Review by Carl on September 9, 2023.

This is fukkin' awesome!! Dahmer were one of the best grindcore bands in the second half of the 90's. I unfortunately never got to see them live, but their output on tape and vinyl is more than worth the effort as well, with the band even being able to lay claim to the assertion of having a sound of their own. They may have been gone for a while now, but better believe me when I say that they are by no means forgotten.

If someone should ask what grindcore is, you could just play them this EP, because this has all the trademarks present: growls and screams, blastbeats, raging simple guitar work and a high tempo for most part, all of this poured into short stabs of sonic terror, sure to thoroughly annoy your neighbors and drive your mom into a demented furor. Dahmer don't dilly-dally around and fire off round after round of blasting ferocity in the vein of Agathocles, Rot and old Napalm Death, with a spattering of thrashcore a la Infest, Capitalist Casualties and Righteous Pigs thrown in, simply blast-beating everyone and everything out of the way. Drenched in distortion and fuzz, the bass and guitar sound like an immense swarm of pissed off locusts about to come down on your grandma's kitchen garden, while the growling/screaming dual vocal attack puke forth all types of unpleasantness (primarily) about serial killers. Underpinned by a truly raging percussive assault, these proceedings speed forth like mad, with only some sparse slower sections thrown in. No song clocks in over the 2 minute mark, and dammit!, this kicks so much ass!!

The production is as expected from the style circa 1996: raw, fuzzed out and not all that concerned about niceties and balance. Vocals, guitars and percussion overpower each other in varying degrees throughout, but despite that, the blunt power Dahmer exudes stays well intact. And blunt power is what this kind of grind is all about, baby! This stuff sounds exactly the way I want it to sound, and just try to change my mind about that.

This is a tasty morsel of 90's underground delight, and listening to this, I realize just how much I miss these guys. If you like your grindcore pure and simple and bursting with aggression, this is for you! And to those who might want to poo-poo this: fuck you and your musical niceties and what-have-ya, this is sheer unhinged grindcore power!

Rating: 9 out of 10

Review by Carl on December 2, 2023.

The description I got about this one was along the lines of 'raw black/death/thrash metal, with cover art by Rok of Sadistik Exekution', so yeah, you better believe that I was on board with this.

It turned out that I had not been lied to, because these recordings are indeed as raw as a steak left out in the rain on a chilly day. The drums and reverb vocals are present in an oppressive way, relegating the guitars way into the background to buzz and growl, while the whole sounds utterly stripped down and gritty going forth. From the seventh track "Putrid Hate Bombs" on, the production suddenly gets a good deal louder than on the songs preceding it, sounding even more unbalanced, chaotic and unhinged, with the tin can sound of the snare drum shoving the guitars even further to the back. This is a soundmix that is by no means suitable for mass consumption, but in all honesty, I like this a lot. It's a maniacal sounding approach to a style of utterly demented, hyper-aggressive extreme metal, and being absolutely unhinged in its totality, it simply exudes psychotic energy and bonkers underground spirit throughout.

When listening to the music, you will realize that this is a style of metal that has no need for Lamb of God style production values. Opening with an intro of spacy keyboard sounds and screaming voices that would not sound out of place on an old Lucio Fulci movie, we get the first track "Intolerance", which is a cover by Hateful Blood. Yeah, I have never heard of them either, so don't worry. It's also the most subdued track (for Emetophilia's doing, that is) on here, giving the listener a tremelo picked black thrasher with a Hellhammer inspired stomping slow middle part. It's OK, I guess, but from there the fun starts for real, because it's here where the band lets go with their utterly a-melodic raging concoction of blasting percussion, cavernous rumbling growls and simple chainsaw guitar riffing, with lots and lots of berserk velocity injected, being executed in a rough and very primitive way. For most part they are reminding me of unrefined acts like Nuclear Death, Blasphemy, Naked Whipper, Beherit, Dead Christ and Repulsion, with here and there a wink and a nod to bands like Gorgoroth, Krieg and Ildjarn at their most primitive. In between the rampant belligerent noise assault, the band allows some variation to slip in, as well. Take the punky primitive thrash part in the middle of "Vomit Your Wrath" for example, or "Crucified for All Christ", that adds slowly crawling parts in the vein of Darkthrone and Hellhammer. "Nihilist Attack" opens with a crusty distorted bass and drum intro that could've just as easily been on an 80's UK hardcore/thrash album from the likes of Concrete Sox, Ripcord or Heresy, and it complements the insanity perfectly.

This is ugly music wrapped in an equally ugly soundmix, and I just love this. It will drive insane any and all whose taste is anything more refined than the sound of the devil himself detonating a nailbomb in a nunnery. This stuff is only suitable for those heavily immersed into the harshest and most brutal black/death metal, but I have a hunch that folks into savage grindcore will be on board with this as well.

An unrelenting dose of jackhammering barbarity, for sure, and I can't help but grinning like an idiot throughout the runtime of this compliation, because this is just great.

Rating: 8 out of 10