Spain's masters of grindgore released their sophomore album in 1996. This might have been one of the sickest and most brutal albums back then. Today, the brutality has gone over the edge of extremity, and 'Grume' is quite tame in sickness and brutality scales.

'Grume' mixes punky grindcore with dirty death metal, with former being the dominating style. It's brutal blasting inferno, nasty death metal and groovy stuff, but generally on the faster side. Haemorrhage haven't invented anything new, but they have their own, distinctive sound. I do not know if there's point in name picking the creators such as Carcass and Repulsion, but what's done is done. The guitars are metallic and rusty, bass is harsh and mixed up front and drums are also loud. The sound is raw yet every nuance is well audible. Speaking about the nuances, there are fine things happening at times, which one might not even notice during first spins, e.g. a bass solo can't be a bad thing, eh?! Full, in-your-face, and organic are fitting adjectives to describe the sound here. Spain's warm climate didn't tame Haemorrhage, because this is one sweaty job! Energy level's high and joy of bashing out some filthy shit can be heard.

Different vocal styles are of course utilized. In Haemorrhage's case, the decision was good, because the styles supplement each other. Dryish throat ripping vocals annoy someone for sure, but I can't but be amazed of Lugubrious's steel-made throat. This madness is accompanied by low growling vocals, plus some ugly effected vocals, insane screams, gagging and all kinds of nasty voices in general. The lyrics are based on different morgue activities, such as ripping corpses to pieces while high on formaldehyde, picturing rotten corpses, feasting on them, that kind of stuff. Also, different phases of a dead are sung about. Lovely stuff, not as tough to understand as Carcass', but a medical dictionary would still help a lot. Comical drawings found in booklet are cool, by the way! If you still go out and eat some corpses and blame Haemorrhage, it's you who's fucked. It's all about humour, if you didn't notice it! By the way, CD bonus is probably the most insane shit I've heard, those tortured screams cause some goose bumps.

Anyways, I'm not your biggest grindcore fan, but 'Grume' kicks ass, a lot! Song are fucking catchy, catchier than any averagely contagious disease. It's also a varying album, structure-wise, and I can not do anything else but recommend 'Grume' to all grindcore and gore death metal freaks. A fucking good album, and a nasty one too.

Rating: 8½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
04/21/2005 22:56