Review Summary: Unambitious and ridden with so many clichés they practically pockmark the sewage strewn exterior
It’s almost as if certain bands don’t aspire to (or seek any) credibility whatsoever. There’s only so many times one can hear a grotesque murder description or some painstakingly drawn-out stalk and slash fantasy before it becomes monotonous, even trite. There are only so many stupidly morbid band names one can process before the whole concept that set the individuals to create the band in the first place has alienated every potential listener. Some, like AOAA (I find the abbreviation ululates in a pleasanter way than the actual band name) think the key to success is excess, and as such, have recorded a barely palatable, insipid mess that takes every dead horse it can find and mutilates the carcasses mercilessly with an orgiastic rainbow of brootality. Of course, this horse was dead a long, long time ago.
The EP opens with a highly distrorted grinding sound. The muddy recitation of a gravelly voice can be heard in the background as the ambience begins to glitch, almost like a record needle skipping with that little flicking noise. The noise fades and becomes a repeating sound. It repeats, and repeats, and repeats, like the psychotic mantra echoing inside a lunatic’s head. This intro is a minute and a half, and is also undoubtedly the EP’s high point. Immediately, the deathcore handbook is whipped out and every single cliché is fully utilised in the most offensive and obnoxious way imaginable. An uninspired drum intro opens ‘Welcome To Slude City’, perhaps AOAA’s most popular track. Essentially attempting to combine the well-worn mediocrity of deathcore and certain musical traits from hardcore, the song is a total disgrace, with a repetitive, droning riff and ridiculously immature lyrics. The delivery of said lyrics is as indecipherable as one would expect, having the same aural appeal as a cement mixer gargling its’ way through crushing lows, shrieking highs, and the all too prevalent studio trait of having a group of listless individuals merrily declare that, ‘she bled from every ***ing hole.’
At this point in a review I would usually move on to talking about the other songs on the release, but in the case of this EP, it would simply be a waste of your time and mine. There are three tracks (if one can call them that) on the EP. Almost as if the band preferred to wallow in their pit of filth and sharp objects, these tracks show zero variety or progression between them. It’s the same consistent, cacophonous rattle of drums and throb of low-tuned guitars, in dire need of some redeeming musical trait, like a diabetic in need of insulin. AOAA won’t give the diabetic her insulin though, they’d rather watch her die and write a song about how her eyes went red and how awesome it was and how she started to convulse on the floor, because *** that diabetic. Notice that the diabetic is female, so as to cover base with AOAA’s misogynistic need to explore unnatural orifices in even more unnatural ways. ‘Cause you can’t do that with dudes, ’cause that’d be gay.
One of the things I have always championed metal music on is the wide variety of emotion that can be conveyed in such a broad scope of ways. The almost inexhaustible supply of metal subgenres ensures that there are countless ways to connect with your listener, whether it be through angst, humour, anger, depravity, etc. As far as I can see, AOAA’s mission statement seems to involve recording the heaviest music they possibly can, and then setting it to the crassest, most obscene lyrics they possibly can. In theory, there’s nothing especially wrong with this, but when the final package is about as diverse as book of carpet samples compiled by people with obsessive/ compulsive disorder, there’s a severe problem.
Welcome To Sludge City doesn’t set its’ goals high. In fact, it doesn’t set goals at all; it simply exists. AOAA have made an EP that takes itself much too seriously and doesn’t have anything to offer anyone beside its availability as a chair leg prop.
