Well I must admit the Brits have done it again with another gloriously controversial Death Metal album. FOETAL JUICE (yes that is their name) has a brutal and incredibly heavy Death Metal album that is called Gluttony.
The one thing you can count on from a Death Metal band is controversy and these lads deliver it to the full in this album with just their song titles. Let alone the lyrics to their songs, subject matters and of course artwork. As everyone who listens to Death Metal or is even aware of it; controversy is great no matter the depravity. These lads are continuing the standard of depraved Death Metal with this album from what earlier bands from this country have done before with the likes of CARCASS.
Although having read what these blokes have released prior to this album, it is somewhat tame compared to their earlier releases. They have songs like Semen Evil Smear No Evil, Service Station Masturbation, Big Trouble In Little Vagina, Dutch Oven and the list goes on.
I’m not just writing about the controversial subjects this brilliant band writes about; I will be talking about the song quality on this album, the production quality and the energy the music gives to the listener. I guess I could’ve written a review based on a song-by-song basis but that would be too conventional and dreary.
Well for starters, all the songs on this album are incredibly energetic. It would even make a deaf depressed pensioner play air guitar with their zimmer frames and doing walls of death in their mobility scooters. That’s just how exciting and energetic this album is; if I ever get the chance to see these guys live I am taking it and I urge you all to do the same.
The songs are very well structured and don’t drag on forever. This is especially the case with the songs Venomous Domination, Take Your Face For A Shit, Antagonistic Bastard, Carnage, the title track, in particular Septic Mollusc as it is incredibly fast in tempo and it is the song equivalent of the battle of the bulge in world war 2; explosions left right and centre and incredibly loud and exciting.
The production quality of an album is something that I am very fastidious about as I am a Music Production graduate. For a kick off, you can hear absolutely everything even when the song tempo is the speed of someone giving the roadrunner running enhancement steroids. That’s an essentially brilliant skill for the mixing engineer and producer. If the guys from FOETAL JUICE are reading this, then continue using the producer and mixing engineer for this album as they have done a very superb job. As my qualifications can tell, I am someone who cannot stand inconsistencies with sound quality and listening to this album through my headphones I cannot hear a single one.
Another quality I look for when reviewing an album is when listening to, it is keeping the listener entertained. Again, when listening to a new album, sometimes I find a song that is far too long to listen to because it drags on and on. It can also sound like a band is trying too hard to please everyone by not sounding like the band that attracted their original fans. Honestly FOETAL JUICE are not that kind of band as I can quite honestly listen to this album from start to finish. There are not many albums that can make me do that so congrats on keeping me entertained with it.
To summarise, this is an excellent album and you must buy it even if you don’t listen to Death Metal, you will do the moment you listen to the last song on the album. The songs are incredibly exciting and entertaining to listen to. They are not songs that sound like another band so these guys have their own originality, production wise I cannot find a flaw and you should be proud of that.
Rating: 10/10
Words: Alex Blaza
Gluttony is out now.
Find FOETAL JUICE on Facebook.
