My first exposure to Engorged was actually their recent Where Monsters Dwell album. Ever since I’ve been backtracking their catalogue to hear more of their catchy death/grind/thrash hybrid, so far having grabbed their split with Fuck… I’m Dead. This brings us to their 2004 split with Spain’s Gruesome Stuff Relish, a fellow Razorback band that eschews the grinding thrash typical of the label for more traditional goregrind.

The Engorged material on this split was a lot different from what I was expecting having heard their other split and the latest album. The thrash parts are still there, but these 5 songs tend to lean more into the grindcore spectrum, speeding along. Unfortunately, these grinding tracks don’t pull off the same brutality as their thrashier brethren. There is still the death thrash that I loved so much (see "They’re Creeping Up on You" and "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill"), but there’s not a whole lot of stuff by the time it ends. The feeling becomes a matter of "too little too quickly" and the affair is disappointingly shorter than their material from the Fuck… I’m Dead split.

This is the first time I got to hear Gruesome Stuff Relish. I’ve read awesome stuff about their goregrind, and needless to say I’m not disappointed. These 3 songs are the best material of the split, taking the best parts of Carcass worship, throwing in some catchy groove, and goofily blasting away like drunken maniacs. Seriously, just try to not bounce your head to "The Plague" and their cover of Dead Infection’s "After Accident". The only complaint I have with their side of the split is that they only offer two original songs and cause the split to abruptly end.

That’s the fatal flaw of the split- it ends way too fast, even by split standards. Sweet Christ, listening to Gruesome Stuff Relish’s material and then it ending so soon is like getting a blow-job from a beautiful woman with the suction of a vacuum only to have her pulled away right before climax and being forced to not finish off. The Engorged stuff is decent, but Gruesome Stuff Relish is where it’s at. However, unless you absolutely crave the latter I wouldn’t really spend too much time on this release; it’s inhumanely short. God I need to buy Gruesome Stuff Relish’s full length.

Written By: Necro-tron