more interesting to hear a human attempt to do something superhuman than to hear a machine do something perfectly. The net effect of the group's endlessly nonrepeating riffs and disjointed rhythmic structures is one of delirious disorientation. The upside is that it also warrants repeated listening. There's no other way to crack Artery Eruption's musical code.

Pustulated's new album is a step backward for the bassless trio. Their previous full-length transmission, Inherited Cryptorchidism (2003), was a stunning display of sustained speed, brutality, and precision, but Haematoma has some problems. Unlike Artery Eruption percussionist Darren Williams, Pustulated's Chad Wall (formerly of Brodequin) is not only meticulously precise but also downright shit-hot. His ability to consistently concoct ingenious and fleet variations on stock death metal drum tattoos lends a progressive edge that allows Pustulated to stand apart from the legion of gore-grinding groups. But the boxy practice-room ambience of the new record obscures Wall's impact, making the drums sound slightly trapped in mud. Most of Haematoma washes down like filler, the low points being a throwaway cover song and a mercifully brief jam featuring wacky electronic drums. These latter tracks show Pustulated in a self-consciously eclectic light that doesn't flatter them. The band fares best on the five final songs – reprising most of their split release with blasting brethren Copremeisis – which are on par with their best work, replete with intense vocal acrobatics and incredible man-machine beats.

The artwork and song titles of both bands spring, at least indirectly, from the late-'80s ethos of influential English grindcore unit Carcass and their predilection for florid medical terminology and gratuitous blood, guts, and sinew imagery. This sort of morbid, puerile obsession with death, decay, and disease has been done time and again, but the music is something new. Goregiastic seems devoted to releasing what they deem to be the most horrifyingly intense examples of musical misanthropy ever rendered to plastic, pushing things just that much farther off the edge. Likewise, the bands are committed to creating a series of relentless visceral shocks for the listener, and they do this by affronting us with blisteringly violent music. Sheer extremity is the goal of Artery Eruption and Pustulated, and to various degrees, they succeed.