By: Mark Ambrose
Album Type: EP
Date
Released:
01/09/2017
Label: Horror Pain
Gore Death Productions
“Dutchguts / Chained to the Dead” Split CD//DD track listing
1).
Dutchguts
– “Bad Batch”
2). Dutchguts
– “Happy Trails to Hell”
3).
Dutchguts
– “Snake Piss”
4).
Chained to
the Dead – “The Ballad of the Melting Hobos”
5).
Chained to
the Dead – “The Ones That Walk Away”
6).
Chained to
the Dead – “Beast from the East”
The Review
While
I love the complex shit out there – the prog-influenced, hyper-hyphenate
blackened genre mixers – a powerful double dose of filth can be just as
transcendent as “challenging” grand statement albums. Case in point: the split EP by sludge punkers
Dutchguts
and death maniacs Chained to the Dead. Dutchguts slam out a trio of tunes that serve
as the perfect soundtrack to a night of bad decisions that get this, actually
packs some bluesy menace into those fuzzy tones. Sure they recall Eyehategod and Motorhead
but they also could be a gone to seed ZZ Top (that good, early shit) jamming on Black Sabbath. They play headbanging riff songs, with
scattered shout along choruses, until the raucous doomy closer, “Snake Piss”. Slowing to an absolute crawl, the dual
guitars of Gonzalez and Galarraga are all swagger and snarl, while the rhythm
section of Rivas and Cerri easily shifts between hardcore aggression and
swinging bar band rock. I want a whole
slab of this stuff, though I worry my liver may not take it.
Chained to
the Dead,
meanwhile, serve up some rotten-to-the-bone, meat and potatoes death
metal. You know you’re dealing with true
splatter fetishists when your song opens with a Street Trash sample that
actually serves the putrid subject matter.
Guitarist Stephen Rasczyk goes real old school with his riffing: no
squealing, chaotic leads, just memorable hooks that make you want to get in the
mosh and bleed all over someone.
John-Paul Dal Pan is well-served in the production, as his hefty bass
tone is stomach turning on “Beast from
the East”. Ott, meanwhile, is an
enviable metal drummer, whose brutality and proficiency are matched by his
restraint – never overplaying but never boring.
Vocalist Rocco Martone may have one of the most violent cadences in
death metal. Each syllable sounds like
he’s rasping out a liter of blood and clotted guts, which goes perfectly with
the overall horror aesthetic. Most
importantly, like all the other elements of the group, he makes a simple style,
free of effects or acrobatics, wholly his own.
Each of Chained
to the Dead’s three cuts is memorable as an infected scar – you’ll
keep returning to these wounds despite your revulsion, and even come to
perversely enjoy your self-mortification.
“Dutchguts / Chained to
the Dead” is available here
