Dirge

Just two years after Abuse, Wormrot took everything that worked, and worked on it some more. This is the result.

After a brief drone intro, the listener is catapulted into absolute grindcore mayhem that spans mere 18 minutes, and since the band manages to vomit out 25 songs in this time, anything over a minute is of great rarity here. The majority of the record consists of blink-and-they're-gone pieces of absolute madness, interwoven with "longer", more structured tracks, driven by groovy riffs. Heaps upon heaps of contagious energy and brutality is all I can think of for the rest of this section.

Since I've already mentioned the riffs, let's start with Rasyid. He draws from a wide palette, and whether it's pure grind, thrash, death or powerviolence, it works every time and never feels out of place in a particular track. His speed is varied, with many tempo changes even throughout the short tracks; the fast and furious, as well as the slower and groovy sections hit hard. Fitri's drumming complements this perfectly, with all sorts of beats, fills, rolls and whatever you call it. As for Arif, I have a really hard time finding anything to criticize this time around. He sounds positively pissed off 100% of the time, never stopping to catch his breath. On this record in particular he really reminds me of the singer from Insect Warfare (that's a good thing). The lyrics are a step forward, too, with more political and social comments. At times, tongue remains firmly in cheek, like on the hilarious Butt Krieg Is Showing.

Having described all of this, the last letdown could have been the production and/or the overall image. And that's exactly what… didn't end up happening. The final recording oozes unadulterated, organic brutality, with a perfect amount of distortion and separation to still know what the hell is going on. Heck, even the front cover shows that the band did not step down on their follow up to the great start that was Abuse. If you're a grind fan and haven't heard this yet, go fix that right now!