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Gory Blister: Skymorphosis
25/08/11 || Judge Edo
Gory Blister. A rose by any other name, eh? Fuck no! One morning I eagerly jumped out of bed to retrieve a mystery album my friend had sent me. I darted out the door and across the lawn to tear open the bubble wrap, gleefully as a child at Christmas. I gazed into the album art of the second full length from this Italian tech death outfit, my smile replaced by bewilderment, followed by pure unadulterated anger. Standing on my sidewalk exclaiming ‘Are you fucking kidding me? What the fuck is this? Were all the other goddamn band names in the world taken?’ I can tell the neighbors are not pleased as they hurry their children inside their houses. Before I can be put on any sort of neighborhood watch list I run back inside to find some clothes, listen to the album, and find something equally painful to mail back to my friend…probably bees.
Hopefully Gory Blister sounded a lot better in Italian… After all the initial things my brain had to say about the band name I started to concentrate on the music. The opener is a standard instrumental track to set the stage of space travel, or whatever the fuck. After this relatively pointless part the ass kicking begins, and boy, does it kick some ass! This album finds the band with a new singer, who sounds slightly less like late era Chuck Schuldiner, and a production that is much thicker and warmer than their previous album “Art bleeds”.
Another difference is while “Art bleeds” came across as sucking Death’s dick, but in a good way, “Skymorphosis” finds the band venturing out into their own territory while retaining some of that Schuldiner-esque feeling. This album still sees a ton of tempo changes, intricate guitar riffs and shifts in vocals. All these items together might sound like it’s leading to an unfocused self masturbatory jizz-filled cookie of an album, however Gory Blister pulls it off with gusto. It’s tech death, yes, but not similar to, say, Obscura. I mean, I still want to cream my jeans over the technicality but not due to self-fellating guitar mastery, no. It’s the cohesive riffs, the fucking riffs! There’s also a surprising amount of melody crammed into these songs, (“The missing planet”) made even more impressive by the fact that Raff handles all guitar and bass duties in the band. Joe provides tasteful drum fills, excellent double bass and well paced blasting to tie modern and classic death metal together. It’s the bands’ cohesive focus in songwriting, developed in the roughly seven years between albums that makes my pants shrink a few sizes and puts Gory Blister on the map.
Not to say it’s all perfect, for all of arrangements and overall flow of the album there are some jumps to previous riffs that could use some transitions, and the lyrics could have used a once over by a native English speaker: “like a both sides burning candle?” fucking really? Mix in a relatively weak track like “Starfields”, which is just an aimless solo, and the overall score drops a bit.
Still, for the aforementioned shortcomings the album really fucking flows and sucks the listener in, and unlike the man I picked up at the bus depot that ran from my apartment and is surely on his way to the police right now, its worth the 10 dollars to let it fuck your ears. This type of tech death is surprisingly accessible, no fucking doctorate required to determine the time signatures, and enough brief moments of calm to let the listener breathe and get ready for another round of nut-pummeling Italian metal. Despite the terrible fucking name Gory Blister have made another very good album.
- Information
- Released: 2006
- Label: Mascot Records
- Website: www.goryblister.com
- Band
- Adry: vocals
- Raff: guitar, bass
- Joe: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Procession to Apocalypse
- 02. Asteroid
- 03. Sailing to Achernar
- 04. Skymorphosis
- 05. Skin Legacy
- 06. Blood Sweating Wall
- 07. I Shall Hang Myself
- 08. Quasars
- 09. Black Canvas
- 10. The Missing Planet
- 11. Shader
- 12. Starfields
- 13. The Soul-Slitters
- 14. 1000 Eyes
