TERRORIZER – Hordes of Zombies
TERRORIZER – Hordes of Zombies CD
@@@.5 Anarchy @’s out of 5
What do the MORBID ANGEL dudes do when they aren’t putting the MARILYN MANSON mix to their death metal? They blast out some grindcore and make TERRORIZER albums with their friends in RESISTANT CULTURE.
My first thoughts are 1) the last album kind of blew. Those triggered drums were just too much!, 2) The album title is kind of played out…
My initial response to my first note is that these dudes must have read some of the reviews on that last album and made an effort to correct that weird ass drum sound that plagued the “reunion” album. The drums sound full and punishing. Pete Sandoval is killing it behind the kit on this one, it’s nice to hear him do his thing without as much studio “magic”.
And to my second point they use zombies as more of an analogy to describe the mindless sheep and general population of this rotting country and the of world as a whole. The cover art is pretty cool with all the zombies staggering through the city, LA I suppose. There is pope zombie, a soldier zombie, a crusty/metal looking zombie and a spikey haired punk rock zombie as well as a slew of others, they are the hordes I take it. There is even the RESISTANT CULTURE symbol spray painted on one of the buildings. In summery I’ll let the album title slide…BUT THAT’S IT! No more zombie album covers, songs or record titles after this that has zombies in it by anyone! Yeah…right…
Again since the drum problem was apparently solved we can focus on the rest of the tunes. The mix is pretty damn clean, most of the grit and grime and crust has been wiped away in favor of slick and smooth production. I fear it is a bit too smooth for many and we’ll hear a lot of complaints even though the drums have been fixed.
But lets face it folks. This is not ‘World Downfall’, there was a perfect aligning of the moons and stars that allowed for that classic mix of Death Metal and Grindcore to exist! Jesse (RIP) has moved on, his riffs and style are gone…
Katina had some big shoes to fill and she stepped right up to the plate. Katina is a badass and she lets it rip on ‘Hordes of Zombies’. There is no looking back as she rips through more than a dozen headbanging string benders driving the TERRORIZER bus over zombies and sheeple .
The vocals are gruff and rough, always stopping shy of the growl but always intelligible. Anthony doesn’t stray far from what he does in RC vocally or lyrically. The lyrics are social and political commentary, but what I always like about his style is that he offers glimpses of hope. His songs are warnings to change our ways, to be aware and cognizant of whom we are and our impact on the environment and available resources.
All in the album is decent but it lacks texture or layers. It is no frills straight up, polished to perfection grind. There are no crazy guitar parts, no freaked out vocals, it’s all just kind of flat. There is not much to make one song stand out from the next. I don’t know if that’s enough in today’s world. Some of these young grind bands are doing crazy ass shit that makes this seem really tame in comparison.
ThrashPunx 