THE Gorgasm they have always been among my favorite exponents of the stars and stripes brutal second wave, i.e. the one that emerged at the end of the 90s, also for their going against the trend compared to what were emerging as the new directions of the genre. The various It disgorges And Devourment they focused everything on increasingly dark, claustrophobic and slurred sounds, or what would later be defined as slam. The band from Chicago, a city that over time took over from Tampa the role of capital of American death metal, instead took care of writing, execution, production and arrangements in a painstaking way and stood out for an ironic attitude that made the themes less cloying and indigestible ultragore. In short, if people like me Brodequin (don’t worry, we’ll talk about their return soon too) were Cannibal HolocaustGorgasm were Brain Dead by Peter Jackson.
I went out crazy for Destined to Violate, perhaps the best American work ever, so I didn’t take the ten years of silence that followed very well. What interrupts them is this three-track EP, which includes the single Carnal Demise published last February. On social networks the diskette was announced as a return to past but this is only partially true. Damian Leski he is the only remaining original member and the new guys who accompany him seem to have brought with them something of those “monotonous and uninteresting bands of modern times” to which, according to what we read in the accompanying press release Sadichistthe bloody coat of arms of the Gorgasm is contrasted.
The first thing that doesn’t work very well are the sounds. The group opted for self-production and gave up the clear sound output that had always been among their most lethal weapons. The riffing, then, doesn’t have those sudden flashes that made Leski and his companions instantly distinguishable. Those sporadic flashes of melody which have always been their trademark remain but certain concessions to the Soft Angelian canon re-proposed to the hilt in the last two or three decades have left me a little perplexed.
Not everything is convincing, therefore, but talking about disappointment would be excessive; it was inevitable to leave with very high expectations in front of a band with such a glorious past that comes back to life after a decade. These three tracks, however, eat for breakfast a good 80% of contemporary releases based on displays of in-your-face technique and needlessly unintelligible recording. We therefore confidently await the LP announced for 2025, hoping that the new lineup will find the right mix and turn to a producer capable of doing justice to the history of Gorgasm. (Ciccio Russo)
