The band Mangle don't just use their name as an identifier, it's an accurate description of their musical process too: the band pummel ferociously Sludge and Powerviolence together in a crude and brutish craze of choleric wroth. Vocals have regressed to testosterone heavy animalistic bellows and shrieks, whilst a clotted clamour of guitars and drums whip back and forth from ripping sludge empowerment to more boisterous and energetic spasms of rage. The adulteration is a good one, profound and consistent too, bringing the two diverse approaches together and contorting them to the same direction that they may bruise the listener with their own brand of squalid, philistine expressions of dark rage; a sense of worthlessness chained to a boiling fury poured over you.
There is a defiling smog in the production values, which only ups what already is an overcast projection of musical destitution and despair. Mangle only provide two doses of their filth laden siege upon the listener, both are fully fleshed out and it cannot be denied in the quality department Mangle have really surpassed user demand for a quality record. It’s a powerful heavy duty listening experience that brings a fresh take on the genre whilst exploring new depths of musical depravity to known styles.
Meatpacker, have a nice full bodied mid paced tantrum to their work, in fact their work is nothing but a slick festivity of blasts, screams and gasping riffs. It’s one lashing of high octane PV/Grind after another, each as energetic as the other and consistently well maintained. There is a certain graininess in the production values, but its hindrance is minimal if at all, it gives a nice collusive spark to their work, blurring the end point of one riff to the begging point of another, whilst soldering the drum work in the mix, keeping the frantic bursts of hate in one netted mesh.
There is a nice pinch of warping progressiveness amongst the hailstorm of hardcore fury, not so subtle that it is lost amongst the crashing of the musical waves, but nor so bold that it screams for attention, instead being a nice rhythmic anchor that steers the release from one eruption to another, whilst still providing the illusion that it follows rather than leads the rhythmic development of the release, very much in the same colourful vein of Pig Destroyer.
A real solid split from two relatively unknowns, whose differences in play styles compliment the other, and as for the artwork these vegan pairing are in one morbid mind-set offering a small gallery of grotesquery to accompany their malice riddled extremity. Don’t take my word for it, indulge in the full-fat fury below!
