Reign of the Darkside

What would the review challenge be without a little text of mine for Al Goregrind? The German brutal death metal/goregrind duo has been a bit of a powerhouse, releasing multiple EPs, splits and albums in the first couple years of their existence. Over time they slowed down a bit and slowly transitioned from quantity to quality. With changes in songwriting also came a change in the lyrics and themes of the band. While still being mostly a "fun band" (or "meme lords"), their sense of humour managed to leave puberty behind on their latest records. Additionally, the band also incorporated more and more Star Wars references into their music, a trend that started with the release of Reign of the Darkside back in 2013, the EP we're going to take a look at today.

The EP marks a turning point in the band's career. Not only is it the first to be mainly themed around Star Wars, it's also their first release with barely any random nonsense sprinkled in. Only the final track "He-Man vs. Shemale", a remake of the Pink EP song, received some weird electronic shenanigans and the obligatory "By the power of grey skull" sample.

Aside from that, the EP is offering some pretty generic and basic yet entertaining brutal death/goregrind mashup. The drum computer is running as if there were no tomorrow, alternating between blast beats and non-stop cymbal abuse while sounding as sterile and plasticky as possible. The guitars are partly following the drum lead, furiously rushing through their grindy chaos, occasionally lightly spiced with solid melo death riffing. Short slower moments are interrupting the steamroller of hate with beefy slamming crushing the final remains of the audience. In-between the two main themes are some pretty solid death metal melodies, somewhat-interesting old-school-ish riffs and a couple lead solos to mellow the whole thing a little. While not offering that many original ideas, the blend of chaotic rage, solid riffs and relatively varied songwriting is fairly enjoyable, even though a slight bit more structure might not have hurt. At least the production is pretty solid and covering up some of the negative thingies. The EP probably also benefits from the really short playtime of slightly less than 12 minutes.

Vocally, the band is going pretty much the same route, sticking mainly to genre-typical deep growls, both exhale and inhale, as well as a few manic screams and pig squeals here and there. The growls themselves offer a fair bit of variation, different tones and nuances and fluctuate often enough to keep the whole thing diverting. They don't really stick out within their genre, but for the short duration of the EP, they are mostly very fitting.

After reviewing their previous stuff, I was fairly surprised about the sudden shift in quality, but you know what? I'll take it. They are still far from becoming the next big thing within the brutal death and grind scene, but at least the songwriting starts to make sense, the skill level is improving by a lot and for the first time they are offering something aside from memes and lulz. Reign of the Darkside offers 12 minutes of solid music that suffers a bit from the blatancy of the drum computer and a few weird takes when it comes to transitioning. Aside from that, there's not much to complaint about, but also nothing that really sticks out. This might've been the turning point in Al Goregrind's career.