UMUR
"Total Destruction of the Human Form" is the 6th full-length studio album by US goregrind/death metal act Blood Freak. The album was released through Horror Pain Gore Death Productions in October 2017. It´s the successor to "Squalor" from 2014.
If you´re familiar with the preceding releases by Blood Freak, you won´t be surprised that you´ll be exposed to filthy, raw, and organic old school goregrind/death metal featuring suitingly bizarre low-budget horror movie influenced song titles like "Melted and Splattered", "Drowning in Sewage", and "The Night of Unholy Desecrations". The music is strongly influenced by early goregrind Carcass (which most artists in the goregrind genre is in one way or another), but Blood Freak do manage not to sound like a one to one clone. The vocals are pretty much unintelligible deep growling, with the occasional snarling aggressive type vocal thrown in for variation. It becomes slighty one-dimensional along the way, but most of the time it works well. The instrumental part of the music features fast blasting goregrind sections, but also both slow and mid-paced heavier sections.
To my ears Blood Freak reached some sort of climax with the high quality "Multiplex Massacre" from 2007, and none of the succeding releases have been able to reach the same heights. The same can be said about "Total Destruction of the Human Form", which is another good quality goregrind release by the band, but also a release lacking the irresistable vile and filthy charm of the early Blood Freak releases (in particular the above mentioned "Multiplex Massacre (2007)"). It´s not that the band have stagnated or anything like that, because I hear several new songwriting/riff ideas here, that I haven´t heard from the band before, but the material simply lacks catchiness and memorability.
That´s not always an issue with music as extreme as this, and one of course can´t expect to be able to sing along to easy listening choruses and other "normal" types of hooks, but a memorable riff, rhythm, or vocal phrase here and there would have made "Total Destruction of the Human Form" a much more inviting release. As it is, it´s still a quality release by Blood Freak, featuring solid musicianship, a well sounding, raw, and organic production, and decent quality songwriting. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.