Rating: 5.2

Country: Estonia

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: Forensick Music

Track list:
1. Neanderthals Were Master Butchers
2. Defleshing the Cadaver Before Buria
3. Sliced By Man
4. The Mysterious Demise
5. Rebirth Of An Ancient Menace
6. Spawning Of Species
7. Abolition
8. Neo-Neanderthals Travelling Through Consumed Continents
9. Brooding Over A Dead Breed

Band Website: Neoandertals

Neoandertals - Neanderthals Were Master Butchers

Ah yes, of course, the Neoandertals. Deep, bass-heavy Brootal Death from Estonia! I remember really rather enjoyin' the two track Neander Valley release when I reviewed it about two years ago. In fact, I vaguely remember first playin' the recordin' whilst preparin' for myself a grease-infused feast of bacon, egg, black puddin' and other such delectable, lard-rich foodstuffs. The two pleasures corresponded agreeably; fat-frazzlin' meats syncronised with the hot bass sizzle, whilst the resultin' gastric engorgement matched the bloated satisfaction gained from the whole musical work. Havin' had plenty of time to digest both those tallow-filled treats, and since imbibed hundreds of others, I was pleased to receive this new package of low-frequency goodness to re-slacken my sigmoid flexure.

For those who may be unfamiliar with Neoandertals, they're a pair of primates in such hot pursuit o' bowel bustin' bottom-end roar for their tunes that they remove guitars from their instrumentation altogether, preferrin' instead to rumble along with bass only! Indeed, the record firmly determines said instrument as a tool to be used for deployment of devastatin' rhythmic pulvery, but the downtuned stop/start dishevelment is often interspersed with such ambitious fret flashiness as finger tappin' ‘n' string skippin', as well as twanglin' leads. This is Brootal Death, so as a matter-of-course, the riffs are frequently capped with predictably positioned pinched harmonics, a technique that would otherwise add textural vibrancy to a phrase, but their application to bass guitar strings seems to defeat the object, what with the gauge bein' far too heavy to provide any kind o' piercin' squeal. Although the elaborate riff-décor is proficiently executed, the basic playing itself is almost as loose as the strings. The drumwork is also all over the shop, hastily rattlin' out irregular clatter-patterns, full o' cymbal abuse and tom pummellin', whilst the vokill accompaniment consists of lots ‘n' lots slobberin' sub-throat tongue-coil. Given that it's a subterranean swamp of woolly-wobbly low-end with its porridgy skin punctured only by the cymbals, it gets rather difficult to follow, especially when high-speed shred suddenly ascends from the ultra-primitive two-note bludgeon, cos the duo often have trouble stayin' in synchrony with each other, resultin' in a very unpleasant scratch-heap. In fact, the only point at which I can get into the work is when it introduces a motif by means of a solo bass-line, givin' me some idea of the rhythm afore becomin' smothered in fuzz. I shouldn't be too insensitive though, they are a primitive cave-couple after all, dug up and re-animated from the Paleolithic era of Brutal Death Metal, long before musicians of its era had discovered that by stretchin' six bits of lighter animal intestines along an additional wooden club, as well as playing in time with each other, a much rounder sound could be achieved. No, this is Prehistoric, knuckle-draggin', bone-headed ham-fistedness, so you should expect nothin' more than a relentless, tuneless beating.

Given their heavy-handed approach, monochromatic sound and brain-dead, thuggish performance, the Neoandertals immediately bring to mind the works of good ol' Mr. Will ‘Small Knife' Rahmer and his caveman colleague, takin' the toneless, bass-saturated Mortician timbre, then draggin' it several thousand fathoms below the murky surface. The unkempt ‘n' unruly structures have a very large Brodequin feel, whilst the gratin' string-scrape and clumsy structures cause the same kind of listenin' displeasure as that achieved by the fizzy riff-scuff of Mutilating….Gutting by Decay. Blatantly influenced by the guttural aerobics of the first two Disgorge albums, the vokills exaggerate the slurpy style and haughty huskiness of Sir Matthew Way, usin' the squashed enunciation of She Lay Gutted, the cavernous, reverb-mouth of Cranial Impalement, and the brassy, self-indulgent vokill solo ideas of both.

Stone-age Death Metal musicians did not have the privilege of luxurious recordin' environments lined with mixer channels, racked with dynamic processors and stuffed with lovely microphones, so they had to make do with their cave-studio, comprising of a stone-mixin' console with arrow-heads for faders, cables made out of animal innards and mics fashioned from hollowed out tusks. Although the kit sound is handled rather well (except for the snare, which is barely audible), with plenty of nice, logical pannin' and the vokills stay just on the right side of reverberation over-kill, the general sound is ruffled and muddy, which serves only to exacerbate the bassy chaos. The product itself is nicely packaged, with a lovely watercolour cover art, a bit similar to classick Zig art, Path of the Weakenin' for Deeds o' Flesh, and interior booklet-pages crammed with primordial lyrical scrawl, givin' us fanciful history tutorials about caveman life!

Neanderthals Were Master Butchers. I'm sure they were, but Neoandertals are scruffy, sloppy and messy!

December 24th, 2007