Warthur There are many things that take your breath away about Horrified - the sheer grindcore aggression of the music, the uncompromising attitude, the way each song is fine-tuned and shaved down into this perfect little sonic shiv - but perhaps the thing which bowls me over the most is that this was recorded in 1986, for crying out loud! Admittedly, the mixing job was updated in 1989, but even so to get this pure a grindcore sound this early takes some doing. And whilst pieces like the early Napalm Death albums were treated as being weird jokes, Repulsion sound as deadly serious as a crack overdose. Incredible.

Vim Fuego 1986 was an excellent year for metal. All four of the Big Four of thrash released albums. Several lesser–known bands like Overkill and Dark Angel put out stunning albums. And one of the all-time underground extreme metal greats was recorded.

Repulsion's 'Horrified' earned a status among tape traders almost equal to that of Hellhammer and Metallica in their heyday. And so it should have.

This was death metal before death metal. At the time, death metal was nothing more than an offshoot of thrash, still in an embryonic state. 'Horrified' burst straight in and laid waste to all around it. The standard of production is incredibly good, shaming many which followed, like early Napalm Death, Carcass and Death.

What makes this album so outstanding is its extremity. It melded blistering speed (including blast beats), chunky guitars, death grunt vocals, and gory lyrics, providing the blueprint for countless bloodthirsty hordes of gore metal bands to follow. A lot of the song titles have reappeared since as band names– "Six Feet Under", "Splattered Cadavers", "Acid Bath".

The songs generally rumble along at a constant velocity. Drummer Dave Grave (don't think he's related to the Sadistik Exekution bass player Dave Slave) mashed up the mix to keep it interesting, throwing in some impressive blasts. There is also the odd sparse guitar solo, similar to what Carcass produced on 'Symphonies of Sickness'. Yngwie Malmsteen it is not, but the off kilter guitar noises produced add an interesting flavour.

Like a majority of death metal vocalists, trying to decipher what the hell Scott Carlson is on about is nigh on impossible. On the odd occasion though, the vocals clear up a little, to good effect, particularly on the classic "Maggots In Your Coffin".

Not gaining a decent release until six years after it was recorded, Repulsion kind of missed the boat when death metal burst forth from the rotted corpse of Thrash. However, their influence is undeniable– Death, Autopsy, Napalm Death, Carcass, Necrophagia, Mortician, Suffocation. Chances are, if you are listening to a gore obsessed death metal or grindcore band, Repulsion has been an influence somewhere along the line.

UMUR Horrified is the debut full-length studio album by American grindcore act Repulsion. The album was originally recorded in June 1986 and released in 1986 as a demo tape called Slaughter of the Innocent. The tracks were remixed and produced in March 1989 and saw an official release as Horrified through the Necrosis label in May 1989. Relapse Records has since re-released the album several times with different bonus material. The band started out using the Genocide name in 1984 but changed their name to Repulsion in 1986. They recorded three demos while they were called Genocide. Much of the bonus material on the re-issues comes from this period of the band´s career.

The music on Horrified is filthy, fast-paced, simple and aggressive grindcore with gore lyrics. They are othen said to be one of the most influential bands in the genre, and listening to Horrified it becomes perfectly clear why. There are 18 short tracks on the 29:18 minute long original album. All filthy blood´n´gore soaked crusty grindcore assaults. There are not much variation on the album, but on the other hand there are no sub par tracks on the album either. Listening to Horrified is like a fast kick in the face. The album is over before you hit the ground. Just like a good grindcore album should be. No fillers and no wasted time on nonsense. The pedal is down most of the time but there are mid-paced sections too, which gives the music a bit of time to breathe between the relentless blasting sections. The musicianship is of a surprisingly good standard. Especially the tight drumming by Dave "Grave" Hollingshead impress a lot. But those killer aggressive vocals by Scott Carlson are also greatly enjoyable. Now there´s a man who sounds pissed. The riffs are generally very simple but also very effective.

The sound quality is very good. It´s filthy, earthy and powerful. I don´t now how the album sounded before it was re-mixed and produced properly in 1989, but they did a great job with the re-mix.

Horrified is a seminal album in the grindcore genre and the fact that it was already recorded in 1986 makes it incredible that the band could achive such a high standard. Horrified is a must have for fans of the genre not only because of the "classic" status that the album has, but also because it´s a really good and powerful grindcore album. Among the best I´ve heard. A 4 star rating is fully deserved.

Beekeeper One of the earliest and still one of the best grindcore releases of all time.

Horrified is crusty, noisy, fast, brutal and straight to the point, they tick all the boxes as far as grind goes but really when you have riffs this good that stuff doesn't even really matter. The riffs not only catchy but are capable of generating extra intensity from the songs when it doesn't seem like they could get more intense. Furthermore the slow songs and parts of songs which would usually be the downers on an extreme metal album are fantastic, the breakdown in the title track is a great example.

I can't imagine what it would have been like seeing these guys in 1986, at a time when thrash was the benchmark for extreme metal these guys rendered most of those bands redundant (or at least impotent). The only thing I don't like about this album is that more people don't know about it.

The ultimate measure of how good an extreme metal album is for me is how memorable and catchy it is. With 'hit singles' like 'radiation sickness' and 'horrified' and the sing along chorus of 'maggots in your coffin' ("you're rotting, maggots in your coffin!") this is as good as it gets for grind.