Grotesque Blessings

Broken hope is one of those early death metal bands that some people love and most people hate. I personally love Swamped in Gore and Bowels of Repugnance. The old Broken Hope sound is not captured in this album too much. Of course the vocals are the same intensely evil low gurgle and the band still has their style, but this album is less in the vein of early Broken Hope and much more technical. It's still Broken Hope, however the riffs merge more fluidly as opposed to Swamped in Gore where the blastbeats fly in and out without warning. The guitarist always pulls through with ill solos which can be rare in death metal. They have put much emphasis on the bass, in particular opening riffs that are bass riffs which lead to a welcoming metal carpet, and most of the songs will have that catchy intro but kind of leave you dry in the actual bulk of the song. They still have a unique and very heavy sound and I would play this album over other better albums without any explanation. There's something about those riffs just makes you want to hear them over and over, and even when you've listened to the album way too many times and it shifts to the depths of your collection, you will still find yourself periodically needing to hear those tracks.

All in all, the old spastic Broken Hope still shows through here, alternating chugging death lines with grinding blasts, but there is more structure, more flow, and most importantly more bass! Broken Hope's albums may not be the only death metal albums that matter, but they are certainly classics. This particular album is good as hell and heavy as shit with no decline in skill over the years and are one of the few bands to get better with time!

After hearing the relentless assault of no-bullshit brutality, twisted melody, and ample technicality that is Loathing, I had relatively high hopes that this album would build upon, or at least continue from, the style exhibited on that album. Unfortunately, these feelings of hope were eventually replaced by feelings of discontent and utter boredom by the time the album was done.

First of all, the production on this album is horribly dull. The drums are flat and uninteresting and while the guitars are quite clear, they lack a certain liveliness that makes the album hard to give a chance without falling into deep sleep before the second song. Joe Ptacek's vocals demonstrate only a small fraction of the intensity and depth of his work on the previous album and ultimately feel very monotonous in comparison. Although to be fair, the production job here does fit the tediousness and mediocrity of the material on this album quite well, so it wasn't completely without purpose.

Now, just to get this out of the way, I do believe this band has the ability to write some good riffs and melodies. They proved this on Loathing, and, to an extent, on this album as well. The problem is their approach to songwriting is so ridiculously stale and incompetent, it almost completely invalidates any sort of merit these riffs and melodies could add to this album. Every song is so irritatingly formulaic, there really is no point to listening to any one song for more than the first minute. Once you've heard the first three or so riffs, you've pretty much heard them all. The sad thing is there are a good amount of potentially crushing riffs that are completely ruined by repitition and terrible arrangement. On the other hand, there are also many superfluous, tasteless tech-for-tech's-sake filler sections that bring this album down much more than any of the aforementioned problems I have with it. Carelessly pasting together decent riffs didn't help this album in any way, I don't know why they thought contrived complexity would do any better.

In summary, this album is the definition of triteness. Just stick with their previous effort Loathing and pretend this one never happened.

Hey, remember the days when this band was good? My, that was a long time ago. After about a billion breakups and member changes, Broken Hope return with the most pathetic mundane piece of pseudo-technical redneck Death Metal crap imaginable.

First thing to catch my attention was the production. Pretty run of the mill stuff. Muddy and limp sounding. I think this matter alone defeated any chance Broken Hope had of creating the percussive bombast I think they were shooting for with this record. The snare sounds poppy, gay, and (This isn't really the producer's fault, but...) slow. The riffs are creative enough to amuse the average Six Feet Under fan for about 15 minutes. Mostly just meaningless chugga chugga garbage. I think at some points, they are attempting a more "technical" sound.... But the problem is, it's hard to take them serious musically due to the fact that they're still dumb drunken hicks. Except now, they're dumb drunken hicks that know a few scales and modes.

How do you guys justify going from Proto-Goregrind to this? I don't know if it's some sort of attempt to streamline and modernize their archaic sound, but in any case... It SUCKS

In closing, do NOT buy this album unless:
A) You're trying to expand your already impressive collection of 3 Nile CDs with something more "obscure".
B) You have dreadlocks and are named Chris Barnes.
C) You don't have a clue who "Oppressor" were.
D) You live in a trailer in Alabama
E) You have someone in your family whom you refer to as "Uncle Dad"
F) You drive a 1986 IROC Camaro

If you fit none of those descriptions, you probably have decent taste in Death Metal, so stay the fuck away from this hunk of processed third rate horse shit.