Repulsive Display of Human Upholstery

Modern brutal death metal scene is like a toilet full of shit and finding a decent brutal death metal band that is actually worth a damn is like finding a golden nugget in your shit turd. Sadly, ever since the emergence of this offshoot of death metal, only a handful of quality bands were spewed out. Most brutal death metal bands have just about as much talent as it takes to sit on a toilet and shit. Either it's camouflaged high-low shrieking breakdown centric deathcorish shit (Ingested), or it's so called br00tal wigger $lam crap (Waking The Cadaver) which seems to be the next trend in underground death metal scene and is spreading like plague. But every once in a while bands like Short Bus Pile Up pop up to show us there’s still enough talent left in the underground scene to pay heed to.

At first I thought this band would be just like any other brutal death metal band with terrible vocals, poor palm mute abusing guitar work and triggered to fuck dreary drumming. The band name, album title and artwork further strengthen the skepticism I already had. But as they say never judge a book by its cover, the same mistake I made. No sir it’s not your typical gore-driven piece of shit. These four young men are delivering some awesome brutal death metal that kicks some major fat ass and Repulsive Display of Human Upholstery is the living testament of that.

Although the album has all the typical elements you are likely to find on any other release of the genre yet everything contained on Repulsive Display of Human Upholstery is so fucking catchy and enormously addictive that listening to it once will make you listen to it again and again and again. What attracted me the most to this album were the vocals. Yes those fucking incredibly brutal vocals. I know when the word “brutal" is used, most people think of pig squeals, extremely low gurgling yelling and shit like that but here “brutal” means truly BRUTAL not fucking “br00tal”. This fellow has such an incredible Frank-Mullen like range that very few other vocalists have. Listen to the song Stench of Her Burning Flesh at 0:54 to find out for yourself. He sounds like he literally swallowed rusty nails that he’s regurgitating while singing. Vocals are major let down in most brutal death metal nowadays but that’s exactly the area where Short Bus Pile Up clearly beats many of their contemporaries. I’m not saying I can’t stand pig squeals or guttural vocals, as a matter of fact I don’t mind anything as long as it doesn’t go beyond the confines of death metal. But I gotta admit the old school vocal approach sends more chills up my spine than any other modern vocal approach (pig squeals, gurgling, inhaling etc) since I’m a huge old school death metal fan. The guitar work isn’t very complicated or technical but it doesn’t have to be either. Good catchy slamming riffage with appropriately placed breakdowns that don’t sound superfluous at any point backs up the brutal assault in a very adequate way. Drumming is pretty decent and is completely based on KISS (keep it simple stupid) formula. Bass is a bit inaudible but aren’t you here for the CHUGS that dominate everything else? To sum it up no prisoners are taken; it’s your generic looking and sounding brutal slamming death metal album but somehow these young musicians have bridged mediocrity with catchiness in such a way that only one listen will leave you wanting for more.

Nobody reviewed this album yet which means very few people are aware of this new band. This band certainly needs more attention and recognition. There are like a billion bands playing brutal death metal out there but 99 outta every 100 are worthless. So every band that puts out some quality stuff should be supported. Every CHUG addict brutalhead should add this album to his gallery of brutality.