2002’s Splatter Tekk was one of the biggest surprises of the year for me. I wasn’t expecting a release by a Czech side project band to become one of my year’s favorite albums, with their odd mix of straightforward grind mixed with electro/techno. 2004’s Chemical Holocaust is similar to their previous effort, but there are some distinct changes. The production is much thicker with everything sounding much clearer than it had in the past. The production wasn’t the only big change; the band also went for a more direct musical approach this time around, with a strong old Cock And Ball Torture sound mixed with early Napalm Death and Agathocles. Unfortunately, in doing so, they’ve lost a lot of the great hooks they had on the previous release so you don’t really find yourself wanting to go back and listen to the album over and over again. A few tracks do have brief moments of greatness, but no full song really stands out and captures your attention for much more than a few seconds. The techno interludes between tracks are fewer and shorter, which will make grindcore purists happier, but part of the band’s great appeal with how well the interludes mixed with the grind on Splatter Tekk, on the whole Chemical Holocaust is just lacking. The really weird thing is, on Splatter Tekk the strongest part of the music was the grind, on Chemical Holocaust the most interesting part of the music is the techno. Also included on the album are covers of Cock And Ball Torture, Krisiun and Disrupt, none of which are memorable. The sad thing is the album doesn’t get interesting until the 18th (of 20) track, "Schindlerova seznamka [Schindler's Acquantance Service]" which has a great mix of grind and techno. The only other track of interest on the entire CD is the 19th track, "composed by Speakermassage/SS3x", a pure techno track, which is actually annoyingly hypnotic and is the only song on the entire album I’ve listened to more than three times. Actually, it’s so annoyingly catchy, I’ve probably listened to it about 200 times. Seriously. On the whole, I have to say I was incredibly disappointed by Chemical Holocaust. The guys from Alienation Mental and Cerebral Turbulency had achieved near perfection on their debut, but Chemical Holocaust is little more than sub-par grind mixed with decent techno. Hopefully they’ll bring things back around to the sound they’d perfected on Splatter Tekk and their half of the split with Utopie. I won’t go as far as to say this album is a complete waste, but well, let’s just say if the lyric book were made of toilet paper, I’d have used it and flushed it long ago.

Written By: Teufel