Diabolical Conquest - You know something is amiss when you notice fetid sewage pouring out of your speakers, stretching towards your pedicured feet with the intention of swallowing it whole. You shriek, dropping your fluorescent coloured pompom which you were hoping to flutter while jumping to the groovy porno/goregrind music of Bowel Fetus. Only this Australian band doesn't idolise Gronibard or Rompeprop, and instead opts to play Autopsy influenced music with goregrind sensibilities. In recent times Brazilian grinders Offal have pulled off a similar feat, but Bowel Fetus are far too different from them. Churning out unapologetic doom/death tunes, this misbegotten band succeeds in inundating and ultimately drowning you in its thick discharge.
Like how Incantation did on their infamous album Upon The Throne of Apocalypse, Bowel Fetus initiate the proceedings of their mini-cd with a mammoth ten minute song, something which is inconceivable for a goregrind band. But not if the vocals were to be removed from their so-called “goregrind” music, for then it would be little different from that of a dark death/doom metal band. Booming out of your speakers, “Kitchen Splatters” slowly and deliberately leaks black sewage into your room to the accompaniment of dark, sludgy music that is similar to Anatomia and Incantation's longer climactic songs. Plodding monotonously like Coffins through the viscous sludge that has now surrounded your body, the music however does not make you too aware of the song's duration, as much before that it casts a hypnotic daze on you, with your head lolling back and the soaked hair on it swaying gently to its current. This is the kind of song that will leave you dumbfounded, and your body reeling long after it has ended.
Intertwining drunken Autopsy tunes with deafening droning, “Mink Stole” carries on the slow drowsy effect of the first song before it breaks into a fast, somewhat grinding part akin to Abscess with the gurgling vocals playing an active role in it. These exceptional albeit shy vocals sound like deep below the sewage a small pubic hair-clogged drain is suddenly coming unstuck. They sound really fucking creepy to say the least, though their low range makes their level of involvement in the music seem at par to a sound effect. Then after numbing your senses with gigantic riffs, once again Bowel Fetus adopt the urine-redolent punkish approach of Abscess, this time with a flurry of haphazard leads. “Death Womb Discharge” is another nine-minute epic similar to the first song with its languid Incantation and Autopsy tunes, but it also features sludgy droning and is interspersed with many fast, some even blasting parts. By the time Bowel Fetus begin their conclusive industrial droning, which is strongly reminiscent of Jesu, you should be overwhelmed and floating like a lifeless turd on the sewage. For me this album ends right here, as the remaining two tracks are cover songs, kind of. Thankfully, they do not include a “Boneyard” cover but more interestingly, the theme from Zombie and Nekromantik. Their presence on this otherwise engaging album is questionable, but admittedly these tunes find a way inside your head and keep replaying themselves in there like a very embarrassing memory.
Bowel Fetus are not a walk-in-the-park Autopsy imitation band. Their music, as you would learn too late, is more like wading through the sewage towards your bedroom exit, a losing struggle for life as you get sucked into the quagmire of its dark and sludgy sewer music.