Seminal Vampires and Maggot Men

Abscess apparently pulled a Sleep and wasted all the money they were given for recording this record, and it shows because it sounds like shit. The guitar tone is flaccid and have distorted with the bass sort of idly bouncing underneath it, the drums get buried under the (admittedly decently recorded) vocals with the snare rendered almost totally inaudible half the time, and it seems like most of this was done in one take (which would make sense seeing as it was recorded and mixed in 24 hours) because the band members are only halfway in time with each other throughout most of it. Granted, none of this is particularly unusual for Abscess, but it's sure as hell a painful listen most of the time.

Otherwise, it's just Abscess doing what Abscess does: punky oldschool death metal with a pinch of doom here and there. Influence from 'Shitfun'-era Autopsy is readily apparent, as is a good bit of Impetigo, particularly in the vocal department, where Reifert is more frantic and yelping than ever. The tracks are still short, noisy, and filled with punk beats and riffs alongside sludgy death metal groove. It's pretty cool for a while, but as usual it gets tiring about halfway through the album since all the songs are pretty much the same except for what PARTICULAR three-chord pattern dominates track 52. The slow, nasty tracks like 'Global Doom' are pretty cool and break up the uptempo tracks which cover most of the release, which helps ease the monotony a bit.

It's a fun album, but I can only listen to a bit of it before I get bored. Call me ADD, but the lack of variation really only works in ambient stuff for me, and punk/death metal isn't quite Burzum enough to me. It's still pretty cool and fun though and I'd recommend people looking for something brutal but still catchy and listenable give it a try. For god's sake, Reifert needs to eat too.