Rest in Gore - Culinary Buffet of Hacked Innards (Sevared Records; 2011)

Slam-Minded is finally reviewing a brutal release from 2011. Does our year of reviews begin with a classic? Or are we looking at a complete failure? The answer is neither. Rest in Gore have crafted perhaps the most acceptable and middling album I have heard. Mediocre is too harsh a word to describe Culinary Buffet of Hacked Innards but good is a little too good to describe it.

The band behind this album hail from Japan, which is why it doesn't really surprise me that I found this album okay. A lot of Japanese bands have released some middle of the road material in the past couple years. For evidence, look at Gorevent or Infernal Revulsion's second albums. The songs on those albums just didn't have the kind of energy and dynamism that brutal death metal needs to stay interesting behind the wall of riffing, blast beats and growling.

And that is the flaw of Culinary Buffet of Hacked Innards. It's actually the only flaw, because otherwise things are pretty well executed. The musicianship is fine, the vocals are sick, and the drums are loud and fast. I also really like the Tony Koehl artwork and Rest in Gore is a pretty badass name. There's just no energy behind any of it. Its like the band is doing everything right, but they weren't excited by it.

Part of what I like about this kind of music is the "brutal aura" that the music creates. It's that "oh shit" feeling in that moment of silence before the huge slam. It's that crushed feeling after a particularly good technical section. I didn't feel that aura from this album.

So where does this leave us? I know this review sounds pretty negative, but as I said this is not bad in any way, it's just not particularly good either. My recommendation is to listen for yourself, and see if you like it more than me. The mechanics of a good album are there, so I feel like I might be missing something. Either way I am sure I will hear both better - and worse - albums this year.

[Nick's Note: Apologies for the lack of content recently. My computer died and I had to get a new one. Things should be back to normal now]