As you can probably assume, I get a lot of promos and demos sent my way. Every time I open up my post office box I’m never sure what I’m going to find, but after 10+ years I’ve come to expect that 5% of the material sent my way is going to rule, 85% is going to completely suck and the other 10% is going to be perilously hovering between the two but leaning more towards sucking. Vomit Trough’s It’s Grind! is definitely the latter.

Vomit Trough are a three-piece Berkley, California-based project with an affinity for late 80s/early 90s grindcore. Their debut offering, the four track It’s Grind! EP, is seven and a half minutes of lo-fi Autopsy, Carcass & Nihilist-inspired grind. The riffing, handled by Brain Drill bassist Ivan “Jimmy Puke” Munguia is decent, nothing remotely original, but for what it is it’s decent. The vocals are typical of late 80s and early 90s demo material with fast paced higher pitched yelling. The band credits Vom On’em as being the drummer, which I assume is the pet name for their drum machine. If there’s actually a drummer playing on this, then holy fuck is this production ever shitty.

Actually, the production is shitty. Really shitty. The release, recorded in 2008, sounds like it was a demo recorded in 1988. That isn’t a compliment. Oddly enough, the album was engineered, mixed and mastered by Brad Koblyczak, who engineered, mixed and mastered Impaled’s The Last Gasp. Obviously, I think he was drunk, high and passed out during the recording of this effort because it really does sound like shit. Don’t get me wrong, I love the old 80s/90s grindcore albums and demos, but the sound on those releases were, for the most part, fucking terrible and the sound on this disc is even worse. The vocals get lost in the mix and it sounds like Hogsecutioner (you’re a fucking gaylord for coming up with that lame pseudonym, by the way, at least come up with something catchy and funny… like Picklefucker or Boris Browneye) is trying to yell over the guitars and drum machine but it just gets lost along the way. It just becomes annoying to listen to, and it’s only seven and a half minutes long.

The release isn’t completely worthless, the material is salvageable if the band were to re-record it with a more modern sound, unfortunately the complete lack of originality still leaves Vomit Trough far behind the leaders in the genre. Vomit Trough is just yet another band who wrote a quick demo to toss up on MySpace, it’s okay, but compared to the originators of the material they’re emulating and the new wave of grindcore acts like Kill The Client, Captain Cleanoff, Jig-Ai and Gadget they fucking suck. I’m all for new bands trying new things, even if it’s emulating an old style, but if you’re going to do it, at least put some effort into writing at least 20 minutes of material and spend a few bucks on some decent recording and mixing equipment, or at least make sure the guy recording it is awake and sober. Considering the entire album is available for free from the band’s MySpace page, there’s no fucking reason at all to buy this disc. If you really love that shitty demo sound, it might be worth a download, otherwise don’t bother. Bleh.

Written By: Teufel