Rating: 6.5

Country: Colombia

Release Date: 2004

Track list:
1. Intro
2. My Plague
3. Involution
4. Vulgar Assassin With Cannibal Instinct [mp3]
5. Iron Flesh
6. Adict to Tear Apart Flesh
7. Pulverized
8. Mechanical Infection
9. From the Anatomical Deeps (Dead Infection Cover)

Band Website: My Plague

My Plague - Mechanical Infection

Sebastian - Vocals
Andres - Guitars
Beto - Drums
Ricardo - Bass

My Plague, I hesitantly mean the band, have created their first ever album called ‘Mechanical Infection' and it's through the cool Mutilated Records and not rodents that they want to disseminate this plague originating from Colombia to as many countries as possible. I say it was a smart thinking on the label's part to include in their plan the soon to be the most populous country in the world via Diabolical Conquest - Brown Death is now truly impending. When I first exposed my ears to this infection, all I could hear was the intro, which was so long that I got exasperated and shut it. In my second attempt from the second song, it sounded all but a blur to me. My brain failed to grasp anything even in the third and fourth attempt but I don't blame it - poor thing would've caught fire if it tried too hard. Motherfucking thing is just too fast. Then I went according to The Brutal Listening Rule #11, i.e. when you don't know what's going on, headbang. So I tried headbanging but I saw that by the time my head got back up, that part was already over. I thus came to the conclusion that you'd just have to be a goddamn woodpecker to be able to headbang to this.

I think it was in the ninth attempt that I finally caught the plague. Following the long intro that seems to be taken from an alien/creature flick, “My Plague” the song, begins explosively like an Indian toilet made to flush. Somewhere in the middle of the pandemonium, there is this really creepy and ominous riff accompanied by the most insane drumming, which apart from reminding me of Yattering, made me think of a large crab scurrying sideways beside me, wanting desperately to clip my balls with it's abnormally swollen claws. I covered my crotch with my hands and screamed. Then there are occasions like in the songs “Involution” and “Iron Flesh” where their music sounds like a Cannibal Corpse song from the ‘Bloodthirst' era being brazenly fast-forwarded. Jesus. Often, as demonstrated in “Vulgar Assassin With Cannibal Instinct”, you'll find the music on ‘Mechanical Infection' sounding uncannily similar to those notorious Brazilian bands, Krisiun and their clones, only brutalized a million times. Essentially though, My Plague sound like a cross between Brodequin and Disgorge. Dashes of Liturgy (their kid), Abysmal Torment (“Mechanical Infection”) and Cinerary can also be perceived over here. I'm desisting from making comparisons to other Colombian brutal death metal bands because you're never going to know the difference. After causing much initial havoc, these guys kinda get tired around the halfway mark and supplant their frenetic playing with some pulverising Devourment type powerchugs, as exemplified in “Adict to Tear Apart Flesh”.

Initially, I thought that the guitarist might be suffering from a terrible itch in his crotch and being unable to scratch it openly, he was scratching the strings of the guitar shielding his crotch instead. I even deeply empathised with him. But more spins made me realise that it was just my imagination, as is often the case. He's actually playing real riffs and manages to concoct some really twisted ones too. I'm glad he makes no pretence of playing technical music because then it's just irritating. Especially when the riffs so often get obscured by their callous drummer, who when blasts makes sure he creates enough noise to drown out everything else. That damn drummer, what does he think of himself? If you ask me that, I'll say a drum machine. I think they took him to a hypnotist who made him believe that he was one. If you extricated the sticks from his hand, it'll look as if he's perpetually having a fit. And what about the vocalist Kunal? Oh, he sounds like one of those highly pressurised industrial pipe blowers. I suspect he's the same vocalist who's done vocals in Amputated Genitals and Purulent. I've been told that when he's performing live no one stands close to the stage because in the process of blowing into the mike, he blows people away from it. I don't know how much of a role his breath plays in this but he sure does blow hard they say. And that's not all; by fingering this orifice through which air is constantly flowing with immense pressure, he's able to develop vocals of a pretty wide range. I shudder thinking of something like this happening with the other orifice in his body. For most of the time Sebastian makes himself sound like Matti Way of (early) Disgorge/Liturgy and in “Involution”, he even does a brief ambitious vocal solo like how his idol did in ‘She Lay Gutted'.

Basically, what I'm saying is, the music is really fast and really dumb but with a few spins you might start digging it. It sure will grow on you, if you are brutal enough to withstand it. But I wish the production had more bass and clarity. Look at their label mates Suppuration for instance; they've got such a nice satisfying production, why couldn't My Plague get themselves one of those? It would've surely helped the rating. Hell, if this wasn't bad enough, in “Pulverized” the production suddenly changes and makes it sound like it was recorded in one of those metal pipes used for the sewers. My ears bled and my brain squirmed. But amazingly in the next song you're going to feel as though you've attained inner peace when you hear the long and relatively quiet intro from The Ring. Temporarily though, because following that is an interesting Dead Infection cover, which played in their style is quite a marvel.

The problem is not with the band; My Plague are pretty good at what they do and have the potential to do a lot better. The problem is with this album; in that, it's just not satisfying enough. When you get in that retarded brutal mood you expect to be satisfied. You feel it's your birthright to be satisfied and if you don't get satisfied, you get pissed. I'm talking about the kind of satisfaction that is achieved by spinning Liturgy's 'Dawn of Ash'. With an album like that, you'd glow with contentment like a kid who got all his hands and pockets stuffed with sweets. That's not the case with 'Mechanical Infection'. Perhaps it has something to do with it's length - if you ignore the Dead Infection cover and remove the intros of the first and the last song, then all you're left with is only about 20 mins of music. But even by treating it as an EP, it doesn't work the way Cinerary's 'Rituals of Desecration' or Incestuous' 'Brass Knuckle Abortion' does, because you have inconsistencies in the songs and the sound. Hopefully they will rectify that in their next album, which I think is going to be a lot better. For now I'd recommend 'Mechanical Infection'only to die-hard fans of bands like Disgorge, Liturgy and Brodequin or people who'd just want to get senselessly beaten up.

June 20th, 2006