Review by Elijah on March 13, 2020.

Before this album, there was pre-slam (before 2007) which is brutal death metal with slams in it, and after this album we have the modern slam (2010- onwards). Embryectomy, Dragging Entrails, Human Menu, which is pure slam and nothing else, you know what I'm talking about. I'd say that Uterovaginal... is an album that's in-between these two eras of "slam".

This album is pretty interesting and different from the crowd - it draws in brutal death metal fans that don’t really listen to slam as well as it obviously pulls in devoted slamheads too. It's just the fact that despite all the slam we got these days, this album particularly sometimes grabs the attention of people who don’t listen to or like slam much. Two different sides come together as one when it comes to this album.

Let’s start here with the music. It starts with an eerie intro that's supposed to describe the cover, which is done well, you pick up the theme from this album extremely quick. Then when the intro is over, you immediately get those slams! Perfection! SLAMS GALORE! Just as needed and expected the main factor of this album is already there, awesome. The guitar tone is great, grindy, brutal, shredding, just as it should be. Guitar parts are great. The drums are slightly triggered but it isn't that big of an issue, but it suits well with the music since its slam. The drums are like machine guns, beat-beat-beat hit-hit-hit away then a fill, with double kicking fury to back it all up. It sounds quite well with the guitar, since the guitar is just slams and simple patterns. The guitar and drums go hand in hand on this record. Both of the instruments are written and structured the same way, the drums playing a beat with double kick patterns following it, with just the right guitar parts to go along with it. The guitar and drums fit together and sound great, especially the snare rolls, ughhh......you can't go wrong with those sexy ass snare rolls... delicious!

The guitarist and main composer Nick also plays bass, but it’s not present at all. You never hear it. This is just like "And Justice For All", the bass is being played but you don't hear it at all. There are some parts where you can hear the bass, but its only slight. On track 8, 'Embryonic Gastronomy' at 1:10 you can hear the bass drop a beat for a split second, you can hear the bass line at the intro of track 3 'Consummating Omophagia', and there's another part where the bass is played by itself with all the other instruments not playing, but I forgot which track that one was. The bass is being played here but you can’t hear it at all unless the guitar stops playing.

Now here come the vocals. Good vocal performance for a slam record. These vocals are slam vox at their peak, good vocals for the purest form of slam metal. Angel Ochoa is definitely a talented and interesting vocalist. He has his trademark 'high burp' sound, which is damn easy to notice. You can listen to any band, and if Angel is doing vocals you instantly know that it's him, he has a style like no one else, believe it or not. The vocals sound the same throughout the entire album, it's not much of a problem at most times, but I thought I'd just point it out. There's a part on track 6 'Sanguinary Misogynistic Execration' at 1:13 where Angel does a somewhat deeper burp-gurgle type thing for a little, I think that sounds awesome and filthy.

The lyrics done by the guitarist Nick, and drummer Forest are very good. This is some very abstract gore. The lyrics describe what’s happening. People undergoing insane and obscene forms of surgery while getting beat and mutilated in the process, just extreme total gore happening. Angel's vocals suit the words perfectly, his vocals are disgusting and so are the lyrics. Suits each other good. These lyrics are truly what abstract means, must've took these dudes a LONG TIME to come up with lyrics these explanatory and descriptive.

Overall, this is a solid, essential, must-have album. Similar to the popularity revolving around Waking the Cadaver's "Perverse Recollections of a Necromangler", this album deals with the same thing. Just all around iconic and something new to bring to the table. When this album released it skyrocketed in the slam brutal death community - this album is a gem, most people have heard about it or seen it somewhere at least once.

If you haven't heard this, I suggest you try it. And if you dont like it - try, try again; it might grow on you someday.

Rating: 8.9 out of 10

Review by Carl on September 1, 2024.

Because I liked Cryptivore's full-length well enough, I decided to check a bit further into the band's history, only finding just this one demo. Because these are usually hard to find if there is a physical copy to begin with (being the pretentious arse I am, I don't do digital), and if you're unlucky, expensive to get a hold of. The Cryptivore demo has seen quite a few reissues by this time, but the version I'm reviewing here has a couple of extra tracks, so I'm definitely going with this one!

In style, Cryptivore plays a pretty straightforward form of old-school death metal, keeping a firm middle ground between old-school Swedeath and late 80's/early 90's death metal/grindcore. I get a very Dismember/Entombed feeling from the riffage on use, but for the most part, I have the impression that a lot of influence comes from stuff like early Grave, Necrony, and the first albums by Therion and Carbonized, with a certain Defecation and "Mentally Murdered" era Napalm Death feel being not too far away either. The songs are kept compact yet varied, establishing an urgent and energetic feel throughout. The music is riff-based for sure (one might almost be able to hum along, as it were), and is underpinned by a variety of thrash beats and blasting velocity to give the material a lot of drive. The guitar sound is thick and heavy with just enough Swedeath bite to it to make it crunchy as fuck, without veering off into Boss HM-2 copycat territory, which I can totally appreciate. Completing the old school vibe are the deep growling vocals delivering the lines in a suitably gruff way, while some subtle guitar harmonics add short melodic touches to the whole, like in a track such as "Abhorrent Vivisection". It's nothing the average death metal aficionado hasn't heard before, but it gets the job done in a way decent fashion, going in as smooth as a cold glass of orange juice on a hot summer day.

The production is decent for most parts, with the guitar sound being pretty damn neat as mentioned, but there is a bit of a hair in the butter, though. As is the case with a lot of one-man outfits, the drums are of the programmed kind, and yeah, it shows. The patterns are good, laying a solid base for the music, but they sound so plastic and sterile here, it's as if the percussion is handled by a robot that somehow developed an ass with a stick in it. As a whole, it isn't a disaster or anything, but once I heard it, there was no way of unhearing this. It's a small snag on a further solid and certainly compact offering of old-school death that deserves to be heard.

This is a decent demo that manages to push a fair few of the right buttons with me, with it being absolutely on point in both material and execution. Just as with most demos, there is always that bit of room for improvement, and Cryptivore certainly did that on their debut full-length. If you haven't yet, go check that out and then complete the picture with this demo. It may not reinvent the wheel, but it's solid stuff worthy the attention, for sure.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10