After going to a couple of Ohio Death Fests, I’ve come to the conclusion that the state of Ohio is greatly lacking in decent bands. The most annoying of the bunch was TON. I saw them live on three separate occasions and walked out all three times out of boredom and disgust. Not just walked away to hang out at the bar, I left the venue until they were done. When I found out that Riphead consists of two former TON members, my immediate instinct was to find a hammer and smash the CD before I could be bored to death, unfortunately, I couldn’t find a hammer in time. While bored flipping through promo material, I came across this split and figured "What the hell, why not?" and tossed it in. I should have smashed it when I had the chance. Riphead is basically TON with more thrashy elements, but the same level of complete sucking. The band employ the same group vocal approach that bored me shitless in TON; not one, not two, but all three members barking, snarling and rasping in unison to the mid-paced wanktoberfest. Unfortunately, like TON, the vocals of all three members are really fucking annoying. The band claims to be technical death/thrash/grind, but… umm… they aren’t. They’re just bland, boring, annoying Midwest death/thrash with the worst vocals since TON. Now that I’m done bagging on Riphead it’s onto longtime Ohio death metal staples Drogheda. My first introduction to the band was in the late 90s on some Frozen Dawn compilation. I didn’t really think much of Drogheda or any of the other bands at the time, and quickly gave the CD away, I just remember them being blasting death/grind. A few years ago I picked up the Drogheda / Intense Hammer Rage split after I found out the Intense Hammer Rage side of the split included the band’s entire Devogrindporngorecoreaphile full length. I listened to the Drogheda tracks maybe once and have skipped through them ever since. This time around… ehhh… pretty much the same reaction. After more than a dozen years of being around I congratulate them on their persistence and longevity, unfortunately, that’s about the only positive I can come up with. Their style is nothing ground breaking or earth shattering, just lo-fi produced short songs with lots of blasts, death/grind riffs and dual hi/low vocals. After pressing stop I instantly forget what they sound like, which is never a good sign. The weird thing is, I honestly want to like this band, and I do respect their determination, but, I’ve yet to hear a single memorable riff from them, let alone memorable song in the 8 years since I first heard them. There are only a small handful of death metal and grind bands from the entire American Midwest that are worth checking out, unfortunately, Riphead and Drogheda aren’t among them.

Written By: Teufel