Rating: 7.3

Country: Czech Republic

Release Date: 2005

Track list:
1. Motherfuckers Disembowelin
2. Reek of Shits
3. Deface Mind
4. Reeking Orifices
5. Butcher's Pinny
6. I'm Your Flesh
7. Crippled Abortions
8. Total Body Devastation
9. Overeaten Anorexis Girl
10. Genetic Pain
11. Suffer the Children

Band Website: Reek of Shits

Reek of Shits - Deface Mind

Wali - Guitar, Vocal
Bury - Drums
Martin - Vocals
Cody - Bass
Michel - Guitar

This ought to be a lot of fun! This band have for a lengthy while been one of my favourite Czechgrind bands, their past releases 'I Can Feel Your Wounds are Bleeding' and 'Bloody Obstetric Technology' enjoying repeated selection and spinment from that particular subdivision of my collection, not to mention my frequent donning of the navy blue Reek of Shits t-shirt. The pair of releases have of course brought me much listening pleasure, while my t-shirt serves two purposes. The first of these is of course to enlighten fellow Grindcore fans with regard to just one of the bands whose works entertain me, while the second function is to warn fellow commuters that they may be subject to my more than overwhelming excremental stench should I decide to occupy the seat adjacent to theirs whilst on board public transport.

It's been a couple of years since I've heard anything new from the Shits camp, or perhaps I'd undergone a transient period of Grindcore ignorance due my lavish listening to Symphonic/Gothic Metal, Ambient Dub and Be-bop Jazz. Those're just a few genres that could've blinded me from the fact that Reek of Shits may well have been recording scores of albums right under my pierced septum whilst I was busy consuming said non-Grind substances. However, it appears that 'Deface Mind' is the only thing the band have splattered onto tape since 'Bloody.', so I was bloody lucky eh?! It's good to see the group have remained with the ever trustworthy label, Bizarre Leprous Productions, so that offered much promise before I'd even swung open the jewel case. These days, some labels can be a little bit hit and miss, so it's always a joy to acquire stuff from labels such as BLP and the equally infallible Obscene Productions, because you know you're sure to get a nogginful of excellent extreme music. I was treated to a near endless stream of such ear-butchery during the Obscene Extreme Festival last week, the merchandise market of which being the location where, along with a sizeable pile of Brootal Death albums and Grind tees, I purchased this very release.

So, what the bleedin' heck does 'Deface Mind' sound like? Well, the Reek of Shits seem to have undertaken a colonic consolidation of their collective cack conceptions, taking some of the weight 'n' bulkiness of '.Wounds..', spraying it heavily with the stinking secretions of 'Bloody.', and rounding it off with a conspicuous ripeness that ultimately makes for a fairly rewarding listen. While the fast-paced blast of their preceding outings remains as persistent and face-shearing as ever, the instofix hooks and enticing chugular buffers that provided much of the compositional purposes seem to have all but disappeared from the sound. Whilst this is a bit of a shame for those of who love the earlier stuff, one simply can't expect the Shits to keep on defaecating the same old punter-pleasing fun 'n' games time after time. Therefore, we must make the best of the sleekened stream of gushin' Grindcore they have dispelled from the lower portions of their musicalimentary canals with 'Deface Mind'. The pleasing recurrences of filthy catchiness that were once ubiquitous in their older songs have been replaced with a more monochromatic fluidity, opting for uniform repetition rather than gluttonous groove. To these injured ears, it sounds as if much of 'Deface Mind' was the result of extensive, free-flowing jam sessions, wherein the band tried commendably to shove the arse-envelope much further than before, attempting to create a sound that plain crushes your head off, regardless of whether or not their much-loved grooviness was effectively extracted in the process. Although the chug/fast equilibrium has clearly been disrupted, this should not prevent loyal Reek of Shits listeners from celebrating the genuine progressions made by the band, nor should it cause them to baulk at their speed-crazed developments. So now we know the instrumental features of the sound have accelerated, what about the vokills? It seems the erratic, high-pitched yelping has suffered a considerable reduction, the ultra-soggy snortin' gutturals becoming much more chunky 'n' central than before. Mind you, the moderation of the silly squealing seems to be a steady procedure over the course of their output, diminishing slowly but surely ever since the very first demo. Although the new themes still provide a little bit o' mirth, the side-splittingly hilarious song-titles of yesteryear are also absent, as was the case with 'Bloody.'. Straightforward Goregrind track-names like "Crippled Abortions", "Reeking Orifices" and "Butcher's Pinny" continue to take precedence over such timeless daftness as "Jolly Car Accident", "Why Do You Have a Sperm in Stool, Nanny?" and "The Bloody Dog Shit", and such broken English favourites as "The Digged Up Womb", "The Arse Haemorrhage Isn't Merry Anywise" and "The Excrementitious Vomit During of Total Constipation". However, I s'pose that kind of absurdity has remained so amusing because they've kept it to a minimum within their discography, getting it out of their system early on in their career afore pursing a more level-headed style.

On previous Shits outings, the influence of the discoverers of Porngrind, Gut, was unmistakable, with the vivacious groove of Spermany's infamous Gorepimps permeating nigh on every third track. A fair bit of Spain's finest pathological malpractitioners, Haemorrhage, was also evident, along with a discernable scent of Pungent Stench circa 'Being Caught Buttering'. Like many bands from the Czech scene, the band have always recognised the importance of rapid blastin' decadence, which they employ often but without drowning out the overall Grind nerve of their records. To get an idea of the sound of 'Deface Mind' then, you ought to take the chaotic yet calculated speed of something like 'Harmony Corruption', perhaps add the skull splittin ' judder of fellow lokill lads Ingrowing, enhance the overall punch with the exaggerated kit-mistreatment of their neighbours, Squash Bowels, afore embossing the sound with the claustrophobic feculence of someone as filthy as, say, Exhumed.

The production isn't entirely dissimilar to the colossal, heavy sound I enjoyed on 'Bloody.', although the gutturals seem to have been thrust right to the very front of the mix this time. The kit sounds a mite clunky to begin with, but the perhaps hasty mic-ing technique is soon forgotten about, rectified by the delectable level of rounded distortion and well-represented bassy frequencies that the stringed instruments have been afforded.

To summarise then, it's no use crying over split guts. The groove has been but smothered; the Shits have plumped for even more astonishing speed and blastin' bedlam. In hindsight, I can't really fault 'em. Despite becoming ever so slightly monotonous towards the end, 'Deface Mind' is a good movement for the band, which will probably serve to compliment the balls 'n' bowels out exuberance of their past recordings. If you're already a fan, then you should at least give this one a good few tries, but if you're a newcomer, I'd advise you to start at the beginning then make yer way towards this unremitting uproar.

July 25th, 2006