Review Summary: the supreme power act
Let's get amped up on riffs to the point of mental breakdown and immerse ourselves in the world imagined on the cover art of this death metal split: humanity hacked into thick chunks of physical and mental viscera and functioning far beyond the reasonable limits of sanity; normal perception disintegrating into a cartoonish conniption of fluorescent gore, antagonistic shapes and frightening unblinking eyes.
The opening half here (more like ¾) is provided by Mortal Wound, a band with a singular death direction; their sonic aim is to deliver a heady dose of combat adrenaline, to relapse into primitive instinct and totally repress all remnants of civilised thought. In their sub 15 minutes of material here they offer an impressively succinct selection of hacking and flaying death metal cuts, from midtempo grooves, unhinged tremolo romps and wailing/gnashing solos and leads. Through subtle psychedelic touches from sound bites, vocal layers, a lingering interlude or two and some of the wilder leads, Mortal Wound double down on their themes of mid-traumatic stress disorder - but mostly they just write extremely good riffs, empowered by the authoritative but not-overly-flashy drums and demented deeply spewed vocals. The only real frustration to be found is that the band opted to put such good material on the inevitably overlooked medium of a split. The strong songwriting is epitomised in some incredible payoffs like the shrill break of "WHEN THE SH
IT TURNS ON, YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN" in 'No Peace in My Shangri-La', the mid-song restarting tremolo groove in 'Less Than Man' and the absolutely incinerating closing riff and solo(s) in 'Torched'.
Gutless' share of the split barely exceeds 6 minutes in total but carries that torch of senseless bloodshed with aplomb. Sharper, messier and thrashier than their counterparts, they still offer headrush guitar sections like the shuddering riff resembling a vortex a minute or so 'Manufactured God' which does its best to absorb listeners into the gruesome hysteria. Some effort to manage pacing is provided by cymbal grabs and bass breaks which encourage quick pauses for breath amidst the band's frantic odes to violence; ones which work as a fitting frenzied climax to the prior groovier offering by Mortal Wound. While this is certainly not death metal to grow anything new on the thoroughly salted earth of the genre, to see execution as efficient as this elsewhere you'd probably have to look up some gnarly videos of prisoners of war in Vietnam.
