Serious Sexual Harassment

I think it's time for another swing against Al Goregrind, the meme-grind band from my state. Starting out as a duo themed around nonsense and porn, they soon developed a more Star Wars-themed concept, while slowly getting rid of the early influences and moving towards are more bdm-centered sound. Simultaneously, the band improved their songwriting a fair bit, reaching their current climax with the solid brutal death/grind monument The Temple Is Burning. That's not what we're gonna look into today though as there's still a lot of their early embarrassments to be unearthed. One of those is the Serious Sexual Harassment EP from 2012, that shows some signs of improvement, but still has not only a horrible title but also loads of random garbage thrown into the mix.

What makes this EP weird is not only the awkward title, but also the wild variety of music present on it. While the production is pretty solid, thick and clean and overall pretty consistent, the music can hardly be described as such. Instead the band is offering a failed attempt to copy Excrementory Grindfuckers' humour and gimmick while also incorporating an awfully out-of-place industrial/edm track. The only song that is hinting towards the future of the duo is the Star Wars-themed brutal death/grind assault "Rise of the Clones". Here they are using coherent songwriting to create a track that can actually be called "a song". It's still in a very early stage of their development, so tin-can-drums and some whack nonsensical parts are crushing the party, but aside from that, the music is hitting pretty hard, the riffs are tight, some slams and technical weirdness is keeping it interesting and the hardcore-infused growls are preformed pretty damn well. If only they stuck to it, but no, they had to ruin it.

I first thought about pressing the pause button right at the start when "Meat the Band" tried to introduce the band members one-by-one. While funny on paper, the boys made it sound like a cheap copy of Excrementory Grindfuckers' "Grind it Yourself". In addition to that, introducing four members for a two-man-band is a weird move to make. Next up is the grindified country song "Mantrain" that receives an acoustic version for no reason further down the track list as well. One might call it satire or something, but it feels really out-of-place and forced in a bad way. The grind itself is very generic, resorting to one slammy riff, generic chaotic drum computing and gurgling vocals, leaving pretty much no impression at all. "Decaying Wounds" is leaning more towards the metallic side of goregrind, offering some solid riff attacks, a pretty decent aggression level and manageable chaos. After that the aforementioned acoustic piece leads us to the final track of this EP: "Bam Bam Peasie". That one's a chaotic, "humoristic" approach to the edm/industrial genre with hints towards the electro-side of Eskimo Callboy. It's one giant mess that is even trying to incorporate some aspects of goregrind at the very end, mainly fast (digital) drums and guttural rambling, but ends up going nowhere at all. Once again I have to refer to EGF who did stuff like this all the time, but unlike Al Goregrind they made it work through charisma, not by simply turning the nonsense scale up to 11.

Slowly but surely, Al Goregrind is turning into a band that can be taken seriously. Serious Sexual Harassment, the worst title they could've chosen, proves that in songs like "Decaying Wounds" and especially in "Rise of the Clones". Yet, they still think they are super duper funny and incorporate a lot of nonsense in a desperate attempt to bring a smile to their listeners' faces. Sadly, it ends up being extremely annoying, especially with the knowledge that all of that had already been done way better about a decade earlier. The EP shows the potential that's hidden inside the Hessian duo, but that's about as much credit as I can give it.