Rating: 8.8

Country: USA

Release Date: 2004

Track list:
1. Intro
2. Gastric Gore-met
3. Brainfucker
4. Liquid Lunch [mp3]
5. Trash-hole
6. Resickened
7. N.C.T.B
8. Human Bot-Fly
9. Chitin
10. Kicked to Death
11. Son of Forgotten Flesh
12. Megacephallus
13. Trioxin

Band Website: Lord Gore

Lord Gore - Resickened

Gurge - Vocals
SCSI - Guitar
Maniac Neil - Guitar, Bass
Colon Bowel - Drums

The follow-up to 'The Autophagous Orgy' shows a comfortable, rewarding transition for Lord Gore, in that they have progressed from a somewhat contrived, scattered Deathgrind outfit into a chrome-plated Gore/Pornogrind splatter-behemoth. Their fast, broootal elements have been compressed and are now deployed with a more measured approach, allowing their use to complement the solid core of the album rather than swallowing it up. 'Resickened' is a highly commendable, concrete effort, with adrenaline infused drive and momentum, greater vokill style alternation fluidity, a charismatic, good-humoured performance and energetic delivery. The songs follow well-gelled, galvanised structures, the propulsion of each being the single-minded pursuit of an extremely infectious, irrestistable groove.

The cyclic goreslam riffage benefits from a delectable guitar crunch, the lossless production of the bassy frequencies ensuring a satisfying, molten sound, with plenty of brightness in the guitar solos. The songs are of logical, digestible form, the riffing of which ranges from uncomplicated to comparatively technical. With it, the measured, effective method of the rhythm section is impeccably synchronised, providing rugged foundations for each song, with a good, healthy indulgence in blasts. I daresay that I've been more appreciative of such drumwork recently, finding it preferable to the continuous, gluttonous blasting of those bands whose collective creative vision is golloped up by the individual performance of the drummer, whose overmixed and overzealous biscuit tin-lid snare misuse ensures all songs seep wanly into one samey blob. The cartoonish, splatterific lyrics provide entertainment on a level matched only by their delivery, with such bad-trip tales of sickening genetic malformity, sadistic hallucinogenic experiments, jolly kidnaps and cadaver consumption spewed via means of mid-range, breathy roars, borborygmic and throaty eructations and hysterical howls. The band themselves of course sum up the vocal technique much more efficiently than this reviewer, opting for the catchall term of 'oral offal suck chokes'. As heftily asserted in the liner notes, the band have not processed or treated their vocals with any effects or devices. During the initial listen, I carelessly assumed vocal effects had been used on a good portion of the vocals in order to add further belch-beef, but on closer inspection it became clear the gut-tunnel moisture, moist throat gags and gurgling upchuck is in fact entirely natural, no doubt achieved through much practise, focus and trial and error. You can really hear the phlegm!

The packaging is an ideal companion to the album, the brightly embellished, toxic-torture cover greatly enhancing the 'Resickened' experience. The lyric pages include several grotesque sketches of interest, somewhat reminiscent of old Shredded Corpse demo-tape covers and the Haemorrhage sleeves of yesteryear. The band logo is perfect, utilising the same delightful format as Purulent Spermcanal or Viscera, whereby each letter is formed from a gored out body bit or a dribbling mucoid splat.

The implementation of European Gore/PornoGrind techniques greatly enriches the sound of Lord Gore, allowing a few clear comparisons to be made. The catchy call-and-response structure-formats are reminiscent of classic Gut, while the instantly memorable, uplifting rhythms are similar to Rompeprop and Mucupurulent, with the sheer, hulking density of Cock and Ball Torture before they liquefied into an insipid mud-fart. The amalgamation of such elements could very easily have resulted in a primitive, over groove-saturated album that does open with satisfying punch, but becomes clogged and sluggish towards the middle, thus negating the initial thrust of the material. However, Lord Gore have bespattered their artistic expressions with more than enough colour in preventing this from being the case, the product being a thoroughly engaging and entertaining listen.

February 20th, 2006