I was surprised to open my mail one dark stormy night and find the latest release from Polish gore fiends Neuropathia in an envelope sent from No Escape Records. The only material of theirs I’d heard prior to this new album, Satan Is A Cunt, was the group’s split with Japan’s Vampiric Motives (formerly Catasexual Urge Motivation) on Bizarre Leprous Productions. I strongly remember my reaction to the material being "These guys have intros that go on longer than Mortician. I think there’s 20 minutes of intros for every 5 minutes of music on this fucking thing." Musically, I wasn’t impressed, as the material was just poorly produced burp-gore-grind; nothing really that exciting, original or entertaining.

As I read through the accompanied biography and read that the material from the split with Vampiric Motives was included as a bonus in addition to the 14 new tracks and 3 bonus cover songs, I figured this would be an easy disc to review; 25 tracks or boring generic goregrind. Of course, that all changed once I actually sat down and listened to the album.

It seems as though Neuropathia have done some experimenting musically and have come up with a brand new sound. The new vibe is more of a rocking grind splattered with guts and gore. The riffs are sharper, faster and have a more defined sound with the cleaner production, the overall song writing and song structure are much improved and have more of a Cock And Ball Torture vs. Nasum vs. Pungent Stench in an angry drunken knife fight vibe, which is actually really fucking good.

Everything seems to be going along perfectly until the vocals kick in to derail this train of kickass rockin’ grind and slam it into a mountain of shit in a fiery ball of methane-fuelled feces. It’s not the vocals themselves that ruin it for me, but the structuring of the vocals and the constant use of the quick simple drum beats every time something is being shouted, snarled or pitch shifted. A perfect example would be the beginning of the title track, which starts out with a dark evil vibe, it sounds truly nasty until, out of the blue, the band breaks into some Blood Duster-fuelled rock-n-grind while the singer shouts, in a purely hardcore style, "SATAN IS A CUNT! SATAN IS A CUNT! *pause* SATAN IS A CUNT! SATAN IS A CUNT!" over and over again.

Another track that goes on with the repeating of the song title in an annoying manner is the seemingly Motorhead-inspired "Bad Boys Go To Hell", where the title is repeated pretty much throughout the entire song. The music itself is good, but after hearing "BAD BOYS GO TO HELL!" once I was ready to skip to the next song.

The track "The Dinner - I Need Meat" has a cool simple catchy groove, the hardcore vocals are a little weak, but I could tolerate it… until I heard the processed vocals I’d only ever heard before on Love Among Freaks‘ "Berzerker" from Clerks: The Movie Soundtrack. Yea, you know the song "My love for you is like a truck, BERZERKER! Would you like making fuck, BERZERKER! My love for you is like a rock, BERZERKER!" Try to imagine those processed vocals on grind… sounds like a stupid idea doesn’t it? Well, it is. My annoyance with you is making me want to hit you with a brick, BERZERKER! I want to smash your vocal processor with my dick, BERZERKER! On your head I want to sit and take a shit, BERZERKER! BERZERKER!

Then on "Clatter In The Coffin" everything is grinding along nicely, then midway through the song there’s some shitty keyboarding that sounds like it came from some horrible 1980s Japanese Nintendo game. I just imagine some cute pixilated blob running around aimlessly on a screen trying to find some magical icon and it sickens me.

On the whole, the 14 new tracks are solid musically, BUT, the amount of stuff I find annoying on these tracks is overwhelming and after listening to the material a few times I can honestly say I have no desire to listen to the material again. The same can be said for the material on the split with Vampiric Motives which immediately follows the new material. It was pretty bad sounding generic boring goregrind that I didn’t like the first time I heard it, and like even less now.

The addition of three bonus cover songs recorded in 1999 does little to appease me, especially when the quality of each of these cover songs can only be described as shit-fucking-awful. The cover of Impetigo’s "Dis-Organ-Ized" is pretty bad, especially in comparison to covers that appeared on Razorback Records’ Wizards Of Gore: Tribute To Impetigo. The Brutal Truth cover makes me want to hit each member of Neuropathia over the head with a guitar, Honky Tonk Man-style. Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses is one of my favourite albums, and Neuropathia’s abomination makes me want to perform an abortion on my eardrums.

As much as I’d like to say this is a great worthwhile album, honestly, I think it’s lacking. I think it’s enough to appease the average grind fiend, but I’ve got more refined taste than the average metal fan, and this just doesn’t cut the mustard, mayo, lettuce or tomato. Thankfully, the new Bile is great, so I can’t stay mad at No Escape for long.

Written By: Teufel