Я дрочил в утробе матери / ...И кровь возьмёт своё...

I grabbed this record from the bargain section on Comatose Music, intrigued by its bizarre cover art, nasty title (after a run through Babelfish), and the nearly complete lack of information about it on the internet. I'm glad I did, as Exhumation's seemingly only release is an absolute hidden gem of the Russian death metal scene that a lot more people should be investigating. This CD is apparently a compilation of two of the band's full-lengths, but I've never seen either available individually, nor do I know of anything else from the band's discography- this CD is almost a complete cipher, with zero distribution, zero reviews, and zero information in general regarding it. Hell, that reason alone makes it worth investigation by SOMEONE.

While both of these albums are rooted in a brutal death/goregrind fusion stylistically, they're pretty far from each other in delivery. Opening with the 'Я дрочил в утробе матери' album (which appears to translate roughly to 'I Ejaculate In A Mother's Womb'), Exhumation presents a somewhat spastic, violent style of death/grind not entirely removed from early Regurgitate with a bit more of a coherent death metal influence and a porngrind edge here and there. In addition to this is a significant west coast US brutal death influence ala early United Guttural fused with some Cannibal Corpse flair in the department of atonal, sawing riffs. There's definitely some curiosities to it; the very extreme dual vocal performance, certain perplexing, seemingly partially improvised tracks like 'Игра сперматозопдов в кровавом месиве' with its goofy, slapping bass, and the bleary eastern bloc production job. It's a sort of chaotic and amateurish album, not entirely unlike a lot of eastern European death/grind for fans of bands like Hybrid Viscery, but with a certain potency and ferocity that will come to fruition shortly.

And holy fuck does it bloom on the second album, '...И кровь возьмет свое...' (or '...Blood Will Prevail...'). The haunting viciousness of this album is fucking astounding; a harsh, almost industrialized production job makes every piece of the drum kit sound like it's being played on human bone, and the riffs are even more malignant and horrifying than on the first full-length, with fast, technical tremolo numbers peeling off of songs like strips of skin off a screaming woman. The frantic, constantly overrunning vocal lines and crazed, thrash-influenced drumming with its sporadic fills make for a release that's almost uncomfortable to listen to in its intensity. Opening with perhaps the band's best track, '...И кровь возьмет своё...', this album brings an almost Czech grind flair to the table reminiscent of a more goregrinding Pigsty in its sense of groove, but without the silliness of that scene. I'm reminded heavily of the post-Catasexual Urge Motivation project Vampiric motives in the chaos and aggression of this music; the pure, schizophrenic rage of this album has to be heard to be believed. Early Kataklysm seems to be a significant influence here (as the cover track would indicate), and this album carries forth that band's early works' sense of hostility and warfare perfectly. This is a phenomenal record that has to be heard by fans of extreme, brutal death/grind.

While the second album overshadows the first greatly, both bear investigation by dedicated fans of brutal death/grind. This is an almost entirely unknown band that deserves much more attention from the modern brutal death scene; track this one down if at all possible- you can find it cheap and you almost certainly won't be disappointed.