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Welcome To The Gore Show |
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Review by Alex Grindor on April 25, 2025.
Have you ever read about female praying mantis? In case you haven't, they are known for engaging in what men of science describe as "sexual cannibalism", where the female (obviously) decapitates and devours her mating partner during or after copulation. Studies suggest that they may engage in this particular cannibalistic behavior so that the female has access to nutrients and thus, increased egg production. While not all males are killed by their partners, very rarely those that fight back survive this mating ritual.
Why would I bother with this out-of-nowhere explanation in an album review? Simple; imagine that you are the male mantis, and the female mantis is an eldritch abomination with the speech pattern of a child. And instead of killing you herself, she will offer you post-coitus to a life-consuming flesh-made entity. That is Kōbi No Gishiki, Ukakuja's latest album and a jarring experience that, like its predecessor, demands your unfaltering attention for it to be enjoyed as best as possible. Once again, this amalgamation of artists from various projects, all under the flag of Centipede Abyss, have reunited to spawn a new sonic maelstrom of jarring discordance that leaves barely any room to breathe in its composition.
Every instrument is chaotic on its own, but together, they are an abrasive maelstrom that never stops. While the sound is raw, it still retains enough clarity for all of them to shine through, even if they choose to go in opposite directions at times. All of this coupled with atmospheric synths soaked in reverb that elevates their work, while creating this "cosmic void" sensation throughout the whole record, as it was in their debut. There are, however, some moments across this record that resemble a regular, cohesive song, only for it to go down the drain mere moments after. It is something that rarely happens but those moments will take you completely by surprise. This constant twisting and clashing of elements refuses to budge, making Ukakuja's work one that either interests you from the start, or one that you'll reject completely after a while.
Of course, no work is complete without vocals, and this is Ukakuja's forte. Once again on vocal duties is the great Lori Bravo, whose performance outdoes all she did back in Ōmukade and is on par with everything she has ever done throughout her career. On Ukakuja's debut, Lori was more of a "big guest" on the album, accompanied by a plethora of vocalists from various bands that actually sang lyrics, while Lori's shrieks and howls where interspersed in different tracks, her performance still being a strong point in Ōmukade. On Kōbi No Gishiki though, Lori takes control of the entire vocals duties and it is a dramatic, jarring vocal performance she delivers. Her vocal duties serve as the conduct for the disturbing narrative made in the lyrics; an unending mating ritual by some freak abomination that mates, feeds, kills and repeats. Her sire given to "The Corpse Tree" (a callback to the days of Nuclear Death) and her devouring of her kin to begin the cycle anew, with the album ending as abruptly as it started to represent this looping narrative. Believe me when I say Lori's performance is... uncomfortable at moments.
Yet again, Ukakuja has crafted an uncomfortable experience driven by a horrific narrative, all executed by complete maniacs at what they do and making sure that we feel as uncomfortable and disturbed as the work they are presenting. Kōbi No Gishiki is a trip into unending horrors that refuses to give in to any musical convention, while throwing false hints of possible normalcy that are shattered in mere moments. It is a short (20 minutes) but horrific experience of twisted guitars, shifting basslines, blasting drums and cosmic synths that clash and mesh with no predictable outcome, repeating this cacophony until She is satisfied. And She is never satisfied.
The male mantis can survive the female's mating ritual. No one will survive Ukakuja's Kōbi No Gishiki.
9.1 out of 10
808ViewsReview by Faithless on March 11, 2020.
There is an idiomatic expression that says 'straight from the horse´s mouth' which means to take something directly from the main source or get something from the primal source. Well, I think the guys from Anarkhon took this term very seriously and literally when recording their 2013 album Welcome to the Gore Show. We can even modify the idiom and change it for “straight from the corpse's mouth”.
One thing is to worship the sound of a band that let a profound mark in a musician's influence to play an instrument. For instance, many bands say their sound is influenced by x or y band but at the end is just a marketing or a bad ass reference, 90 % of bands and record labels (at least in metal scene) do that. To say that you sound like Morbid Angel, Obituary, Entombed or Venom is part of selling your product to the public but to really sound like one of those bands is another story. Take Cannabis Corpse as an example. They do worship CC but in a more parodical way in which elements are taken from the source but transformed and legitimized with their own talent and humor. So, back to my argument again, one thing is to say you sound like and another different thing is to actually do. And one thing is to worship a sound and something abysmally different is to copy directly or plagiarize.
In Anarkhon case is that they copy directly from many song structures of Cannibal Corpse around the Gallery of Suicide / Bloodthirst era and that fact make this album a very amusing but repetitive listen. I am not writing this review from a CC fan boy perspective that is angry because my favorite band is being copied, not at all. I'm just being critical and I like to praise bands that deserve it for their talent but whenever I see lack of passion or originality it has to be said. Thus, I am not going track by track in this review, it would be a futile exercise. Instead, I will mention different aspects that make this album a copycat.
Starting with the guitar tone and riffs which are taken directly from the CC records mentioned above. The most extreme cases of this type of plagiarism, sorry, I mean worship are 'Grotesque Disfigurement of Human Bodies' and 'For God your soul…For Zombies your Flesh' (by the way, this title track is suspiciously similar to the one of Pungent Stench in their first full length). Anyways, to continue, I would say that Anarkhon does not have the musicianship and skills to copy the fast and relentless songs from CC but instead they go for the comfort zone of replicating the most infectiously slow and muddy ones. In some cases, the songs vary from mid paced sections to sudden bursts of violence that kind of entertain but as an average death metal act. Finally, let's talk about the lyrics. In this regard, I will have to point out that the fact you have your thesaurus at hand with weird medical words does not mean that your lyrics are bad ass. For example, in the track 'Rotten Flesh Reanimated' you can find words like “prognosis” and “leptospirosis” but they don't really have a purpose more that make this record look rotten and bad ass. There is a lot of intention in this record but no more than that, they got short of ideas; it seems menacing, but it is really not.
Nonetheless, there are some positive points I have to give to welcome to the gore show. I like the social criticism approach that the self title song gives to the corrupted political class in Brazil (by the way, this band hails from Brazil) and I think instead of taking the obvious gory path in the lyrics, it would have been more interesting to take a political/social focus. Talking about the music, I really dug the solos in the songs 'Corporal Sores' and 'Regurgitating Maggots'. Those were well developed; I wonder why the band did not replicate that kind of structure instead of over-worshipping CC over and over again.
To finish, I would like to emphasize that I like CC but I am not an angry fanboy that is regurgitating venom in this review just because. On the contrary, not everything is bad about this album, what I did not like about it was the easy way Anarkhon took. Instead of going for something more socially aware and less “similar” to CC in terms of musical structures and lyrics. Critics have to be constructive and not only throw shit, I think, the musician are capable of creating something more of their own for the next recording and sure they can. It’s just a matter of keep working, jamming and listening to music (but not only Cannibal Corpse).
Rating: 3.5 out of 10
808Views