Reviews

After swirling long enough in the vortex created by the spinning of Offal, you are teleported to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil where you find yourself amid a dangerous swamp, shrouded in such darkness by the overhanging plants and mainly because of your hair falling on your face, that even the taken-for-granted stars are invisible to you. The sludgy water you are bobbing in, warm and smelly with your own urine having contributed to it, poses grave dangers in the form of the insatiable flesh-eating piranhas, the colossal anacondas and the brutally innocuous yellow plastic duck. You swim frantically in an attempt to escape from the place as soon as possible, and when too shallow for that, wade through it slowly and quietly hoping not to market your presence to the lurking dangers, though in fact each move of yours resounds through this miasmic swamp. All of this makes your heart beat faster than the drum machine of Mortician. Terror looms perpetually over your head like a ghostly apparition, and if you could leap like a dolphin, you would probably headbutt it in its face.

In this way, Offal takes you through a heart-fluttering and bowel-loosening experience where you are bound to loose touch with reality, if you aren’t already a gamer bum. Significantly influenced by Acts of the Unspeakable Autopsy, Offal displays an obvious inclination towards the grind genre in varying degrees; beginning from early Abscess, Offal’s caustic leanings traverse the rudimentary Bienvenidos Al Mundo Del Terror Mixomatosis to touch the splatter gore levels of Gruesome Stuff Relish, and while it might stoop to the static plane of Lymphatic Phlegm, it doesn’t fall down completely to copulate with it. The cumulative angle of which points towards the direction of Machetazo’s newest, Sinfonias Del Terror Ciego. Now where Machetazo with its unmitigated brilliance has used the Autopsy influence to mutate its sound into a unique horrifying one, Offal’s Autopsy-grind proportion metre fluctuates as rapidly and inconsistently like the tachometer of a two decade old taxi.

Literally, for if the album opener “Anal-thorized Autopsy” has Offal rhythmically parading about in Machetazo fashion, the following song “Swarming Maggot Feast” has Offal wallowing contentedly in the Autopsy charnel pit. Next up in “The Spew” if the Offal gorehog gets up and starts sprinting, then in “Cadaver Breath” as if having run out of breath, Offal ambles along taking laborious Autopsy breaths. This almost alternating trend is observed throughout the album with the song lengths often varying drastically. In addition to Offal’s inconsistency, its length too, is not entirely satisfying especially after excluding the Gut and Autopsy covers, though whatever you are provided with is scrumptious. As the album advances with the gore-drenched notes spilling out of your speakers while you fight the urge to drop to your knees to clean it, it’s the tenebrous, tastefully done Autopsy notes lingering around your room like the smell of your farts, that are undoubtedly the highlight of Offal, evoking emotions as strong and lasting as getting your dongs rung by a sledgehammer.

By making its gory music instantly likeable thanks mostly to the Autopsy influence, Offal has so easily found a way to surpass its peers that you almost feel like it is cheating. Light along with flowers and panties must be thrown on the fact that Offal doesn’t play derivative Autopsy music like Mausoleum or The Ravenous; it’s actually Offal’s wonderful, albeit precedented cross genre pollination that makes the music on this album so effective and enjoyable, warranting repeat listens without you having to stop it midway to run back to your beloved Autopsy/Abscess.

Rating:

|  7.6/10