UMUR
"Carrion for Worm" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US grindcore act Nuclear Death. The album was released through Wild Rags Records in June 1991. Nuclear Death were notoriously know in the "underground" for their savage live shows and because they were one of the first (if not THE first) grindcore act to feature a female lead vocalist in Lori Bravo. The band formed in 1986 and released several demos before releasing their debut full-length studio album "Bride of Insect (1990)". Their most "famous" release from those years are the "Caveat (1989)" demo compilation, which features tracks from the "Welcome to the Minds of the Morbid (1987)" demo and the "Vultures Feeding (1988)" demo.
While there are many extreme grindcore albums out there, "Bride of Insect (1990)" is one of the grindcore albums from that time, that set the standards for how extreme, noisy, and vile grindcore can really get. That tendency is continued and even developed further upon on "Carrion for Worm", which if possible is an even more noisy, extreme, and murky sounding grindcore album featuring vile and gory lyrics and imagery.
While the sound production on the predecessor was raw and lo-fi, the sound on "Carrion for Worm" takes it a step further into murky darkness. At times it´s almost impossible to hear what´s being played and you can just hear a drummer blasting away over something that sounds like an über distorted combination of guitars and bass. There is next to no audible structure when the band play fast, and that´s what they do almost all the way through the 12 tracks on the 26:12 minutes long album. When they lower the speed to a heavy mid-paced tempo like they do on "Greenflies", it´s easier to hear what´s going on, but it´s still filthy and raw as hell.
Lori Bravo is a passionate and convincing extreme metal vocalist and while her performance here isn´t quite as intriguing as it was on the predecessor, she still spits out vile aggresssive growling like there´s no tomorrow. The performances are generally organic and raw, and it more or less sounds like someone came by and recorded a rehearsal session at the band´s practice room. So there is a raw live atmosphere to the recording.
Overall "Carrion for Worm" is just a very, very extreme metal album, which in my world is a great thing, but the murky sound production and the general lack of variation between tracks and even within tracks isn´t doing the album any favours. I think I could have lived with the raw and lo-fi sound production if the material had been more varied, but as it is, "Carrion for Worm" is a bit of a trial to get through in one sitting, so a 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.