Review by Carl on November 14, 2023.

Talk about a barrage of brutality, damn. The responsible party for this massive chunk of death/grind delight is a bunch of chaps going by the moniker of Morgue (one of many, I might add), and back in 1999 they made their presence known by way of this "Bonecrunch" EP, and hot-diggety-damn, the music on this is all kinds of awesome.

Morgue (hailing from France, oui oui) combine the brutal force of aggressive early 90's death metal like Suffocation, Morbid Angel and Deicide, with the savage power of metallic old school grindcore in the vein of Napalm Death, Agathocles and Necrony. It's a beyond sturdy and volatile concoction of sounds, and it lands them solidly between like-minded acts such as Desecration (UK), Ingrowing, Kadath and Deranged. It's blast beats galore, raw grunt vocals that are layered with throat-shredding screams, and a mass of strangulating down-tuned riffing and pinch harmonics to round out the meat and potatoes of Morgue's assault on the senses. Upon further listening, I sometimes hear the band grabbing back to more traditional elements that remind me of originators of the style. The guitars have that speedy, less complicated buzzsaw feel to them here and there, kinda like Massacre, Repulsion and Possessed used to have, and in the track "Internal Bloodfeast" we get this sickly, slower moving section that definitely reminded me of Necrophagia. These details inject an old school vibe into the vehement cocktail that Morgue has on offer and it works great among the grinding death brutality they exhibit. The tracks rely heavily on blasting velocity, but Morgue does know when they need to let go of the accelerator, as well as build in a punishing break when necessary, adding a pinch of variation (and even some sickenened groove) into the explosive death/grind offered. Energy is abundant throughout, the production is fierce and adequately balanced out, and the execution is spot-on, making this EP a great package of 90's style grinding death.

The thing that undermines it somewhat for me, is the copious use of movie samples during the EP's runtime. It feels as if they are everywhere on here: before the songs, after the songs, and sometimes even woven through the songs, and that is just too much for me, especially on a release that only lasts 20 minutes. I'm not that big on movie samples to begin with, although at times I'm inclined to look past them when they fit in the big picture, but if they come in droves like this, I get that dreaded "here we go again" feeling whenever they pop up. And that's what I'm having here. Don't get me wrong, though, the music is awesome without doubt, but couldn't they have toned down the samples in favor of an extra track?

This is a short sharp shock of savage old school death/grind, with some traditional elements injected as well. It sounds great while exuding brutality like mad, and it offers up an almost lethal dosage of aggression during its 20 minute runtime. Too bad there has been cleared so much space for the movie samples, because they take a bit of the 'oomph' out of it, but apart from that, I totally dig this EP a lot, and I can recommend it too anyone into extreme 90's death metal and grindcore.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10