siLLy puPPy Ever since Suffocation introduced the world to the extremes of brutal death metal, bands from far and wide have been finding new ways to take death metal into even more ridiculous extremes and from those attempts emerged the slam death metal sub-genre which basically teased the technical speed wizardry of the guitar riffs into slow chugging globs of distorted sound. Since Devourment unleashed what has been called the first true slam death metal album with “Molesting The Decapitated,” it seems that the floodgates have been opened and the arms race to create the most disgusting sounds and most ridiculous album cover art has been in play ever since.

While much slam death metal tends to sound a little generic with the same old ideas recycled time and time again, a scant few albums do stand out from the legions of morbid sick minds that dream this stuff up. The Clovis, CA based ARTERY ERUPTION released what is considered to be one of the more essential examples of this disturbed form of music that somehow emerged from the cracks between where death metal, grindcore and lo-fi retardation from bands like Faxed Head lie. ARTERY ERUPTION followed the trend of outdoing Cannibal Corpse for the most outrageous album and track titles along with ridiculous over the top cover art. REDUCED TO A LIMBLESS SEXSLAVE is the debut and was released in 2003 and the music is as fucked up and hilarious as the lovely album cover!

While REDUCED TO A LIMBLESS SEXSLAVE may sound like the status quo of incessant noise and mindless aggression to the uninitiated, there are a few differences to ARTERY ERUPTION’s approach. True that the pig grunted vocals which expel unintelligible utterances reek of been there done that as do the tidal flows of chunky down-tuned slam death guitar riffs, but this album also displays some other guitar tricks such as slides, pseudo-proggy breakdowns and an irascibly chaotic delivery system. What stands out most of all though is that the guitar and bass are muddled into a murky down-tuned quagmire of distortion, the percussion sounds more like the drummer only known as Brian decided to play on any pots and pans that he could find in the kitchen and therefore the percussive drive is nothing more than a tinny delivery of beats to accent the muddled metal madness but there are also subdued blastbeats lurking under the din so i guess there are two drum parts. There are also bursts of tin pan percussive fury!

Slam death has become one of metal’s greatest dumping grounds for not only the macabre and morbid but also has emerged as a great source of sardonic grotesque immature humor which takes all the most disgusting and hilarious ideas possible and throws them in a blender. Just a glance at some of the titles like “Rage-Induced Infant Assfuck,” “Jacking off on an Inside-Out Butthole,” “Getting a Woodie in Your Sweats and Setting It on Fire” is enough to disgust and delight all at the the same time. While many slam death albums are clearly lacking in imagination, REDUCED TO A LIMBLESS SEXSLAVE somehow keeps my attention for its duration with silly movie clip narrations with emotive tugs of background music and then just a slugfest of pig grunts, unleashed slam aggression and well perversion turned up to 11 and beyond but most of all this is just fucking hilarious!