Plasma - Gorefuck (2000)

Dang, the Halloween season is slipping like blood, stomach acids, and miscellaneous human viscera through my fingers. I'm still very much preoccupied with my job search and will be for the foreseeable future, but I refuse to completely leave y'all hanging like dismembered corpses in a shed out back.

So in honor of the holiday that makes all of my creepiest tendencies temporarily socially acceptable, here's Plasma, who make some of the most disgusting, sloppy, amateurish gore metal I'll ever post on here. Chugalug guitars, plodding drums, and creaky, clogged drain vocals slapped together with practically no regard for composition or musicality. It's like they heard Mortician and were like, "Hey, that's pretty good, but I wish it wasn't so cerebral." And flat-out refused to spellcheck their song titles.

The Anon who called Mincer "CRAP" (their emphasis) is really gonna hate this one.

Track listing:

1. Koprostatic Cunt Catharr

2. Larva Infested Clitoral Melanom

3. Saprogenic Vaginal Canal

4. Drastic Totalextirpation of Female Genital

5. Sordes and Pus in Vaginal Gore

6. Imminent Vulva Dissection

7. Feast Upon Carcinogenic Vaginal Tissue

8. Purulent Inflamation of Clitoral Abscess

9. Metrektomie

10. Unrecognized Decapitated Crania

11. Corpse Devourer

12. Exttirpationed Vagina

13. Molodrous Inquest

14. Ulcerating Vagina

Drink from the septic tank

You might also enjoy:

Patologicum - Hecatomb of Aberration (2003)

Anal Bag - Ultimate Disgust (2011)

Crawl - Earth (1995)

The 90s saw no shortage of bands worshipping at the altar of Godflesh, and I'd be lying if I said Crawl wasn't in that number. But crucially, Crawl injected plenty of death metal energy into the dystopian industrial wasteland, which sets them apart and fucking rules. As found in an albums folder in my Music app labeled "SHUPS", which is short for "pushups", obviously.

Track listing:

1. Skinned

2. Servant

3. Womb

4. I Believe

5. Machines Way

6. Emotional Cage

7. Soundless

8. Gray

9. Release

Malignant cancer of the ecosystem

Also listen to:

Pitch Shifter - Industrial (1991)

Meathook Seed - Embedded (1993)

Napalm Death - Time Waits for No Slave (2009)

The crowning achievement of a decade spent getting back to what Napalm Death does best: punishing, riff-y death-grind. My introduction to the Napalm Death fold was via the soundtrack to the first Mortal Kombat movie, and that song still fucking crushes, so even after discovering the classic material, I've always been a steadfast 90s Napalm Death apologist. One of the few, the proud 80s metal bands who made it through the 90s with their dignity fully intact, they spent the decade pushing towards both more accessible and more experimental sounds that nonetheless maintained a solid through-line to their earlier material, and avoided sudden leaps into goth-rock*, nu metal, alt-metal, or whatever the fuck this was. And, questionable album art aside, they kinda just stayed cool.

That being said, all their 90s albums sag a bit. As strong as the songwriting was, and as interesting as it could be to hear them playing these unorthodox, angular guitar lines, the weaker stretches ended up feeling like a whole lot of ducking and weaving without a solid knockout punch. So Napalm Death's turn-of-the-millennium return to 'straightforward' death-grind was welcomed by all, myself included. The sixth album to spring from this resurgence, Time Waits for No Slave capped off a decade spent making some of the strongest, tightest, most effective mosh-bait ever produced, and it's my favorite of the lot. Anyone who doesn't fuck with this band is a stupid dumbass.

*Not gonna front, I like this one.

Track listing:

1. Strong-Arm

2. Diktat

3. Work to Rule

4. On the Brink of Extinction

5. Time Waits for No Slave

6. Life and Limb

7. Downbeat Clique

8. Fallacy Dominion

9. Passive Tense

10. Larceny of the Heart

11. Procrastination on the Empty Vessel

12. Feeling Redundant

13. A No-Sided Argument

14. De-Evolution Ad Nauseam

Permanent daze

Disassociate

Synthesized grace

Life in a cage

More beefy grind:

Brujeria - Raza Odiada (1995)

Internal Rot - Mental Hygiene (2014)

Domination Through Impurity - Essence of Brutality (2005)

Brutal tech-death from Charlotte, NC. A great balance of sharp, chuggy beatings and explosive, full-tilt drum-and-guitar clinics.

Track listing:

1. Essence of Brutality

2. Pinned to a Guardrail

3. In Rat We Trust

4. Self Destructive Malevolence

5. Terminal Gluttony

6. Bit by a Rat

7. Cleanse the Flesh

8. Wahnsinn

No remorse

No mercy

No life

Burn

Similar listening:

Liturgy - Dawn of Ash (2004)

Pighead - Rotten Body Reanimation (2012)

Darkified - A Dance on the Grave (1995)

Swedish blackened death metal with horror movie keyboards. Darkified were only active from '91-92, and A Dance on the Grave compiles the entirety of their recorded output: a demo and an EP. There's always something so funny to me about the image of a gnarly Swedish hesher dude sitting down at a keyboard and composing cheesy-ass stuff like "Outro: Out from the Darkness".

Track listing:

1. Intro

2. Howlings from the Darkness

3. A Summon for the Nameless Horrors

4. The Forgotten City

5. Outro - Out from the Darkness

6. Sleep Forever...

7. The Forgotten City (1992 Version)

8. The Whisperer in the Darkness

Prepare for a night of one thousand horrors

Also listen to:

Afterlife - Surreality (1992)

Mythos - Pain Amplifier (1995)

Kutabare - Finger Food Fetish for the Morbidly Abnormal (2003)

A big, muddy pile of Australian death metal gore with very little concern for song structure, dynamics, variation, or any other basic musical principle. Pretty sure this is what all death metal sounds like to people who don't like death metal. Absolutely disgusting. 

On a different topic: some crusties I went to high school with (two of whom formed Inure during senior year) had a succession of jokey grindcore bands, the best of which was called Morbidly Obese, whose gimmick was that they were all trying to get extremely fat and die -- a fool's errand, based on the fact that they were all vegan. Seemed pretty hilarious at the time.

On another different topic: have any of you ever seen Naked Blood? What a fucked up movie. It's a Japanese gore movie about this creep who modifies an experimental drug to turn pain into pleasure, then secretly gives it to three women; one cuts off, cooks, and eats her own body parts, including her nipple and labia, and another engages in some serious self-mutilation due to body image issues. What happens with the other one? Well, you'll just have to watch the movie to find out, which I seriously doubt you will because there's no way it's streaming anywhere. But I bought the DVD on Ebay like 20 years ago, so if you live in Portland, hit me up. (This is a joke.)

EDIT: A helpful commenter hipped me to the existence of a full rip of Naked Blood on YouTube, so have at it!

Track listing:

1. Religiously Frustrated

2. Moistened Cunt

3. Frotage the Fromage

4. Siamese Twins

5. Rime of the Ancient Marinated Corpse

6. Dildo of Death

7. Alien Intelligence

8. Maggot Laced Meal

9. Assassin

10. Guinea Worm

Fuck me gently with a chainsaw

If you like this, listen to:

Disastrous Murmur - Rhapsodies in Red (1992)

Death Vomit - Gutted by Horrors (2014)

Sepsism - Purulent Decomposition (1999)

Sick USDM with a queasy, dissonant style of riffing that just fucking churns my stomach in all the best ways.

Track listing:

1. Surgical Atrocity

2. Pathological Disfigurement

3. Necrotic Flesh Rot

4. Shredded in Cannibalistic Violence

5. Dissection

6. Internal Fermentation

7. Uterocasket

8. Brutally Butchered

9. Murdering at Random

10. Veneno et la Sangre

11. Punctured Internal Organs

12. Born into Oblivion

Bloody chunks of human meat

Hanging from my sharpened teeth

Also:

Grog - Macabre Requiems (1996)

Mortal Decay - Sickening Erotic Fanaticism (1997)

Gutter Instinct - The Insurrection (2015)

Got a case of the Mondays? Bummed that you spilled coffee all over yourself before you even got to work? Feeling helpless and overwhelmed by the sheer, unflinching inhumanity of capitalism? Well, Gutter Instinct are standing by, waiting to help you shake the cobwebs and up your productivity by giving you an utterly unrelenting Swedeath ass-kicking. Everything about this EP and band is fucking sick. Probably one of my favorite death metal groups currently in operation -- they've since added some blackened elements to great success -- and their new(-ish) EP continues their 100% batting average, so don't sleep on that, either.

Track listing:

1. War Command

2. Under the Scythe

3. The Invisible Hand

4. We Hate You

Christian conservative scum -- We hate you

Greedy corporate scrum -- We hate you

Ignorant fascist scum -- We hate you

Right-wing populist scum -- We hate you

You should also hear:

Goat Torment - Dominande Tenebrae (2013)

Escarnium - Inheritus (2016)

Flesh Grinder - S.P.L.A.T.T.E.R. (1999)

Brazilian goregrind with overt death metal leanings, particularly in the lead guitars. Choice early Peter Jackson movie samples, killer riffage, and cool little touches like the slimy, echoing midsection in "Cutaneous Anaphilaxis" and the completely unexpected, surprisingly pretty acoustic interlude. Shit, now I gotta watch Bad Taste for the 50th time.

Track listing:

1. Intro (Stomachal Emanation)

2. Chronic Mucocutaneous Candidiasis

3. S.P.L.A.T.T.E.R.

4. Thecnics to Extract the Female Reproductive System thru Anal Canal

5. Cutaneous Anaphilaxis

6. Cavernous Sinus Thrombosis

7. Granulomatous Inflammation with Elliptical Macrophages

8. Acute Syndrome Resembling Infectious Monucleosis

9. The Amorphous (Nonfibrous)

10. Chronic and Recurrent Regurgitant Lung Disease

11. Adverse Effects Seen in Immunologically Compromised Hosts

12. The Adagio of Pathologist

13. Developing Malignant Cancerous Tissue in the 8th Inch of the Large Intestine

The gruel is ready

More blood, intestinal fluid, and horror movie samples:

Holocausto Canibal - Sublime Massacre Corpóreo (2002)

Corpsefucking Art - Splatter Deluxe (2003)

Mincer - Demiurge of Gore Abomination (2015)

Wall-of-sound Italian brutal death metal/goregrind. Pitch-shifted growls and clanging drum machines blast away over a writhing mass of dissonant guitars, with dense, distorted production that'll envelop you like a swarm of locusts.

Track listing:

1. In the Realm of Flesh & Blood

2. Addicted to Rotting Abortion

3. Entrapped into Cursed Hive

4. Desaster in a Shapeless Brain

5. Feeded by Perverse Beautiness

6. Blasphemous Sadochistic Sweaty Embrace

7. Demiurge of Gore Abomination

8. The House of Carnivorous Living Dead

9. Engulfed in the Putrid Pit

10. Morbid Incest Possession

11. Coprobaptized in Gore Again

12. Your Pathology Is Called God

Born to rot eternally

If you like this, you should hear:

Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition - Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition (2001)

Exhumer - Bloodcurdling Tool of Digestion (2008)

Apostle - Dusk for Convenience (1999)

Swedish leftist vegan straight-edge death metal. Guest vocals by Rikard Wermén of Deranged.

Track listing:

1. Fallen Angel

2. Carnage Generation

3. Entangled in Disgust

4. Crestfallen

5. Convenience Is the Decay of Morality

6. Code Red

7. The Final Regret

Demons of the apocalypse feast of the carcass

If you like this, check out:

Nominon - Diabolical Bloodshed (1999)

Ophiolatry - Anti-Evangelistic Process (2002)

Misery - Revel in Blasphemy (1997)

Extremely beefy, dark OSDM from the land down under. Asked my old band's group thread for workout music recommendations, and my dude fucking delivered.

Track listing:

1. Intro

2. Godspeak

3. Act of War

4. Plague of Humanity

5. Dark Inspirations

6. Infinite Hate

7. Morbid Dreams

8. All That Is Evil

9. A Song Before Dying

10. Rememberance

11. Altered States

12. Revel in Blasphemy

To rot in the shit of ourselves

More like this:

Freshcrawl - Impurity (1994)

Horror of Horrors - Sounds of Eerie (1994)

Escarnium - Interitus (2016)

Dark, punishing Brazilian death metal. I kinda wrote Interitus off at first -- there was so much OSDM-worship coming out at the time, I think I was just burnt-out -- but upon revisiting, it kicks ass. Refreshingly, Escarnium weren't just aping Incantation. In fact, they're not really aping anyone in particular, although they are somewhere in the razor-sharp, subtly cerebral realm of Immolation.

Track listing:

1. The Horror

2. While the Furnace Burns

3. Starvation Death Process

4. Radioactive Doom

5. Omnis Mortuus Est - Inheritus

6. Macabre Rites

7. Genocide Ritual

8. The Gray Kingdon

9. 100 Days of Bloodbath

10. Human Waste

Piled up, entangled

In putrid human flesh

You'd probably also like:

Trauma - Imperfect Like a God (2003)

Inverted - The Age of Harvest (2015)

Mythos - Pain Amplifier (1995)

Finnish blackened death. While most black/death takes a more head-banging, ass-kicking route, Mythos' approach was slightly unorthodox. They tapped into the murkier realms of death metal while retaining generally faster, blast-heavy tempos that at times lean towards grind -- which they ultimately embraced with an early Carcass cover -- and injected it with black metal's tendencies towards ritualism and grim melody. 

Track listing:

1. In the Beginning... (Of the Outro)

2. Hung on the Wings

3. Unreal Moon

4. In Veiled Language (True Version)

5. The Pain Amplifier

6. A Song by the Way

7. Verses in the Fire (Heavy Version)

8. The Last Orgy

9. Strange Things Happen at Night

10. ... The End (Of the Outro) / Reek of Putrefaction

No sanctuary is eternal

Also listen to:

Thou Shalt Suffer - Into the Woods of Belial (1991)

Abhorer - Zygotical Sabbatory Anabapt (1996)

Kataklysm - The Prophecy (Stigmata of the Immaculate) (2000)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:

Kataklysm - The Death Gate Cycle of Reincarnation (1992) + The Vortex of Resurrection (1993)

In which Canadian death lords Kataklysm jump headfirst into their own skewed version of melodeath. Hyper-blasts; tremolo-picked riffs that at times come off as blackened; hoarse, shouted vocals that can be a dealbreaker for some listeners; some chugging, core-ish moments; and an overarching concept involving demonic/alien invaders bringing about the end of the world, which taps into turn-of-the-millennium anxiety surprisingly effectively ("1999! 6661! Turn of the millennium! The end is coming!")

Speaking of dubious old favorites: I first got into Kataklysm when I was 17, via this slightly older hesher dude I used to hang out with who found it unacceptable that I liked Darkest Hour so he made me listen to "Astral Empire"; it didn't convince me to stop liking Darkest Hour (I still do, fight me), but I dug it. Then when I got the rest of The Prophecy off of Napster, I loved that, too, and listened to it 400 times while taking bonghits in my bedroom.  So despite its status as one of Kataklysm's least liked records, it's my personal favorite. Plus "The Renaissance" is one of my all-time favorite album closers -- that quasi-d-beat shit makes me wanna punch a demon-alien in the nuts.

Track listing:

1. 1999:6661:2000

2. Manifestation

3. Stormland

4. Breeding the Everlasting

5. Laments of Fear and Despair

6. Astral Empire

7. Gateway to Extinction

8. Machiavellian

9. The Renaissance

You'll never see what they see

Paradise is only a dream for the weak

You might also like:

Abramelin - Abramelin (1995)

The Chasm - Deathcult for Eternity: The Triumph (1998)

Corpsefucking Art - Splatter Deluxe (2003)

Nasty Italian brutal death. Short, frantic songs with the kind of raw, unadorned recording quality that, despite making for an even grosser sound, is pretty much unheard-of in the world of today's tech-y brutal death. Also, they sample both South Park and the theme from Dawson's Creek, and it's that kind of blatantly dumb shit that pushes records like this over the top.

Reminds me of one of the worst shows I've ever played: in Tijuana, on the third floor of this huge bar that was on a super-busy strip and had no parking out front, so we had to lug all of our shit for three heavily-trafficked blocks THEN up two flights of stairs to the show room, where maaaybe 15 attendees awaited a night of shitty grind. We and the band we were touring with were supposed to go on second-to-last and last out of 9 goddamn bands, but the show got started a few hours late and had so many technical difficulties that the second band didn't start playing 'til after midnight. So we told the promoter that there was no fucking way, and we'd either go on next or not at all, finished off our two complimentary pitchers of warm beer (which doubled as our pay, of course), played for a handful of utterly uninterested people, and left. Oh and this fat, sweaty, wasted dude kept trying to wrestle me all night. Terrible. The kind of show that makes you want to swear off of touring for good, which is essentially what I did.

Anyway, none of the bands were anywhere near the level of Corpsefucking Art, but one of them did sample Family Guy a bunch of times.

Track listing:

1. The Freezer's Monster

2. Necromantic

3. Splatter Deluxe

4. Pet(ting Sematary)

5. Robocorpse

6. Gore Mon Amour

7. Suck My Corpse

8. Dawson's Crypt

9. Corpsex II (The New Menu)

10. All You Need Is Gore

11. Four on a Meathook

12. Oblivious to Evil [Deicide cover]

13. Demented

14. Pig Pong

Rabbits are raining in my backyard

But I have a femur collection indoors

You'd also like:

Natron - Hung Drawn & Quartered (1997)

Patologicum - Hecatomb of Aberration (2003)

Pighead - Rotten Body Reanimation (2012)

German brutal death, definitely on the more composed, technically proficient side of the subgenre. Disgusting and violent, but refreshingly devoid of the pointedly misogynistic violence that is generally par for the course with brutal death metal.

Track listing:

1. Dead Flesh Alive

2. Atrocious Determination

3. Radioactive Death Trip

4. Grub into Addled Meat

5. Rotten Body Reanimation

6. Kill the Living, Eat the Dead

7. Japanese Nuclear Holocaust

8. Resurrected Malignity

9. Ragged and Fractured

10. Breed of Genuine Destroyers

A swamp of dark crimson sludge

You'd also like:

Kraanium - Ten Acts of Sickening Perversity (2008)

The Sickening - Death Devastation Decay (2009)

Inverted - The Age of Harvest (2015)

Stellar, slept-on Italian death metal. Despite having released two excellent, fat-free albums that expertly split the difference between OSDM brutality and modern precision and atmosphere, I have never heard anyone mention Inverted in any context. Pretty sure that I only know about them because I accidentally clicked on them while searching for the Swedish Inverted on Metallum. And I have zero hope that this will amount to anything, but if anyone has a digital rip of their first album, PLEASE put a link in the comments because I only have the cassette and I can't find it.

Track listing:

1. Abiura

2. Across the Snow to Nowhere

3. Caves

4. Vexilla Prodeunt Regis Inferi

5. E.R. Weapons

6. Tunguska

7. Towards the Summit of No Return

8. Clear Sky

Singularity

Also listen to:

Trauma - Imperfect Like a God (2003)

Beyond Mortal Dreams - From Hell (2008)

Traumatomy - Transcendental Evisceration of Necrogenetic Beasts (2013)

Mostly Russian (their vocalist lives in Japan) brutal death. Chugging, blasting, guttural carnage. Been working out regularly for the past few weeks, and it's been really good for every aspect of my life aside from my taste in music, which has come to incorporate a lot more brutal death metal, alt metal, and tough guy hardcore, which I've been doing my best to protect you from.

Track listing:

1. Intro

2. Disintegration in Suffering

3. Domination of Impulsive Perversions

4. Transformation into a Putrid Mass

5. Wretched Antropogenous Simulacrum

6. Transcendental Evisceration of Necrogenetic Beasts

7. Impregnated with Pus

8. Strategic Dismemberment

9. Grown in the Mold Sores

10. Extraterrestrial Mutilated Torture

11. Outro

You must destroy them and devour their flesh

More like this:

Dehumanized - Prophecies Foretold (1998)

Goregasm - Bleeding Profusely (2001)

A Canorous Quintet - Silence of the World Beyond (1996)

Essential Swedish melodic death metal. Instead of emphasizing brutal catchiness or machine-like precision like so many of their peers, A Canorous Quintet made sorrowful, misty music that's almost as close to gothic death/doom as it is to melodeath, with high-pitched rasps that help to give it all a blackened feel.

Track listing:

1. Silence of the World Beyond

2. Naked with Open Eyes

3. Spellbound

4. The Orchid's Sleep

5. The Black Spiral

6. The Last Journey

7. In the Twilight of Fear

8. Burning, Emotionless

9. Dream Reality

Black roses surround the fields

Strange floating lights

If you like this, listen to:

Horrified - In the Garden of the Earthly Delights (1993)

The Chasm - Deathcult for Eternity: The Triumph (1998)