Orgy of Murder

Last Friday, Gorgasm finally released their new album Orgy of Murder, after a hiatus of almost five years. With only one remaining original member (guitarist/vocalist Damian "Tom" Lenski), many people, myself included, wondered what they would sound like, and if they would be able to live up to their past efforts. After all, the last Gorgasm full length was 2003's Masticate To Dominate, and that album was way ahead of its time when it came out, so after not releasing anything for so long, would the band be able to stay ahead of the curve and maintain their heavyweight status in the ever-diluting brutal tech death genre? Well my friends, the answer is yes; a strong, resounding yes.

Despite being more or less out of the game for the better part of a decade, Gorgasm have never sounded better. Everything that was good about the band is still here and has been amped up; the riffs are more intricate, the drums are faster and more precise, and the song structures themselves flow smoothly from one section to the next. There are times on this album where the band actually sounds more a like a slower, beefier Spawn of Possession with their rapid-fire, stop and go blast beats and scale-happy guitar riffs. The lyrics aren't quite as misogynistic as their earlier material, although with song titles like "Infection Induced Erection" and "Cum Inside the Carcass", it's clear that they still have gore on the brain, which is just fine. It's pretty much what we've come to expect from them, and from the genre as a whole, so in all honesty it would probably be offsetting to see them deviate from the gore aesthetic at this point. Like they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Nobody reads the lyrics anyway, unless you're a dork... like me.

After listening to the album a few times through, I can really only find two things to gripe about. The first thing that comes to mind is a minor problem I've had with the band all along, and that's the lack of guitar solos. Call me old fashioned, but I find the whole "riff-o-rama" thing to be a little tiresome, a good solo once in a while really livens things up when it's nothing but nonstop riffs and growls. There is a little bit of a solo in the bridge of the opening track "Bloodlust" (points for originality on that title, guys), but it's brief, it's the only one on the whole album, and it's really nothing special in the first place. Come on guys, with all this talent on display you're telling me nobody knows how to write a couple cool leads? But then again that's just me, plenty of people insist that solos don't really work in this particular subgenre. The other complaint I had was that Orgy of Murder does, unfortunately, get a bit repetitive after a while. About halfway through the album it starts getting difficult to tell one song from the next, and I felt like the whole thing peaked at the first song. At the same time, the songs are all super brutal and well-written, so by no means is it boring, it just kinda starts to sound like the same two or three cool ideas happening all over again in slightly different ways. Regardless, Orgy of Murder is still one of the most solid albums to come out this year, setting the bar pretty high for everyone else. I wouldn't be surprised if this album ends up being featured in the 2011 Top Albums of the Year list.

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