Demo

You know that feeling of not getting a band's concept at all even after checking them out a few times? I get that a lot with grind bands, probably because there's a lot of unfunny meme bands in that genre. Seems like the German duo Al Goregrind is part of that scene, and no, I did not make that name up. It really is a mashup of Al Gore and Goregrind and while this made me giggle for a few brief moments, their music didn't even accomplish that...not that it didn't try. Their latest album "The Temple Is Burning" might be okay for a few spins, but everything before that isn't even worth checking out for the lulz. This one, their first demo from 2011, is probably the worst (gore)grind record I had to listen to in recent years.

The production of this release provides a rather generic demo sound and bad mixing. While the guitars do have some punch, they get drowned by the vocals, just like everything else. The drum sound on the other hand might be the best aspect of the release, even though they are a bit flat. However, they sound pretty organic and are, surprisingly, not computer generated. Musically, there's barely anything on this record that'd make me want to revisit this ever again. It's just awful nonsense grind with some sprinkles of brutal death metal and slamming breakdowns, loosely attached to each other. The "riffs" mainly consist of mindless repetition of the same three chords with some solos that come out of nowhere and disappear just as fast as they popped up, leaving next to no impression aside from a few question marks on my forehead. Said chords present themselves in different shapes, though. Partly rooted in punky grind and partly in brutal/slam death metal, they offer a few variations in speed, alternating between said "furious" t(h)rashy solos, punk-ish rage, some stomping death metal and some equally stomping (or slamming) breakdowns, neither of which is particularly interesting or at least executed well. There's also no bass to help them out in any way and the drums don't make much of a difference either. They do provide some interesting percussions and a few blasts, but it's too random to get you hooked for more than a few beats.

The worst part are the vocals and the fact they are dominating the release, though. While the pig squeals are partly enjoyable, most of the album is filled with mindless gurgling and ultra-crappy attempts at growling. In fact...did they use a coffee maker to make the noises at the beginning of "Weed"? The fact you can actually understand parts of the lyrics isn't making this more enjoyable since they are just as meme-y as one would expect. To my own surprise, there's one song on the demo that kinda replenished some of the hopes I had, even though it didn't last long. "It Tastes Better If It's Roadkill" actually has some cool death metal riffs and some quite okay songwriting at times, especially in the second half. Too bad it's followed by "Weed" which completely destroyed the newly gained hope I had and makes a harsh u-turn back to crappy grind nonsense that will last for the rest of the record.

I have to admit that some short parts of the release didn't suck quite as much as the rest of it, and it just being 12 minutes long in total is something I'm really grateful for, but that's as far as my "praise" for this demo will go. Al Goregrind used up the first 100 ideas they had, dumped them into songs, slapped some crappy "comedy" lyrics performed by grumpy coffee makers and overmodulated pig squeals with hints of borderline-okay growls onto it and release it to the general public. And since even a broken clock is right twice a day, they manage to have some brief moments of decency spread throughout this pile of garbage, hence I don't think it was put there intentionally. "And This Is Why..." you should stay away from this.