BLOOD FREAK — Sleaze Merchants (review)

BLOOD FREAK — Sleaze Merchants album cover Album · 2003 · Grindcore Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
UMUR
"Sleaze Merchants" is the debut full-length studio album by US goregrind/death metal act Blood Freak. The album was released through Razorback Records in November 2003. Blood Freak is the brainchild of Neil Smith who performs all instruments and vocals on Blood Freak´s studio recordings.

The music on "Sleaze Merchants" is goregrind/death metal in the tradition of early Carcass. There are literally hundreds of Carcass clones playing this style, but Blood Freak is definitely one of the better ones. They have a tongue in cheek/kitchy kind of approach to the genre which I appreciate. In addition to the fast-paced blasting parts, the tracks also feature mid-paced parts which makes the music a bit easier to digest than your usual blasting grindcore release. Each track on the album opens with a horror movie sample which provides the album with a great kitchy low budget horror movie atmosphere. Check out song titles like "Bloodthirsty Butchers from Beyond", "Flesheaters from Outerspace", "The Cult of the Cannibal Freaks" or "Dr. Cannibal". That´s just priceless bizarre humour.

The vocals are more or less a total ripp-off of the classic Carcass vocal style. That means one sneering, one deep growling, and one gurgling kind of vocal style. It works really well here though and gives the music some needed variation. The 37:04 minutes long album features 22 tracks, and needless to say that they are all pretty short, but that´s great because that´s how this style works the best. Short powerful bursts of aggressive brutality. On a funny sidenote Neil Smith has brewed a fake story about the album. It was supposedly recorded in the late eighties/early nineties and the last couple of tracks are demo tracks with a different sound production, which is supposed to make the story more authentic. I love this little hoax, but of course it´s not true.

The sound production on the album is excellent. It´s powerful and actually rather warm. A bit surprising really. As mentioned the last couple of tracks on the album (the so called demo tracks) feature a more lo-fi sound quality but they still sound pretty great.

I´ve listened to my fair share of Carcass imitators over the years, and while most are entertaining, they seldom really impress. The music on "Sleaze Merchants" is a bit different though and I must say that Blood Freak really hit something special on this one. Maybe it´s the low budget horror movie humour that gets me rolling on the floor or maybe it´s the generally high quality (for the genre) songwriting and pretty skilled musicianship, but "Sleaze Merchants" is a really enjoyable album and a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Tarantula Heart Sludge Metal
MELVINS
Buy this album from MMA partners
God Damned You To Hell Traditional Doom Metal
FRIENDS OF HELL
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Absence Melodic Death Metal
THE ABSENCE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Unextinct Technical Death Metal
HIDEOUS DIVINITY
Buy this album from MMA partners
Powerlords Power Metal
ELETTRA STORM
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Fallen Ashes - Wage War (Official Lyric Video)
FALLEN ASHES
Bosh66· 5 days ago
EXISTENTIAL DEAD - Unreality (Single) 2024
EXISTENTIAL DEAD
Bosh66· 5 days ago
EXISTENTIAL DEAD - Cold Hands
EXISTENTIAL DEAD
Bosh66· 5 days ago
IRON MONKEY - Misanthropizer (Official Music Video)
IRON MONKEY
Bosh66· 8 days ago
??? (Losing ART) - "????" (Official Music Video) [HD]
漂浮者樂團
Bosh66· 8 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed