Listening to the latest release from JASONxVOORHEES very much reminded me of the movie Deathgasm in that it’s loaded with death growls, intentionally ugly chord progressions, and laughable lyrics inspired by video games and horror flicks. In short, it’s not the type of thing to be taken seriously. As an example, there is a 28 second song titled Hostel and the lyrics are as follows: “I’m glad that bitch from Hostel got killed”. That’s it…no more, no less. The movie is over a decade old, so I didn’t find the timing of this filler track as relevant or funny. What about the rest of the tracks you may ask? Well, they are essentially all in the same vein…very short, with half-witted lyrical content, and feeble arrangements. A healthy portion of the release is tied up with ambient intro and outro tracks that serve as little more than pointless fluf.
Having said all of that, this band does gleam very tiny moments of promise (if you can call it that). On the track Shang Tsung Wins, once you get through the nod to Mortal Combat and the painfully slow dirging first half, at 1:16, the band shifts gears and starts cranking a fast paced punk groove as the the vocalist, for once, belts out some straight forward aggressive shouting. It was easily my favorite moment on the release, but it only lasts 25 seconds. Most of the vocals on the rest of the album abandon the powerful straight-forward shouting in favor of played-out contrived growling that invokes little more than an eye-roll.
In addition to the momentary flash on Shang Tsung Wins, I also could appreciate some of the ways the band utilizes changes. From the array of beat and tempo changes on Human Centipede to the noise shifts on Horror Edge as the guitars drop out and the vocals and drums fill the dead air creating a pretty fvkn cool dynamic contrast. Unfortunately, the arrangements are all very disjointed and there just isn’t much for a listener to latch on to…at least not for any reasonable length of time. If you’re into pseudo avant garde metal with mediocre performances and production, then this is your lane!
1.5 out of 5 SDP Skullz
Artist: JASONxVOORHEES
Album: Horror Edge
Label: None
Release Date: May 13th, 2016
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Reviewed by Todd Dulawan
