The Ravenous — Blood Delirium

Death is no fun. Especially when there's torture involved: maiming, mutilation, rape, horror. And of course blood. And pus. And assorted fluids from genital areas. Preferably it has been rotting so that it got smelly. Or maybe it comes fresh, dripping from the gaping wounds.

The Ravenous, a band with members severed from Abscess (Chris Reifert, Clint Bower and Danny Coralles), Necrophagia (Killjoy) and Brutal Truth and Nuclear Assault (Danny Lilker), are a band that sounds like that first paragraph. Their second full-length cd is a slab of outrageous filth, a rancid mess of maggot ridden riffs, hysterical drums and a cacaphony of terrified screams. Some are bloodclots being gargled up from Killjoy's putrid throat, others are taken from horrorflicks. That last element does indeed add something quite disturbing to the already rather psychotic turmoil that The Ravenous manage to concoct. If you're familiar with the background of these people you know what to expect to an extent, but Blood Delirium adds a new level to the game.

As an audioexperience I like this very much. You actually feel it tingling in your bowels and makes you cringe to hear those panicking screams. In fact: all instruments sounds like they are on the rack and being pierced by sharp as well as blunt objects. Like music that goes under the banner of death metal should. The band took their horrormania one step further though, and hooked up with Toetag Productions for the pseudo-snuff movie August Underground's Mordum. For me that wasn't necessary. I love horror- and zombiemovies, but I prefer it to be unrealistic. Fantasy. Even the suggestion of it being real is a step too far. The video that's included on the CD doesn't make me eager to see the movie.

Where much death metal is trimmed down, freshly shaven and coiffeured into maybe hard pounding but still nice and tidy blastfests, The Ravenous bring back chaos and disorder. It's not about tight riffing, flashy solo's or solid blasts, it's about chaos, gore and 'psychedeathic' madness, you won't find it much sicker.