I’ve had a promo copy of the debut offering by Australian crust-grinders Sordid sitting around collecting dust for months, so I decided to finally give it a spin after nearly 2 years. After listening to Sordid Remains I’m wishing I’d buried it at the bottom of the pile.

Sordid Remains contains 11 tracks of lo-fi, low skill, generic grinding crust. No effort was made by this band to write songs, they just got into a studio, got someone to bang on some paint cans while someone played guitar and bass and another dude rasped into a microphone. I’ve heard more original riffing from my ass after eating spicy burritos.

I wasn’t kidding when I made the paint can percussion remark either. It literally sounds like someone is banging on paint cans with the handle of a screwdriver. I’d call it drumming but that would be an insult to drummers everywhere, including Six Feet Under’s Greg Gall.

The vocals are fucking terrible. It sounds like a hobo with a bronchial infection got stabbed in the eye with a rusty blade and is howling in pain. Not the good kind of howling in pain either, more like the “I need to see a doctor immediately because I can feel something sharp poking into my brain.”

The songs become pretty repetitive very quickly. The songs tend to have a few moments of someone playing a generic riff then the entire band start grinding, blasting and hollering all at the same time with no real rhyme or reason. They literally make Agathocles sound like riffing wizards by comparison.

The artwork sucks too. I don’t know how they fucked up the simple goregrind cover art concept of; “take picture of corpse, put logo and text on top” but they found a way to make it look even stupider than usual. That’s just fucking awful, it makes the shit overlaying Unique Leader Records put on their releases look like it was crafted by a Photoshop master.

I read a few reviews where people called Sordid Remains a “solid but not overwhelming” grindcore release that’s “not recommended but worth checking out.” That’s like saying “That hot chick with the double D tits, cock sucking lips and ass you’d eat pickles out of isn’t interested in fucking you, but her fat friend with the gunt, huge mole and missing tooth wants to give you a hummer in the back alley.” You could do it if you’re desperate, but if you have any self respect you’ll just go home and jerk off to the hot chicks MySpace pics while calling her a dirty whore. Bottom line; you could listen to Sordid if you’re really desperate for something new, but you’re better off checking out Exit Wounds, Captain Cleanoff, Gadget, Looking For An Answer and Kill The Client instead.

Written By: Teufel