Vim Fuego
It seems to take Human bloody years to put together an album. The Christchurch, New Zealand, death metal band has been around in various incarnations since the early 1990s, but ‘Blood Bucket’ is only the band’s second full length release. Good thing then, that it was well worth the wait.
The whole thing is gloriously old school, like Pungent Stench and Malevolent Creation getting drunk together, complete with power chundering and fart lighting, with the whole session recorded. To hear this style of death metal still being played is refreshing when compared to the trend of shameless Cryptopsy worship and Suffocation tributes.
Anyone who has ever seen or heard Human before couldn’t miss the sick, black sense of humour, and it’s here in spades, right in your face, er, like a spade in the face. These guys would probably get bored if they played it straight.
Opening track “Night Of The Living Bread” puts a farinaceous spin on the zombies-eat-everyone splatter movie staple, complete with transformation into killer kibble and wandering wholemeal. There is even a video to this song in the bonus material, which features a CGI loaf of bread laying waste to a Human mosh pit. And it only gets weirder from here…
“Dayt Ripper” has a massive groove, like a Bolt Thrower breakdown, punctuated with an out of control blastbeat. Expecting a slasher song from the title? Um, well, this one’s got rabbits, and the victim is fed to a herd of cows. “Home Necronomics” has the dirtiest bass sound this side of Mortician. It also has Julia Childs cooking a baby. “Choked In The Dark” has a sing-along chorus, with the lines “Choked in the dark/Robot attack/Choked in the dark/Food for the cat”. The chorus of “Run With Scissors” is the word “Hey” repeated 23 times, followed by “This is the way I like to say HEY!”
The three bonus tracks are three the band recorded between albums. “Pay Toilet Of Despair”, released in 2001, is Human’s biggest hit, often requested on radio metal shows, and the accompanying video was also regularly requested on TV.
The lyrical content may seem about as sensible as a chocolate teapot, but you can’t fault the musical skills of this band, and the songwriting seems to have improved since 1999’s ‘The Sound Of Yellow’. The sound is tight, and despite the old school nature of it, it’s not overly simplistic. There are hints of Death, Carcass, Morbid Angel, Pungent Stench, and any number of other bands from the early 90s. The vocal trade-offs between Scott Spatcher-Harrison and Vaughn Richardson add variety often missing in modern death metal, and both annunciate reasonably clearly, so the stunning silliness of the lyrics isn’t lost in a tuneless gargle.
Ah, fuck it. You’ll either buy ‘Blood Bucket’ or you won’t. If you don’t, then more fool you.