Bestial Devastation - Your Vagina Is Sick

Rating: 7.5

Country: Italy

Release Date: 2007

Track list:
1. Staphylococcus Aureus 02:13 2. Ureaplasma Urealyticum 01:43 3. Treponema Pallidum 02:17
4. Candida Albicans 01:47
5. Chlamydia Trachomatis 01:36
6. Calymmatobacterium Granulomatis 02:05
7. Gardnerella Vaginalis 01:37
8. Phthirus Pubis 00:59
9. Papilloma Virus 01:59
10. Trichomonas Vaginalis 02:08
11. Neisseria Gonorrhoeae 02:24
12. Herpes Genitalis 01:47
13. Streptococcus Agalactiae 02:20

Total playing time - 24:55

Band Website: Bestial Devastation

Bestial Devastation - Your Vagina Is Sick

Torturer - Guitar, Vocals
Animal - Bass, Vocals
Brutal - Drums
Lord Destroyer - live Guitar

Here's a pleasant gynaecological concept album from this young Italian band. This is nice, chunky Grind with a fun edge and a few fatty-splatters o' Brutal Death. Where their compositional epidermis is mottled with chugulated lesions, each is pierced with frequent injections of toxic Goregrind pharmaceuticals, along with a sizeable dose o' liquid silliness, along with a pleasant innovation jab.

The tunes crunch 'n' rattle along with youthful abandon, usually using either straightforward, writhin' riff ugliness with blastulated pile-drivery or chug-filled bawdiness tattooed with pulsatin' kickdrums to shove you face-first into inescapable grooves, addin' a couple o' slam-laden high-jinx, a few o' bawdy chugouts and occasional segmented chug-blocks, afore crushin' the whole thing to smithereens with further high-speed blast mayhem. Although it doesn't contain the most innovative, inspirational, fretboard-transcending pieces o' six-string genius ever created within the genre, the guitarwork still has plenty o' variety and cohesion within its well-timed arrangements to let your ears enjoy, digest and re-enjoy Your Vagina.. Despite it's horribly clinical sound (see below) the drummin' still adds much punch to proceedings; it's tight and consistent and instantly coagulates with the guitarwork to form an enormous Death/Grind bulk. Of course, there's heavy use o' imposin' blastbeats 'n' thunderous kicks, with a few gravities flying about the place too, but such speed-crazed techniques occur only where required to carry the relevant excessive riff-tempo. On the whole, for the catchier, more chug-driven songportions, it wisely reverts to much more measured phrases of judderin' kick-pummel, minimal snare hits and bright cymbal smashery. This helps bring contrast to the work and broadly underlines the compositional variety, in turn heavily assisted by the vokills, whose style, arrangements and delivery also add distinction as well as a little charm 'n' individuality, not to mention daftness. Performed by two band members, the vox resemble a repulsive but funny double-gobbed slobber-beast, with one orifice oozin' out the standard Brutal Death tunnel-faced guttural slurp whilst the other extrudes some glottal Goregrind squawkery splattered with Hardcore Punk mucous. Cos it's rather unexpected and not especially powerful, the latter doesn't seem to fit snugly into the song/vokill patterns at first, but soon finds its place as a vital part o' the sound and complements the style very well. As mentioned above, Your Vagina. is a concept album of sorts; a tricky to follow lecture givin' you an introduction to gynaecology, with a barely pronouncable tracklist probably copied directly out of Stanley G. Clayton's magnum-opus text book 'Gynaecology by Ten Teachers' or cut and paste straight off of CancerWeb or wherever, in order to label each song with the Latin names for conditions, bacteria and viruses. 'Cos it's long been a mainstay of patho-Gore lyrics, staphylococcus aureus is of course present and correct.

Despite bein' named after an ol' Sepultura EP, Bestial Devastation doesn't really have any noticeable stylistic connections with the once listenable Brazilians. Instead, they chop out Goregrind cuts and stitch 'em together with cored-out gobbets o' Brutal Death, addin' a good-time Pornogrind vibe to highlight their sense of humour, but without allowin' it to smother their obvious songwritin' knack. They take the speed of breathless Dead Infection blast-fest Chapter of Accidents and combine it with the jollier moments of Carnivorous Erection by Regurgitate, plus the snare-abuse of say, Foetopsy's debut, then add a few Brutal Death bits 'n' bobs, adornin' the work with a rabid Aversion to Life kind o' quality, ladlin' on slamular accessibility via standard-issue knuckledrag like Stabwound. In places, the work also sounds like a combination o' the boorish blast-filled Brootality and Gorefied entertainment of fellow Italian acts Stench of Dismemberment and Cadaveric Crematorium, respectively. The lewd grooviness that pops up here and there reminds me of the material by the lead bands on Cock and Ball Torture/Last Days o' Humanity and Rompeprop/Tu Carne splits, while the moist gutturals vs. snotty sneers are akin to those on Split Your Guts by Gorerotted, or a less venomous Exhumed, or perhaps Viscera Trail.

The production is fair; the guitars have plenty of clenched clout and clarity but often become rather muffled miles beneath the drum surface during the hectic parts, whilst the vox are adequately recorded but can't always communicate with each other effectively within the mix; the gutturals sometimes sink into the bassy marshland, whilst the shouty vox stand on top and jump up and down on them til they asphyxiate in quag. The drum sound is mediocre, surely these are programmed drums? The triggered snare is just horribly clinical staccato detachment, soundin' particularly bad durin' the high-tempos, and even worse during the brief drum solo snippets. The kicks are slightly better, but the cymbals sound bland and synthetic.

If you're into gig-friendly Death/Grind, stuff with plenty o' fast bits, more than enough noddable chunky bits and an obvious sense o' humour, then you'll enjoy this, but the sound quality might spoil it for you a bit. If you don't mind a rubbish drum sound and a substandard mix (not to mention crap cover art) too much, you ought to give it a listen!

May 27th, 2008