Music: Rompeprop: Gargle Cummics
Our Take
I have to admit, I’m not that big of a fan of porn/gore grind. While I can appreciate the founding acts of each style and some of the groups that still play them today, it isn’t a genre that I actively seek out on my own. One of the recent genre efforts I was sent to review is Rompeprop’s Gargle Cummics, the newest album from the Netherlands based band. And while this disc does fall prey to some repetition, it has a lot more interesting ideas than most porn grind bands usually do.
Although listeners may be used to grind that buries the vocals under a wall of noisy instrumentals, Rompeprop has opted to take the opposite approach and makes them as loud as in your face as possible. This is certainly an interesting idea considering that the group’s vocals sound like nothing else out there. They’re kind of like a mixture of death metal growling and brutal death metal growling but hit pitches that sometimes don’t really fit into either genre. The psychotic vocal styles are also used to create a brilliant cover of “Born to be Wild” called “Porn to be Wild”, and it’s guaranteed to be a song you remember. Admittedly they’re a bit of an acquired taste, but those with a taste for the weird and bizarre will really get into the vocals.As I mentioned in the previous paragraph the instrumentals are slightly subdued but they follow the typical grind formula. The instrumentalists do have some occasional tricks up their sleeves and do try to add a little more variety at times, but it isn’t always noticeable because of how quiet the riffs are. Despite the fact that Gargle Cummics is only about half an hour in length, the song structures do seem to repeat themselves a little too frequently and I did find that this made the disc seem a little repetitive. It seems likely that if Rompeprop turned the volume of their vocals down a little bit that their riffs would stand out a bit more and this problem would disappear.
Rompeprop is definitely on to something here and do manage to stand out from the rest of the genre. While gore/porn grind still isn’t a style that I’m planning on listening to on a regular basis I have to admit that this album definitely has its moments and for me it’s probably a 3 out of 5. But if you’re a big fan of the genre consider upping that number and give Gargle Cummics a chance, as it lives up to the band’s reputation.
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Chris Dahlberg
July 31, 2010
