Three guesses? Nah, you won’t even need two…

Of course, Herman Rarebell from The Scorpions has absolutely nothing to do with this review, this band or this type of music in any capacity, other than in name. You might not get it, that’s okay, neither do I. Understanding isn’t the issue here, music is, and ‘Too Late For Peace’ is like a cat dropping a dead bird off at your doorstep. The intentions were nice, but, you know, gross.

As far as filthy grindcore goes, Herman Rarebell certainly has their direction planned-out well for themselves. With cement mixer guitars and a wonderful set of buckets being passed off for drums, seemingly, this four-piece consisting of members of Antigama & Third Degree blast through twelve original fits of schizophrenic bliss, along with three covers by Doom, and Napalm Death. Even by grind standards, this disc just flies by and is over before you know it. The smear of rasping, screamed vocals blends with rather unidentifiable riffing that doesn’t deviate far from it’s fuzzed-out tremolo course until ‘A Toy’ finally breaks the rhythm with sort of a stuttering breakdown, leading into lightning-fast beehive rage of ‘Red Ideology’, and then the mess of Napalm Death covers. It’s really loud, really sloppy, and very simple. It’s grindcore that has the intention to jump in your face, scream and make a ton of noise, then leave angrily and not much else. Like chinese food, it’s fast, iffy on the taste, and generally unfilling after 20 minutes. The gas it leaves behind, I could do without.

I’d have to say the production is really, really bad, genre considered, and the closing cover tunes sound awful. Also of note, the alternating mid-range vocal which serves as a contrast to the screeching yelp sounds terribly close to the voice of Animal from The Muppet Show. You know, that crazy drumming creature with all of 8 words in his vocabulary (if pressed) with only slightly more coordination than Lars Ulrich? That one, except he’s not just drumming, he’s giving us words of wisdom, and without a lyric sheet, your quest to decipher such words could prove quite difficult.

To the point, unless you’re so into grindcore you sleep in footed pajamas with Terrorizer emblazoned on the butt, I doubt you’d miss out on much comfort sleep by missing out on this one. But still, if you’re into this kind of music, the bargain basement production and Neanderthal songwriting might be just what puts you to into dreamland, so maybe check out a track or two unless you have the extra $7 to spare to just splurge and buy the damn disc. It’s up to you, no need to make an essay out of this.

This entry was posted by Dekompoze on Tuesday, 25th April, 2006 at 20:30 and is filed under Reviews, Herman Rarebell. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response below. You may view a   printable version of this page. You may download this page in   PDF format.