Couple Skate - "Tales From The Corpse" (2015) Review

Man, there was a lot of talk and anticipation floating around the release of this lil' ol 7" record. Personally I was looking forward to hearing this new Couple Skate EP for a couple years. Their vocalist Kyle Schroeder has been a musical commrade of mine from afar for a long time. And knowing him, I was pretty instinctually positive that "Tales From The Corpse" would be good. Couple Skate is a mince/gore trio from Lima, Ohio and has been spreading the gore gospel for a couple solid years. Their debut vinyl EP, "Tales From The Corpse", was finally released towards the end of 2015, thanks in part to over half a dozen labels.

Now generally, if you're in a goregrind band, you will generally be pulling from one of two sides of influences. The side that goes for more of a "riff composed", polka beat/blast ridden, deathy and raw approach (Regurgitate, Dead Infection, early Carcass, Maggut, Squash Bowels, etc). Or the even more raw, noise guitar, toilet vocal, structureless, blast abuse side (Last Days of Humanity, Anal Birth (gorenoise), Inopexia, Phyllomedusa, among countless others). While all these artists are more then likely adored by the members of Couple Skate, the old-school sounds are proudly in their music. They've taken the bold step to actually steer away from the easier latter half and make Couple Skate *gasp* a band. With some real *wait for it* lyrics, and write some *omg* sick riffs! And they do it very well I might add. Look at that, my gut was right. Always trust the organs.

Couple Skate do not set out to revolutionize any part of the goregrind genre on "Tales From The Corpse". You know whatcha gonna get, and they give it to you in every way you could like. All twelve and a half minutes of this EP are incredibly solid and fun. A perfectly balanced amount of super blasting and gore stomping grooves. The classic riffs and chord progressions we've heard hundreds of times are here, and played well. There's Regurgitate and Agathocles worship in abundance. Thankfully they do manage to sneak in a couple real attention grabbings riffs that remind me a lot of Internal Rot. Side B is definitely my favorite side of the record. The opener "Abra Cadaver" has all the fun of a good Rompeprop or Rectal Smegma track. And something about all the songs afterwords just generally sound more savage and aggressive then the flip side of the record. The quantity of samples used is surprisingly very low and used well, and overall the EP sounds very good. Counting the fact that it was recorded on a cassette 4track. The drums, one of my favorite parts of grind, are just a tad too low in the mix which is a shame. I can't hear that snare go BOOM BOOM PANG!

Plenty of people had their hands in putting this out. You got a lot of options and places to pick a copy up from! No excuses! Also let's get more bands to stick three or more variations of their logo on their record sleeves. More!

You should check this out, I give it a solid, necrotic thumbs up!

LINK TO LISTEN: Here!

~VII

Ladies and Gentlemen; Phyllomedusa

I admit, I'm not what you would call a scholar on the "gorenoise" genre, but I do recognize it when I hear it, and it certainly takes a lot for me to take time out of my day to do a full article about one band who plays this style. If I'm doing that, you know that this shit's worth checking out. So all that being said, Phyllomedusa! The sickest one-man gorenoise project out of Baltimore, Maryland that your likely to hear, with one of the coolest logos I've ever seen.

Tons of things to talk about from this dude. For one, his discography is MASSIVE. About 70+ releases since 2007 according to his Facebook page, so it could be a bit intimidating knowing where to start. Fortunately, pretty much everything I've heard by him brings the same level of noisy destruction. For the beginners though, I'd say check out the album "Crepitate In Raorchestes Idiom". It's one of his more "polished" records, but that's still sounds very reminiscent to albums like "Putrefaction in Progress" by Last Days Of Humanity. But like, you know, kinda better. A brutal cover of "Phllautus Elimination" by F.I.D is included on there, it rips. 

Phyllomedusa also takes the "animals > humans" aesthetic, which is nothing new, as anyone familiar with bands like Animals Killing People or Cattle Decapitation can attest. However, I've never seen a grind band like this dedicate their whole schtick to one species in particular, in this case, frogs! Those cute little guys are the main inspiration here, and saving them from a grisly death by human hands is the mission. It may seem a little gimmicky, but everything from the song titles, to the concepts behind the albums seem amazingly genuine, and you're more than likely to learn a thing or two if you actually take the time to look up the meanings to these songs. Aside from that, there's a lot of cool frog-based artwork to go along with the albums. 

I know that Phyllomedusa isn't going to be for everyone, but I really do think this dude is making some killer jams, and I know that if you dig into his discography enough, you'll find something you'll like. Fans of grind, gore and noise music should find a lot to like here. I highly recommend the albums "Birdkiller", "Been Caught Herping" and the aforementioned "Crepitate In Raorchestes Idiom" as good starting points. Check out his blog, where he has all his releases available for download, with descriptions about each one included, and give him a "like" on facebook. 

~VII