Review Summary: The best split of all time. The 15 track, three way split LP will cater to all fans of extreme metal.
To begin, I'll be blunt. 'North-West Slam Fest' is one of the best splits I've ever heard. I have a good friend that I always hit up for new music, as he really knows his stuff, and the question posed to him on this occasion was "can you give me some slam to download?". This was a broad question, and he could have just replied with a link to a Skinless album; however, he didn't. I was already listening to bands like Vulvectomy, Kraanium and Visceral Disgorge at the time, and I enjoyed their music thoroughly, but I wanted to delve deeper into the world of brutal death metal. Consequently, my mate recommended the split that is in the spotlight today; something I am forever grateful to him for as it really got me into 'slam'.
Three artists feature in the LP and each band contributes 5 songs each; Crepitation, Kastrated and Ingested.
Tracks 1-5 belong to Crepitation, and listening to their part gave me two prominemt main impressions. Firstly, I found their assigned section hilarious. For example, the fivth track, 'Equine Phallic Impalement' begins with a cheery extract which one could imagine to be from a show like 'My Little Pony'; "I love horses, the best of all the animals, I love horses, they're my friends", which is followed by a swift "BREEEE" accompanied by blasts. The second outstanding feature are the vocals. I was left in complete awe and in a state of shock after listening for the first time. You need to have a listen for youself to truly grasp what I mean, but these are vocals that sound like nothing I've ever heard before. I still can't figure out how the vocalist makes that sound; its godly. I recommend listening to the second track 'Incongruous Penilectomy' to experience the tremmering vocals in full flow.
Kastrated's part, in my opinion, is the best on the split. Again, there is plenty of humour contained within their tracks; 6-10, for example in 'Scat in a box' there is a dialogue between a man and a woman:
"Went to a graveyard today."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah! Got naked. Did a *** on a tombstone."
My sick sense of humour was pleasured by this, anyway. Kastrated also contribute the most catchy riffs and instrumentation to the split too; I found that nodding my head to the crushing beat came worryingly naturally. Check out 'Frankenchild' for one of the hardest slam riffs I've heard to date.
Taking into account that Ingested wrote this material when they were a shadow of their present selves and were still gaining valuable experience and learning their trade, you have to admire their valiant effort. Track 15, 'Copremesis' can be heard in their 2009 full length album 'Surpassing the Boundaries of Human Suffering'. Observing the difference between the two versions of the song really shows how the band have progressed to become, arguably, the stand out recent UK act in extreme metal. Their five songs go hard and fast, Jason Evan's vocals are raw, uneditted and have a live feel to them, and the drums are strong. Unfortunately it is mixed horrifically, as the drums are louder than the vocals; something that can never be positive as you have to strain to hear the guttural sounds that we all know and love.
To conclude, the 15 track album as a whole goes in hard. Crepitation begin the audio experience by melting the listener's mind with their weird, almost insane sound, Kastrated follow up with groovy, catchy riffs and powerful beats and Ingested showcase themselves as up and coming stars of the genre and looking at the masterful work they have produced since 2009, they have not let us down.
This is essential to have in your iTunes library, 5/5.
