Exclusive: The Secret CIA Plot To Break Up Slayer
The note under my door said “Meet at 3 AM in the parking garage behind the Waffle House.” I’d received notes like this before and, usually, they either led to great information or some guy in nothing but a trenchcoat asking me if I wanted to hold hands and whisper Carpenters lyrics into each other’s ears. Typically, these messages came from my high level contact in the CIA, a man who will only let me refer to him in public as Deep Thrombosis. He’s worked in The Company for many years and has put me onto some of the bigger stories Tyranny of Tradition has broken. He was the guy who tipped me off to Obama’s drumming on the first Overkill album and Nixon’s plot to assassinate the members of Black Sabbath. I knew that a night meeting with Deep Thrombosis could be the thing that gets me that Pulitzer Prize I’ve been coveting all these years or even a date with The Great Kat. However, I was not prepared for the monumental significance of what he was about to tell me.
“Tonight, we are going to pull back the curtain,” whispered Deep Thrombosis while his shifty, beady eyes darted from side to side. “The information I’m about to give you could bring down the whole circus. If you print it, be warned, there is a good chance you will end up having a ‘boating accident’ or accidently hanging yourself while trying to install a garage door opener. And for godsakes, if you print this, you need to promise not to mention you got it from a source in the CIA! They’ll be able to track it back to me.”
“I will absolutely not mention how I got this information,” I told my CIA source. “I swear it!”
He proceeded to tell me the most outlandish story I had ever heard. A story of violence, intrigue and a CIA so out of control that it would go so far as to break up one of the great thrash metal groups of our time.
“The Company had heard some rumors that the next Slayer album was going to be all about drone strikes on Al-Queda bases. The thing was going to be called “South of Reason”. Typical longhaired hippie liberal propaganda. We’d have let Limbaugh handle them except they were going to reveal potential bombing coordinates, out some of our higher level agents, and really turn the metalhead public against the whole ‘secret murder of civilians who have had no trial’ thing. We couldn’t let it happen. So we took action.”
“The first part of the plan was to kidnap Kerry King and replace him with an actor who resembled Kerry King. We have a guy who has done some jobs with us in the past who was a dead ringer for King, a sort of grubby, misshapen fellow who slightly resembled a poorly shaven yeti. We scooped up the real Kerry and threw him into Guantanamo and told the guards he was actually Osama Bin Laden’s masseuse and to ‘not torture him’ until he gave us any information on the whereabouts of the secret terrorist training camps in Iceland.”
“The guy we are using as Kerry almost gave the thing away during the first show. He played three or four really great solos, which confused the audience. Luckily, one of our agents got ahold of him and told him to haphazardly move his whammy bar around really fast when it was his turn to solo and no one would know the difference. Things went fine after that.”
“We had the fake Kerry plant a robot spider containing a laboratory made virus to bite Hanneman and keep him out of action for a while. We slipped a mind-altering substance into one of Araya’s drinks and, through the power of suggestion, convinced him to start listening to Asking Alexandria. We figured this would jam up any creativity that was flowing through his head. Then, we gave a copy of the band’s financial information to Lombardo. The rest is history.”
“It was our best work since we got rid of Mossedegh in Iran in ’53. Or Arbenz in Guatemala in ’54. Or Allende in Chile in ’73. Or….well, you get the point.”
“The thing is, I’ve begun to realize that this sort of thing is dangerous. After all, if the CIA can destroy Slayer or overthrow the government of a foreign country or randomly kill civilians who happened to be in the same vicinity as people we believe to be terrorists without the consent of the American people, then what is the point of even calling our country a democracy. I started thinking of what a soulless, unaccountable beast like the CIA could do if it really put its mind to it. Forcing Exodus to do a ska album? Getting Testament to hire Michael Bolton as their lead singer? Letting Janick Gers write all the songs on the next Maiden record? The possibilities were too horrible to consider.”
“So, I have chosen you to help put a stop to this. Publish this article tomorrow and remind America that in a democracy, the government needs to be accountable to the people or else they have ceased being a democracy. That transparency is the only thing that can keep us from becoming a nation capable of any atrocity in the name of opening new markets and exploiting new sources of human capital. That America should stand for something greater than the principal of bending other, weaker nations to our will. And that Slayer should start writing stuff that sounds more like it did before Divine Intervention, because honestly, the new stuff hasn’t been all that impressive. Except for God Hates Us All. That was pretty cool.”
I heard the sound of a car door slam in the corner of the garage and turned to look at it. When I looked back, Deep Thrombosis was gone.
Gorguts to Guest Star On Thursday Night’s Episode of The Honeymooners
They are Canada’s favorite technical death metal band and now they are set to appear on CBS’ hit television show The Honeymooners. Gorguts, those wild and crazy Quebecean death metallers who burst on the scene in 1993 with their Top 40 hit “Orphans of Sickness”, will become the first band ever to appear on the show. Honeymooners star Jackie Gleason is a huge fan of the band who claims to have listened to the album Obscura over 400 times in a row when it was released. Gleason, who became a fan when Considered Dead was released in 1991, said in a recent interview that no band he knows of “has been able to link the primal, bestial rage in the human soul with such profound, technical craftsmanship.”
The episode titled “Hey, Hey Luc Lemay, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?” was filmed on Monday afternoon in front of a live studio audience. The story is thought to be one of the more experimental Honeymooners episodes, although by no means as surreal as the episode where Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton are trapped in the stomach of a moose.
It begins with a knock on the door from a shady, elderly man played by Sir John Gielgud, the elderly British actor known for his stirring performance as the butler in the movie Arthur. Gielgud introduces himself as “Luther” and hands Alice Kramden a box. He tells her she has three wishes once she opens the box, but should be careful what she wishes for.
After the man leaves, Alice and Ralph tear the box open only to find the paw of a monkey with a bow around it. Ralph holds up the paw and wishes for enough money to never have to work again. Suddenly, a box appears on their coffee table. Ralph opens it and is stunned by piles of hundred dollar bills. However, he is appalled to realize that in the box is also the severed head of his neighbor Ed Norton (played by the loveable Art Carney).
In spite of the beheading of Ed, they decide they are glad to have gotten the money and decide to make another wish. This time Alice holds the paw up and wishes that she could get the chance to see Gorguts live for the first time. Immediately, there is a knock on the door and the band appears. They run around the house smashing the furniture and throwing food at each other. Singer Luc Lemay knocks Ralph to the ground and tries to force him to swallow mustard until he chokes. Meanwhile, guitarist Kevin Hufnagel destroys Ralph’s favorite bowling trophy by attempting to play a solo from “Rottenatomy” using the trophy as a guitar pick. Finally, Alice has had enough. She holds up the paw and screams, “I wish Gorguts would go away!!!!!”
With that, the band disappears and the archangel Gabriel appears on top of the dining room table blowing his horn. Ralph, covered in mustard, launches into a recital of a Willie Loman monologue from Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” while Alice begins to grow a teeth out of the side of her face. The episode ends with Ed’s head rolling onto the floor and the entire cast, including the head, launching into an impromptu version of the song “Officer Krupke” from the musical West Side Story.
Gorguts appearance on The Honeymooners is not the first appearance of a metal band on a major television show. Who could forget the time Anthrax rocked out on Married With Children? Or the time Immolation played “Into Everlasting Fire” with Ricky Ricardo’s band on I Love Lucy? Gorguts’ appearance on The Honeymooners is certain to rank as one of the most entertaining and important moments in television history.
Researchers Link “Slayer Obsession” To Food Allergies
John Murphy At A Slayer Concert After Consuming 12 Jars of Pickle Juice
In a surprising study done by Johns Hopkins University, a direct connection has been found between being obsessed with the heavy metal band Slayer and consumption of certain classes of food. Slayer Obsession, known in medical parlance as Human Epiglottal Lymphogranuloma Lychosis or HELL, has been known to effect two in every three Slayer fans at least one time in their lives. In more serious cases of Slayer Obsession, a diet rich in certain classes of carbohydrates and proteins has been linked to symptoms as serious as the need to carve the band’s name into a person’s arm, the desire to write “SLAYER” on random Facebook message threads or even the overwhelming need to write the lyrics to “Dead Skin Mask” and other Slayer songs on inappropriate places such as church pews or children’s foreheads.
One food, unsurprisingly, that can cause Slayer addiction is barley, commonly found in beer. As many as 4 in 10 beer drinkers find themselves with mild to serious cases of HELL.
What is shocking are the other types of food that can lead to this disorder. The researchers found that people who consume more than 12 ounces of butter per day were found to frequently listen to the album “Seasons in the Abyss” for between 6 and 8 hours in an evening. Consumption of cucumbers or cottage cheese can lead to the desire to lock oneself in a room and listen to nothing but “South of Heaven” for entire weekends at a time.
The real stunner was that pickle juice is a major contributor to the disorder. Apparently pryotophan, an amino acid found in pickle juice will, in almost all cases, lead to immediate bouts of HELL and a nearly mindless sense of euphoria. Many fans at fans Slayer shows, who have recently been seen consuming entire containers of the water in pickle jars, have found themselves running wildly around in circles and running into one an other in a symptom that doctors refer to as “moshing”. Some Slayer fans have even taken to smoking and free basing pickles before shows in order to get the desired effect.
While doctors for years have believed that only the love of Jesus Christ or a good woman could help HELL sufferers, the Johns Hopkins research team believes that eating certain things can help cure the disorder. One such food is potting soil. According to their study, eating 9 ounces of mineral rich potting soil per day can lead a sharp decrease in the need to listen to Slayer. They also recommend eating at least 3 servings of donkey spleen per week.
For sufferers of this disorder, the future may seem bleak. They may feel powerless over their obsessions and symptoms. However, a diet rich in dirt and donkey parts can ensure that, in fact, HELL does not await.
Lemmy Has Surgery To Remove Both Livers; Plays Concert That Night
Lemmy On Stage Hours After Liver Removal Surgery
For most people, having one liver removed is a torturous affair that leaves them with months of painful recovery. Yesterday afternoon, Lemmy Kilmister became the first man to ever have both livers removed at the same time. The marathon 6-hour surgery was followed by a half hour of recovery, dinner at a local bar and a 2-hour set of classic Motorhead tunes in at The Rock Center, a metal club in downtown Pocatello, Idaho.
Doctors advised Lemmy to take at least three months off from performing, but his commitment to playing heavy metal was too great to hold him back. “I didn’t want to let the fans in Idaho down. After all, what do they really have to live for beyond the occasional concert? They live in Idaho for god sakes,” said Lemmy this morning during his 3-hour weightlifting session.
Lemmy is no stranger to overcoming medical emergencies and soldiering on. Everyone is, of course, familiar with the time that in 1983 in Antwerp, Belgium he was mauled on stage by 15 pit bulls and continued to play his bass in spite of missing 9 fingers. Who could forget the time the Chinese government accidentally detonated a nuclear bomb at a test facility 1,000 meters away from a Motorhead concert in Shanghai in 1988? Everyone within a radius of 12 miles was killed except Lemmy, who went on to play the entire Orgasmatron album from beginning to end to an arena filled with annihilated corpses. However, because of Lemmy’s advanced age, going on stage after a surgery of this type may be his greatest feat.
Doctors are baffled as to how a man who has done so much damage to his body continues to exist. There were rumors as recently as 2003 that he was killed and replaced by a Lemmy-like robot, but several doctors have done independent tests to prove that he is a human. Their was also rampant speculation that Lemmy has regularly been shooting the DNA of famed Russian monk Rasputin directly into his arm in the hopes of becoming indestructible forever, but this also has not been confirmed. Some researchers have reasoned that it is possible that consuming the amount of Jack Daniels that he has ingested over his lifetime has actually made his body impervious to harm of any kind. Regardless of what his secret is, it is very possible that Lemmy cannot be destroyed by traditional means and will live on well into the next millennium.
MTV to Manowar: “We’re Sorry About All The False Metal”
In an unexpected move, MTV and their parent company Viacom today issued an apology to the metal band Manowar for what they referred to as “crimes against true heavy metal”. Kurt Jamerson, MTV’s Vice President of the Council on Metalhead Affairs, issued a short statement thanking Manowar for their commitment to “keeping it real” all these years and refusing to play on anything below 10. “At first, MTV started with the best intentions, but soon, our programming became a hodgepodge of hair metal and, eventually, rap metal. We left no room for artists who were committed to true metal in its most pure, unsullied form. For this we are deeply sorry.”
While MTV did acknowledge that it had shows like Headbanger’s Ball where some true metal was played it admitted that for every one true metal song they played viewers would see “Talk Dirty To Me” by Poison or “Cherry Pie” by Warrant over a thousand times. According to statistics revealed by MTV, the network’s true to false metal ratio was as high as 1 to 100,000, an unacceptable number for a network who prides itself on being on the cutting edge of music. After years of extensive lobbying by Manowar, the network has admitted its mistake.
In the press conference following the announcement, Jamerson, who has been with the network for 24 years recalled “I remember getting a letter from Manowar. The one they talk about in the song Blow Your Speakers. It was a sheet of paper that had the words ‘What’s going on, man. Don’t you care about me’ scrawled on it in barely legible handwriting. Below it was a childlike drawing of Thor driving his hammer into the head of Vince Neil. I was deeply touched by the words and picture. I realized that, as a network, we’d been playing on about 7. That day, I swore an oath to one day get the network to admit its faults.”
MTV has no plans to follow the announcement by adding more true metal to their programming. Instead, they announced in the same press conference that they plan on extending the series Jersey Shore to a 6th season. Jersey Shore, along with several other programs featuring highly intoxicated, perplexed looking white kids wearing their pants too low, currently comprise 20 of the network’s 24 hours of daily programming.
Many industry analysts have speculated that the announcement was part of a settlement with Manowar. The band had brought a 523 billion dollar lawsuit against the network for being “posers”, but the lawsuit was unexpectedly dropped last Friday. During the press conference, MTV offered each member of Manowar a Whitman’s Sampler, but there is no evidence that money changed hands. The True Metal Reparations Movement, created by Manowar to heal historical injustices against the armies of true metal, still claims to be at war with most of the major rock radio stations in America for being “losers who better learn that no one controls our goddamn lives.”
Whatever the outcome of the trial, Manowar have vowed to not stop until the armies of true metal triumph over the years of historical oppression. “When Odin is in the Valley of Doom and Slepnir rides across the starry, blood filled skies, those who did not sell out and wear polyester suits or other crackerjack clothes will be redeemed,” read bassist Joey Demaio’s lawyer, Abraham Freidman, in a written statement given at the MTV press event. “No one can tell us that we must turn down…..NO ONE. No one can tell us that we do not control the night……NO ONE. We are the immortals. We have won a great victory for metal that is real today. Tomorrow, we conquer the world!”
Free Market Anatomy
The Silent Majority
Right Lung, you work hard everyday to move oxygen into the blood stream. I often find myself thinking that right lungs are the hardest working organs in the body. What you do is a thankless job. You are one of the good, hardworking organs. Many of the other “piker” organs like the liver, the pancreas and the embarrassingly lazy appendix spend their days lollygagging around and benefiting from all the sweat and toil you put in. They reap the same benefits as you for one tenth of the work. Now I ask you, is that fair?
What do you get for all your labor….nothing. Bossed around all day by the Brain. Sure, the Brain sits up there enjoying the good life while you pump oxygen 24 hours a day without a break. Only like 10 percent of the Brain even does anything, Lung. But it feels entitled to tell you what to do? Who gives it the right? The Brain thinks it knows everything, but let it spend ten minutes trying to convert angiotensin I to angiotensin II. Puh-lease!
The Brain wastes all this time consulting with different useless departments like the cerebellum, the parietal lobe and the frontal lobe all the while using the precious oxygen that you generously provide it with. Sipping coffee and making policy decisions while you pump away. Enforcing its sadistic code of anatomical correctness. They redistribute your oxygen to every organ regardless of how hard they work and you get nothing but the short end of the trachea. What is your reward for all of your effort? Nothing but lectures on how you should produce more oxygen just because the body is running or underwater. You go under appreciated while the other organs bask in the rewards of your effort.
Right Lung, I want you to know that there is another way to live. I’m not sure if you are aware of this but the body is essentially a communistic system. All the organs benefit equally, no matter how important their contribution is. What is your incentive to work harder than say, the Left Lung? As we all know, human nature clearly shows us that we can only be happy if we are pitted against each other in bloodthirsty competition for control of all of the vital resources of the body. Cooperation between the organs has left the lazy viscera sitting pretty while the diligent, enterprising ones do all the work.
Instead of allowing this madness to continue, I propose we move towards an “every organ for itself” system. If one lung produces oxygen really well, I say why punish it for being good at its job? It should be allowed to keep as much of the oxygen as it makes. This way all of the weaker organs will die off and the strong ones will be left to create a better body, without free-riding, parasitic entrails. Let’s face it, you will not be free until the body stops coddling the slothful and the shiftless. A truly free market anatomy promises each organ will be judged on its merit as an individual and not held back from producing and consuming anything it wants. When the body stops forcing all of the organs to work together in some socialistic form of “harmony” and begins to compensate organs for what they contribute and no more, then, and only then will we be free.
Manowar Secedes From United States Over Obama’s “False Metal Agenda”
Into Guam Ride
In a stunning, utterly asinine move, legendary metal band Manowar, frustrated with the false metal policies of the Obama administration, seceded from the United States this morning. President Obama has recently made several decisions that have angered the Anti-False Metal Community including vetoing a bill that would have mandated life prison sentences for anyone caught with a Staind or Nickleback album and brought back the guillotine for anyone convicted of knowing the name of more than one Stryper song.
Obama, who had promised a poser free America by 2020, also recently scrapped plans to create a Department of True Metal. According to Manowar frontman Eric Adams, “This False Metal President came to Washington promising change. If your idea of change is watching the Olsen Twins running around in Master of Puppets shirts or hearing that stupid Pumped Up Kicks song on the radio 42 times a day, then you are not my friend.”
Adams and the current lineup of the band have claimed the island of Guam “in the name of real, serious, true, genuine, honest, authentic, unquestionable, forthright, unfeigned, irrefutable, unambiguous, steadfast, bona fide, resolute, unaffected, substantive, uncontrived, headbanging metal”. Guam will be a refuge for frustrated metalheads, tired of living in a world where even a new Morbid Angel album can bring shame and despair.
Residents of Guam, mostly unaware of the change in leadership, had mixed reaction to the news. Some Guamites saw the news as a hopeful sign. “Hopefully Manowar can rid us of our recent infestation of Coconut Rhinoceros Beetles. If they can do that, I’m all for this” said Arturo Gratame, a farmer in the city of Yona. Others, like resturaunt owner Moru Calvo were deeply upset by the change. “They’ve written about one good song since Triumph of Steel. Now we are going to trust our lives and property to them. I don’t think so!”
Most Congressmen either didn’t know who Manowar was or were annoyed to be asked ridiculous questions while busy not passing any piece of important legislation to alleviate suffering caused by the stagnant American economy. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seemed particularly hostile to the secession of Manowar. “Like I don’t have enough to deal with already. What the hell are they talking about? Manowar isn’t a country. They are a band. They can’t secede from the United States. And they certainly can’t have Guam. We have military bases there. They can’t just take it over cause they are pissed off that Metallica did that stupid record with Lou Reed or because there are too many mallgoths. It’s unacceptable.”
Adams, who arrived in Guam this morning on a flying golden chariot, dismissed Senator Reid’s comments as “the typical posturing of someone who secretly listens to Maroon 5 albums in his basement while reading Cosmopolitan Magazine and wearing a pink taffeta gown. Reid wouldn’t make it through one song at a Manowar concert before his entrails would be consumed by The Army of Immortals.”
Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry, who once also threatened to have Texas secede from the Union, compared Manowar’s plight to the South during The Civil War. “I can understand the frustration those boys feel. They are sick and tired of being pushed around by federal government, just like the South felt when they rose up and rebelled against President John F. Kennedy and the North in the Civil War. I hope they are successful. After all, Guam is currently being run by socialists.”
The band is currently meeting on a mountaintop overlooking the village of Santa Rita awaiting instructions from Odin on how to proceed. Joey DeMaio, the band’s bassist and spiritual leader, believes they will successfully conquer Guam in a few days in spite of the fact that they will probably have to subdue the mighty U.S. Navy in order to do it. “I will crack the whip with a bold, mighty hail,” pronounced DeMaio as bolts of lightning shot from his sword. “The earth will probably drink much blood today, but it shall not be ours. We shall ride into glory….because…..WE………..ARE THE METAL KINGS!!!!!!!”
Califivenia Dreaming
The Clown Prince of Denmark....A Grenine Dane
One of the great comedy bits ever concocted is Victor Borge’s famed “inflationary language” sketch. Borge, the brilliant Danish pianist and comedian, devised a way of inflating the value of each word that has a number in it by taking the number and adding one. Thus, the constitution becomes the constitthreesion, lieutenant becomes lieuelevenant, tulips become threelips and on and on. Utterly hysterical.
While Borge’s idea is a comedic masterpiece, I wonder if he didn’t happen to luck into a fantastic way of creating a more precise version of the English language. We live in a world where hyperbole is commonplace. Both a grilled cheese sandwich and a beautiful, once in a lifetime sunset can both be referred to as “wonderful”. The listener is left to determine from context clues and body language which wonderful is more wonderful. But, these bits of evidence can be misleading and in a text-based situation like the internet, one can easily miss the difference between the commonplace “wonderful” and the nearly spiritual “wonderful”.
Borge has unwittingly given us a solution. Numbers combined with language can help us find a more precise answer to the deeper meaning of many words. So, the excellent grilled cheese that you consumed for lunch can be “threetaful” or two points better than wonderful. The sunset which brought tears to your eyes is much more likely “tentaful”, a full nine points better than the original. In this way, once can clearly discern the differences between a great sandwich and a magnificent experience of nature’s wonder (or tender in this case).
Think of all the miscommunications this could clear up. If someone produces a really quality work of art it could be called a great “creatention”, a true masterpiece would be much more along the lines of a “creafifteention” and the best piece of art you’ve ever come across might well be a “creathirtytion” or even a “creainfinitytion”. Think of how much additional joy your neighbors will feel during the holidays when you complement them on their “sixtaful decortwelvetions”
It could work in either direction, too. Let’s say you meet someone you have a serious romantic interest in and make an offer to become better acquainted. There is no ambiguity in that person telling you, “No, I don’t want to go over your house and negativeonenicate.” In that case, it’s clear she’s not being coy and any sort of future inquiries should be made elsewhere.
In literature, there are serious possibilities as well. A writer could be given the gift of being able to explain complex circumstances in one word. A character with a ridiculously pronounced area between his eyebrows and his hairline could simply be described as a person with an “eighthead”. A character maimed by a poorly performed birth ritual could be quickly noted as someone with a problem with his “twoskin”. A character who is overly honest could be referred to as being “seventhright”. No fuss, no muss. Think of the efficiency.
Five us four fully understand each other it is a greytwelve skill six learn. When we creaeighteen a more precise language much of the twentytion that arises from miscommunications will be mitigtened. Face it, our current language is assafive.
Here’s Borge’s original bit…..
Barely Awake Finnegan
You wandered aimlessly or aimed wondrously
Or maybe both
Or maybe neither
About thyme to waist or maybe just Rosemary’s two thighs
An English major who was not general enough to become an English Major
You wonder if you are nothing but sheep just as ewes wonder if they are nothing but sheep
As they graze off into the distance
But sheep sleep
And dream of themselves jumping over fences
Or maybe neither
(!!!!You probably think that runny eggs are out of shape because they never come out of their shells!!!!!!)
Just as a pastor eyes milk
(Or at least two percent do)
As worms learn to hate silk
(Which we hope isn’t true)
Can a ewe eschew this sort of snafu?
(Or at least creatures of their ilk)
Or maybe neither
My unorthodox friend went to see his uncle in Antioch
(But not his aunt in Uncleoch?!?!?)
Because he is pro-Constantinople
But he can’t wholly see, you see!
Or maybe neither
Kids today I tell you…..
(They grow up to be goats)
Ant live with them……
(Ants ruin a picnic)
Or maybe neither
(!!!!!Are you moving the puppet or is the puppet moving you?????)
A tail wagging a dog
(Told by a mongrel)
Somewhere in Missouri
(Signifying nothing)
Or maybe neither
Mambo #5 In Z-Flat Minor: Dissecting Carcass’ Oxidized Razor Masticator
Editors note: Tyranny of Tradition is honored to be visited by guest writer and world-renowned grindcore expert Dr. Shawn “Von Deathmetal” Jobe. Shawn received his doctorate from the prestigious Millard Fillmore School of Grindcore Studies at Yale University. Dr. Von Deathmetal has just emerged from seven years on a mountaintop in Tibet continuously listening to Brutal Truth’s Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses in the hopes of gaining spiritual enlightenment. Dr. Von Deathmetal has also been on the forefront of the medical movement to use grindcore to help reduce migraines and plantar warts. He is a Pisces whose hobbies include juggling squirrels and playing canasta.
Reek Of Putrefaction,the 1988 release from Carcass, is easily one of the most misunderstood albums ever recorded. Before Carcass became actual musicians and wrote some of the greatest riffs in the history of metal, they created their first album. Bill Steer, getting a fresh start after his tenure in Napalm Death joined short-lived vocalist Sanjiv and Ken Owen. Jeff Walker eventually took over on bass & vocals.
Trying to one-up his former noisemongers (one can only assume), Steer & co. entered a quaint studio fit for wealthy canines of the feminine sort in December of 1987 with 83 guitars, 12 bass guitars, a drum kit, 2 tornadoes, and 7 or 8 car crashes, depending on who you ask. The end result? The Reek Of Putrefaction. On the surface, it is cacophony of the highest measure, with all the melody of a combat tank rolling through landmine infested terrain. However, once you’ve stripped it down and have peeled back all of the layers, you soon discover that it was England’s answer to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run” album.
Oxidized Razor Masticator
Chomping and splicing, your gums sliced to shreds
Tattered bloody ribbons, incisored skin is shred
Scraping on sore teeth, cracking and chipping
Shredding and mincing raw nerve endings
Salivating – sanguis, phlegm, froth and foam
Masticating – your mandible stripped to the bone
Mangling your tongue, bloody torn and dripping
The swollen savage muscle frayed and blistering
Your vocal chords severed, your lips are mutilated
Masticating carved palate as your mouth is grated
Only raw gargles croak from your throat
A trickling death-rasp as you choke
A silly grin carved from ear to ear
Spurting mucus and tongue as your wind-pipe tears
Gaping and sore
The rusty razors bore
Skin hangs and seeps
Peptic ulcers bleed
Your mouth is a sea of cartilage, rabid saliva bleeds
Swallowing shredded tongue and pulverized, crunching teeth
Respirating a bolus of rusty razor blades
“Oxidized Razor Masticator”, unlike the album’s more eloquent tracks, lacks philosophical ambiguity. It was simply Carcass taking a few moments to set things straight. Rumors began to circulate that Carcass members were vegetarians. This was not due, however, to their love of vegetables, but rather their willingness to ingest anything that was not beef, pork, etc.
This hideous buffet included oxidized razors. Nowhere can you find the use of this method more upfront than the blood-gargling vocals in the second verse here. Clearly practitioners of what they preached, Carcass were said to have owned stock in the Gillette Corporation, and later on, the Mach series of blades were inspired by the fast pace of the band’s music.
The song starts off with a veritable ‘how-to’ take on grindcore vocalizing with the Step One of “Chomping and splicing, your gums sliced to shreds.” From that point on, they lay out the instructional manual for every goregrind band that would enter the scene for the next 20+ years. From General Surgery to County Medical Examiners. From (early) Exhumed to Lymphatic Phlegm. The entire subgenre owes their vocal assault to the clearly printed lyrics to this song. “Your mouth is a sea of cartilage, rabid saliva bleeds – Swallowing shredded tongue and pulverized, crunching teeth.” Indeed, lads. Indeed.
