Rectal Desaster

Sometimes you just need a little grind. Admittedly those times are really, really rare in my case and there is very little grind I actually enjoy. In fact, Japanische Kampfhörspiele is the only grind band I listen to on a regular basis. So...why on earth would I sit down and listen to a goregrind demo from the late 90s and even write a somewhat positive review for it? I initially bought Afterblast's 1999 demo "Rectal Desaster" (mixing the English "Rectal" with the German "Desaster", I guess) to expand my collection of Hessian releases and didn't like the artwork and music at first, but it's not as bad as expected.

Afterblast was formed in 1996 by members of Plasma, another deathgrind band from Frankfurt/Main, and only released this very demo in 1999 before splitting up. A split with Goreopsy was planned but never released. Some copies of "Rectal Desaster" include the songs that would've ended on that split which is a neat gimmick, even though it's just more of the same. The original version of the tape consists of 8 songs and the Goreopsy split adds three more to the mix which leads to 20 or 27 minutes of pure grinding death metal.

Production-wise this is quite muddy and fuzzy around the guitars, the instruments overshadow each other at times and often build one bulky wall of sound rather than a distinct song structure. It could've been worse though and given the genre of the band, there's not much virtuous stuff that gets drowned or lost in that mix. The main downside in the production is the mix, with the grumpy vocals taking up most of the space in the foreground leaving drums and guitars too far in the back and therefore missing out on a lot of the groovy, grindy moments they provide.

The band is mixing stamping death metal with relentless grind and creates a demo that isn't as one-dimensional as I thought. In fact, they alternate between the two genres pretty frequently instead of throwing in everything at once. They provide solid death metal riffing with a bit of fuzz which is partly groovy, stumping and ballsy and partly based on straight forward riffing that even evolves into some sort of solo here and there. The groovier moments often evolve into some mindless grinding or change from metal to more hardcore-based rhythms. That gets supported by some solid, but basic drumming that every now and then follows the guitars into madness by providing blasts of aggression. The band isn't using a bass guitar on this release, but I don't really miss it since the guitars are already tuned pretty low and the drums provide a fair bit of bass already. It might have added a bit of volume though. The songwriting is constantly alternating between quite solid arrangements with fluent transitions on the one hand and rougher, more unpolished structures and jumps on the other hand. That's lowering the fun a fair bit, but it's just a demo after all so one shouldn't expect the songs to be completely finished. It remains quite enjoyable after all.

The vocals on the other hand aren't. There's neither much going on with them nor is the stuff shown unique, thought-out or at least performed well. The main vocals provide some ultra-guttural grunting that reminds me a lot of an angry coffee maker and make me think of that one nonsense grind band that actually uses a coffee maker for that purpose. They also sound pretty tinny and muddy which isn't really adding to their appearance while at least preventing me from understanding the lyrics which is probably the only positive thing I can say about them. In addition to that, the band spreads some insane hoarse screaming or shrieking into their songs which are adding to the grindy, messy nature of the songs and kinda outweighs the deeper grunts. Even worse than the vocals is the band's use of samples as they add literally nothing to the "concept". 80s synth music, some eerie jungle temple soundscape and similar stuff isn't really fitting the theme of a goregrind band called Afterblast that sings about "Rectal Desaster"s and I guess they added it for the lols? Maybe? Good thing is: They don't happen very often, only three songs feature samples. Therefore not a big deal, but worth mentioning it either way.

Afterblast's "Rectal Desaster" really is a bit of a mixed bag. While the instrumentation provides a solid basis with punky and grindy death metal that alternates between heavy riffs and bouncy, mindless fun and some insane shrieks they add to it, they destroy most of the listening experience with muddy, down-tuned coffee maker noises and the okay-ish demo production isn't very helpful either. It has its moments though, with riffs, songwriting and transitions being pretty decent most of the time, so there's no harm in checking them out if you're into deathgrind. But after listening this the whole fucking day, I guess I won't touch it again anytime soon.