Colonel Blast/Cancerous Womb/Magpyes/Dyscaphia/Diascorium - Split Roast - 5 Way Split
Condate Records
Variants of Death Metal
20 songs (59:31)
Release year: 2011
Reviewed by Jaime
Split albums are a curious thing. In their heyday they were never massively popular, so to see them now in this day and age where the advantages of splitting the costs are a moot point is an interesting thing. But still, Condate Records' Split Roast showcases some of the UK's finest extreme acts for a rather wallet friendly £5. Seeing as the price is right, let's see if the bands are.

Colonel Blast - 87 / 100

First up is Colonel Blast who kick off proceedings in grand fashion. Bursting out the gates with Power By Proxy their vicious blackened death metal mix is a bit like being pounced on by a metal Facehugger. It's brutal, suffocating and suitably unsettling. The fact that the vocal delivery is both rabid AND clear is a boon. Instead of assuming that the band are saying a lot of garbled naughty things that'd barely make a 12 year old blush you know exactly what they've stated and exactly how bleak and grim it really is. The Crime Is Passion is similarly as intense but ramps up the tempo a few times over the course of the track. Lovely stuff. The production on these tracks is fairly gritty as you'd expect, adding to the oppressing atmosphere that the head crunching riffs generate. A fantastic start. NEXT!

Cancerous Womb - 78 / 100

With a title like Torn From Gunt to Cunt you can probably guess where Cancerous Womb fall on the metal spectrum. Tech death metal with a layer of gore trailed across it isn't new, but as with Colonel Blast the fact that the vocals have a degree of clarity to them makes them stand out from the usual gore obsessed crowd. The rest of the band has some chops on them that they show off rather well. Tech metal is usually quite sterile sounding, so maybe all the blood, shit and other bodily fluids gives the band their filthier sound. Sadly Tepid Decrepit suffers majorly from horrible triggered drum sounds that are way too high in the mix. That aside it's a fairly groovy affair, not as tech as their previous track and generally alright. They also have a live track here in Austrian Basement which actually sounds pretty good for a live recording. Lots of pig squeals and death metal standards going on, though they admit it's the first song they wrote, and the band sound pretty tight on it as well. Not bad. NEXT!

Magpyes - 84 / 100

Right. Magpyes. Imagine a curry house. A filthy, back alley curry house of questionable hygiene standards. You take the hottest curry from the menu, unsure of the meat contained in it. "Is it cow?" you ponder. "Lamb? Pigeon? Granny?". It doesn't matter. You take that molten evil home and force it down your throat as your soul weeps "No more! NO MORE!". The next morning you feel something stirring in your bowels until suddenly, with the wrath of a thousand angry Ghandis it causes you flee to the nearest toilet/bucket/hole in the ground and try to prevent your brain from being sucked out due to the vacuum action. Five hours later you stagger away like a cowboy, fearful to venture back out of shame and horror. Magpyes are basically the aural equivalent of that. Putrid grind bastards that've basically got a whole album on here. And you'd probably go back to that curry house a week later. NEXT!

Dyscaphia - 61 / 100

Samples? Dodgy piano? Whaa? Dyscaphia are trying to have a bit of a black metal vibe running though their tech death I suppose, but so far they're the weakest of the bunch. Impious Conflagration just can't stand up to anything before it, coming across as your bog standard tech death crew. The sampled intro didn't help either. While they've clearly got some degree of skill the songs on show just aren't great, and the production falls flat on its arse. A resounding meh. Oh well, 3 from 4 isn't too bad. NEXT!

Diascorium - 79 / 100

Diascorium clearly didn't want to be beaten in the extreme stakes, as My Own Exegesis jumps around rather erratically. The production on the track here makes it sound really strange, especially compared to the rest. It's something that should've jumped you the speakers and nailed you with a sledgehammer but instead is a bit... quiet. The Mechanics of Serenity doesn't have that problem but the band themselves are a bit calmer, if you will. They're merely bouncing off the walls instead of trying to chew through the ninja unicorns that they thought were hanging about in the last track. Interjection is, err... keyboardy I suppose but leads into Reduction to The Absurd which is what the first two tracks should've been. Completely disjointed and nightmarish while trying to aurally garrotte you. And the little groovy section about a minute and a half in is fantastic. Wonderfully bonkers indeed. Lastly there's Self Modifying Game. Or a remix of it anyways. Very noisy, very odd, completely insane. Magic! NE- oh.

Out of a total of 20 tracks there are 15 that are definitely worth listening to, two that're not too bad despite the mix and 3 that are a bit naff really. For a fiver. There are big bands who don't hit the 75-80% mark in terms of good songs to bad. For a fiver. Basically what I'm saying is that you should go out and buy it.

NEXT!
Killing Songs :
Avoid Dyscaphia and it's all good
Jaime quoted 82 / 100
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