Rating: 8.6

Country: USA

Release Date: 2003

Track list:
1. Warning
2. Feast of the Undead [mp3]
3. Blood, Blood and More Blood!
4. Grinding up the Dead
5. Bloodthirsty Butchers from Beyond
6. Flesheaters from Outerspace
7. The Gruesome Gorehounds
8. Infested with Worms
9. The Cult of the Cannibal Freaks
10. I Rip Your Flesh
11. Gobble Up Your Guts
12. The Slaughterhouse
13. You Are What We Eat
14. Werewolf A-Gore-Gore
15. Kill! Kill! Kill! [mp3]
16. A Brutal Orgy of Ghastly Terror
17. Awaiting the Beast
18. Insane for Gore
20. [sic] I Said.Murder
21. Dr. Cannibal
22. A Happy Ending

Blood Freak - Sleaze Merchants

Jason Grinter aka 'The Beast' - Bass/Vocals
Andy Reed - Drums
John Sellier - Guitar

This is a groove driven, Gore and Horror infatuated, grime-caked recording by a band with a prominent sense of humour and retrospective visions, so there is no surprise that it is another smelly unleashment from the putrid Razorback Records stable! This time the act is Blood Freak, a gutmunching trio from Oregon, who satiate us with forty minutes of Goregrind succulence. Before describing this aural goregala, the sense of humour possessed by the band is worth special mention. First off, Blood Freak have already staged their own deaths, a highly amusing fabrication involving a freak van accident, a full and detailed account of which is available on their website. Regarding this album, their effective swansong, to take its liner notes at face value, Blood Freak would have us believe that they recorded 'Sleaze Merchants' in 1990, leaving it buried and forgotten for a decade and a half before exhumation, mixing, mastering and release took place in 2003, the album being bundled with the '1988 Demo' as a bonus. Having perused other articles and reviews about the album, it would seem a fair few have been positively duped by this fun charade. I was also deceived until I gave the album its initial spin, whereby the form and structure of the compositions gave them away, seeing as such a cohesion and competence in performance and songwriting did not begin to thrive until the mid-90s, when such methodology was being much implemented by the charging Goregrind movement of the time. If, however, Blood Freak are in fact entirely sincere in their statements, then the joke is of course on me, the anally retentive spoilsport.

'Sleeze Merchants' is hearty, full-bodied Goregrind record, capturing the pre-millennial sound of rampant, thrusting morgue-splatter, then slathering it in the rotten emissions of some more recent developments in the genre. An abundance of gargantuan, lurching riffs and rhythms, threadwormed together by a vicious, viscous vokill arrangement and coruscating guitar solo horripilation. The riffs themselves often centre on similar scales and progressions, managing to make the most of every gore-drenched note through with measured thus satisfying recurrence of logical ascents, descents and answering rhythms, before ploughing into mangled arpeggios or Neanderthal knuckle-drags. Vokill styles vary wildly, each verse often approached in a different guttural, glottal or eructational manner to the one preceding it.

In considering their influences, the early part of the Carcass catalogue is one simple and straightforward comparison, though there are many others. The guitarwork often features common-time chugmarches reminiscent of veterans Pungent Stench and Blood, prime cuts of whom have been scored, cored out then cured in the secretions of Gut and Cock and Ball Torture, with gobbets of 'Carnivorous Erection'-era Regurgitate and perhaps Impetigo on 'Ultimo Mondo Cannibale', encircled by a slight tidemark of Putrid Scum. The rapidly performed scales and the majority of the vomitative vokill outbursts remind me of old Haemorrhage, maybe even Gore heroes Putrid Offal. The production meets similar standards to some of these bands, most akin to the familiar mid-period CBT sound of immaculate sheen, spattered with enough bodily fluids to keep it at the correct level of grime.

Average to ropey artwork and packaging would render a Razorback release somewhat disappointing and stultified, so it is of great comfort that the cover is a masterpiece of Horror movie/Gore comic art. It uses a promotional Splatter Gore movie poster style, with bludgeoned and blood-streaked victims surrounded by a smattering of media outcry excerpts; 'Ghastly Beyond Belief! ', dominated by the sanguineous Blood Freak logo in the centre. Their infatuation with vintage Gore comics, movies and productions is prevalent in each of the lyrical themes and song titles, as well as the band name itself.

'Sleaze Merchants': an extremely listenable and thoroughly entertaining Goregrind album with concrete, driving rhythm, strong leads and wonderfully diverse vokills, enhanced by kitsch Horror themes and a humourous concept.

February 2nd, 2006