““The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power.””
UNSU - The Filthy
French filth-mongers Unsu sound exactly like Rotten Sound dragged through total unending squalor and rampant filth, casting a similar level of high end complexity and technical skill sets that have bench marked Rotten Sounds grind contribution, but shanking great fetid shards of filth in a chaotic stabbing frenzy into the mix.
Aside from the general hit em hard and never surrender mentality the release fixates on with undying fanaticism, as if dead set on giving you a glass jaw, groove is a surprisingly big factor they lumber around. Repulsive riffs ripping and tearing forth asunder, regurgitating much from the cavities of death metals contribution to dirty riffs, dirtier tones and wall tearing breakdowns. Despite the glaringly saturated influence of Rotten Sound and occasional hints that may be construed to be an independent Nasum influence (of which they have a mighty fine cover of, but even that sounds alot more like Rotten Sound than Nasum), the primary tone and habit of the release is boastfully death metal in every way, the prangs of grind being a logical go to point when the rhythmic bones need to let off some steam by degenerating into a barbaric mass of blasts and cordial riffs.
Musically the performance is a tight one, each element in the equation is heavily dependent on the others; no showmanship,just teamwork and they certainly have that down. This all for one and one for all consistency gives them nice thick flow of abhorrence as they steer the release from one musical pasture to another. The exception to this overall approach and their previously detailed sound would be the first track Napalm in the Morning, which is far more casual and out of character with less of a focus on brutality, but serving as a platform for the listener to the eventual filth hammering they serve your way.
The first five tracks have a very evident set of boot shine applied to them, however from track 6 right to the very last rumbles of the final track; number 17, we get a long list of live recordings, musically still in the same vein, but it doesn't take a genius to work out there will be a sufficient drop in audio quality. This kind of detracts from the album experience, and is a bit of a demoralizing jolt when it occurs, and would probably have served best as two separate releases, but looking from an objective point of view there is plenty of material to enjoy, provided of course you don't mind listening to live recordings.
My major crux's with the release are twofold, the first is the rare use of pig squeals and vocal inbreathing to generate vocal depth, although very much in line of the general pig theme they are representing such as greed, filth, depravity etc it's personally a kick in the balls that undermines everything they have done, and detracts such a great deal from the experience. And sadly even when doing the standard vocal plough, something just irks me the wrong way about it. My second concern is that the release lacks a certain hook, the rampant filth is a great tool they employ from a great deal of influences, but these influences don't always come together as one, and as such may be rather divisive.
UNSU really do have alot of potential, because they really have done well to show case it here, but they are bridging a great deal of genres from grindcore, brutal death metal and a little bit from deathcore, and for someone very hung up in one genre the protrusion of those other genres rather than their integration negates much. However for those of you who are more tolerant, and happily listen to either genres, then perhaps you may find UNSU to be the convenient middle ground you have been looking for.
