Cloud Rat / Orgullo Primitivo

Well this one is a quick blast of brutality. For the first side of the split, anyway. Modern grindcore mainstays Cloud Rat team up with inexplicable weirdos Orgullo Primivito for a bumpy ride. If there ever was something that show cased the uneven nature of splits, this is it. While not their best work (a very high bar, indeed), Cloud Rat put in a good effort with chunky grind and a nice twist on the last song. Orgullo Primivito just plain suck.

Cloud Rat's material is chunky and heavy as ever. They bludgeon with weighty riffs and Madison's vocals steal the show with their grimy vigour. Most of this is along the lines of very chunky and brutal grindcore with a crusty edge. After the barely there "Trial by Water" ends, they close their side with the most interesting song, "Childcraft". This crushes with winding sludge, and the at the end of the song we even get some nods to black metal. Orgullo Primitivo is real fucking weird here. The song starts with multiple people reading radical leftist poetry out of sync and after this goes on way too long, it breaks into some nice tones on a mallet instrument (vibes, I think?). The song then bursts into this weird chanting with bad shouts over it, then a drum solo and then some very bad grindcore of the decidedly non-metal variety. I hate to do a play by play of everything that happens in the song, but it's just such a silly mixed bag of jarring transitions. The whole thing is an inexplicable shitshow, and I half-suspect the abject weirdness is just a ploy to distract from the fact they can't write a good song. It's incredibly grating and I'm not sure why Cloud Rat participated in this.

It would be far preferable if Cloud Rat just released this short burst of grimy goodness as an EP. Better yet, they could have teemed up with a band that actually can muster quality material. The other band can keep it weird be all means, but Orgullo Primivito's aggressive wonkiness just seems like an excuse to not have to write a decent song.