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"Twitch of the Death Nerve" Reviews!

From http://r3d-r.deviantart.com/art/Twitch-of-the-Death-Nerve-69755728
'Twitch of the Death Nerve' by ~R3D-R

Long and Boring Intro
So, after a weird chain of links and whatnot I landed here--> grindgore.net
It's a site hosted by this (obviously) french guy named Pierre who's in love with the style of Goregrind music.  I'm starting to get into it, really, and so checked out lots stuff in the download section, really liking this song called 'Dancesteps on the Edge of a Razor' by a band called 'Blue Holocaust'.  Eventually, once I realized that Blue Holocaust was a one-man underground project, and that that one man was the same Pierre who ran the grindgore-net site [aka Braindead Webzine] I had to put some money down to support him.  I figured 30-odd tracks of the same stuff 'Dancesteps on the Edge of a Razor' was made of couldn't hurt.
Actual Review
In fact, it didn't hurt, I really liked it.  The album, Twitch of the Death Nerve, is just under 40 minutes long, totally hand-done.  The guy does all the vocals, which have an amazing effect- or just talented and creative recording- on them that makes it sound like some raging animal...which is a good thing!  He plays all the instruments as well, probably using a drum machine but it sounds wicked anyway.  At some points it's a bit too chaotic and sloppy for my taste but for the most part, I really like this CD.  There's samples galore, from 'various giallo movies' as the credits in the back of the book say, and it has 'Giallo-Inspired Gore' written on the spine.  So women screaming, plot-twisting music and some actual dialog, even, gets overlayed to the crazy music.

And when I said totally hand-done above, I meant it.  He drew all the art and hand-wrote all the lyrics.  While that last part, writing the lyrics, was a bit pointless because there's no way you could ever understand that booming, echoing roar of his, it's just a homely touch.  And I love the sleeve, I notice more details in it the more I look at it.  I have a theory that the titles of every song are represented in it somehow, and I've almost proved it.  Just a few more to pick out...

So.  If you like goregrind (though that's just what he calls the music, I don't know enough about the genre yet to say if it truly is, but it might be closer to noisecore in my book, I think with LDOH and others the genres pretty much overlap) like I'm starting to, want to help support and indie deathmetal/gore label or just are interested in something totally different, I'd hustle over to the 'shop' section of Braindead, or just check out Gemm, I got it for $12 and that's WITH shipping, pretty good.

Also, if you downloaded the single song available<sp?> on Braindead, check out his myspace (Just a /blueholocaust i believe) for a few more sample tracks.  But don't scroll down to far there was a gross picture (like zombie handjob gross) last time I saw it.  ;)

Total Score: 8 1/2 out of 10

Excellent debut, sure to grow on me, but it could use more variety.

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DEATHMETALTYLER / Some guy on the internet:
Blue Holocaust is sleazy, campy and bouncy gore-grind project by a guy that has gained a following on his web-zine www.goregrind.net. Parallel to most low-budget, trashy,  B-grade horror flick, this is an album that is both a cult classic filled with blood and guts, as much as it is a fragile production that will turn people away from ever realizing its appeal.    The production isn't pretty. Maximum over-drive on the guitars create a little too much static in the tone, and I wish the drums were louder in the mix, but these flaws bring more personality to this overall anti-musical project.    The album has a lot of range in structures, never following just one style, but has consistency in the characteristics that make gore-grind an exciting style. Lots of bouncy drum patterns that could keep any listener entertained, along with inevitable blast-beats, and some great breakdown sections that crunch out riffs that are surprisingly catchy. The vocals sound like a vicious dog  vomiting in a garbage-can, and are fairly original within the realm of this genre. I enjoy this album both for it’s primitive construction along with it’s own disgusting, yet lively charisma. I can’t wait for the next full-length.

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Drew Ailes / www.metalreview.com:
A lot of music elitism, if not most, concerns supposedly having a sophisticated palette, developed to the extent that allows the listener to appreciate music that most people would dismiss as total tripe. Granted, this is a pretty generalized statement, as it also suggests that the music that's appreciated by the most people is somehow superior. Either way it goes, everyone's known someone that pretended to enjoy some CD made by a genetically defective horror writer from Cape Town, farting into a microphone and reading words out of the dictionary, or something equally as stupid. While Blue Holocaust don't come nearly as close to as ridiculous of a concept, I can see underground grind enthusiasts everywhere staking their claim on them as their new favorite band.

With production values that would only satisfy a band on Earache in 1988, Blue Holocaust tackles the now familiar genre of drum machine grind, only the sole member of this outfit adds a creative twist - there's horror movie samples, and it's unintelligible! Could it get any crazier? Yeah, I know, obviously Twitch of the Death Nerve isn't meant to push the boundaries of music or coax anyone into dropping acid, but like the entire genre of goregrind, which I enjoy immensely, this is fairly silly. So needless to say, the wall of distorted growls, the simple repetitive riffing, and the mechanical blastbeats are just about perfect for this style. These songs just take on the classic goregrind mentality and push it a little further, making it even more difficult to listen to than the bands like Repulsion and Impetigo that paved the way for this method. There's still excellent writing though, and a flawless use of an assortment of odd retro-sounding samples. I'm hoping some day, the man behind Blue Holocaust decides to somehow mesh that strange ominous 80's music into the unflinching grind. Given the style, it's hard to cite individual songs, but "Dancesteps on the Edge of a Razor" has an excellent hardcore/thrash break immediately, and "7 Orchids Stained in Red" has a cacophony of distorted growls that become overwhelming until you're released from their terrible grip. So while I understand the decision to keep this so under produced, hearing a song like "She Met Her Fate on a Cold NY Night" makes me reach for the volume nob to start torturing everyone in the neighborhood, until I angrily realize that no matter how much I turn it up, I'm not going to be able to hear it any clearer.

Released twenty years ago, this would easily be something hailed as a classic and sought out on Ebay for exorbitant prices. Probably when people read the words "drum-machine grind," they already have an idea on whether or not they're going to investigate further. With my admitted elitist mentality on shit like this, I'm fully aware that this isn't going to suddenly blow up and need multiple re-pressings. Keeping that in mind, anyone who's fond of the origins of grindcore, or modern mechanical grindcore acts have absolutely no reason not to own this.

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Uffe / Grindead Webzine (www.grindead.cjb.net):
"I really admire Pierre's webzine, Braindead: The goregrind and grindcore webzine. As a fan of music, especially this kind of music you should all know what I'm talking about right now, if not then log-on and surf to his webzine: www.grindgore.net. Anyway, I had no idea that Blue Holocaust was one of Pierre's creation so I was really really excited about hearing something that he has written and recorded. First I gotta say that the coverart really reeks of goregrind, done by Pierre himself, its really masterfull. Its not that its that well-drawn, no, the thing is that he manages to build up the obscure and bizarre essence of goregrind itself. I even think he has done some artwork for other bands as well and even his own webzine is filled with it.

Onward to the music: Imagine combining the intensity of Last days of humanity with the groovy feel of Cock and ball torture, but still you'll be able to hear that Blue Holocaust definantly has something else to offer, a somewhat original feel since what you get is alot of diversity where you actually can tell each track from each other. The vocals really blew me away since I havent really heard goregrind vocals like this. They obviously has effects on them, but it sounds so furious, like a wall of noise rather than the basic gargling stuff that you get to hear often when you listen to goregrind.

Guitars and bass are really distorted, kind giving the music a sleazy and perverted, yet intense feel and you can still make out the guitars from the bass without it all sounding like one big fuzzy mess. I'm still not sure if its programmed drums or real drums that are being used, whatever it is it's done in a solid and diverse manner, really keeping your interest from the start to end. The vocals can although blend in a bit too much with the rest of the instruments, making it kinda noisy, but I like it that way actually.

And finally, you'll get ALOT of samples and intro's from various Giallo movies, not that I'm that familiar with Giallo's work unfortunantly. I guess what Pierre wanted to do with the lyrics (yeah, a goregrind band that actually has lyrics that isn't pathological as well!) and the coverart was to create somekind of "concept" and/or "tribute" album for Giallo which I think is a really neat idea because there are not many bands that do that these days.

This album gets 4,5 out of 5. Definantly one of the best goregrind releases that I've heard and I even think that this is Blue Holocausts first "pro" release as well. If you like really distorted and sleazy goregrind then this is definantly something for you"

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Scott Alisoglu / www.live4metal.com:
On a label called Murder the World Productions, it’s a cinch that the albums being released aren’t by country and smooth jazz artists. Not surprisingly then, goregrind project Blue Holocaust calls the label home. The press sheet calls Twitch of the Death Nerve “a slashing massacre of psychosexual goregrind,” and quite frankly, I couldn’t have said it better myself. The 32 tracks (in 36 minutes) are the work of a solitary Frenchman, Pierre of Braindead Webzine. Just like Putrid Pile’s Shaun LaCanne, he does it all with the help of a drum machine and one hell of a lot of guitar, bass, and vocal distortion. This fast blast atrocity is accomplished with indecipherable/inhuman vocals, lots of samples of shrieking
women, and a filthy sound mix. It’s primitive as hell and sick as shit, simple as that. Actually, for 32 songs of this kind, it’s not quite as monotonous as one might think. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard so much of this stuff that I can actually differentiate styles to some degree, but Blue Holocaust does a fairly good job of putting variety in the arrangements, and I mean that in the most relative of terms. I got a kick out of it, if for no other reason than it’s sure to piss off and offend anyone within hearing distance. Connoisseurs of the style won’t be surprised to know that the material is “heavily influenced by Exulceration, Regurgitate, Dead Infection, Last Days of Humanity, Repulsion [hey, who isn’t?], Impetigo, Gore Beyond, and Necropsy.” Conceptually, the album is inspired by Giallo/Italian slasher films, of which I know nothing, although I’m sure Live4Metal writer Pete Woods does. Even Pierre’s artwork is a bloody mess of hacked up female victims (sorry ladies, for some reason, you seem to be the target of many of these sick goregrind fucks). So what else do you need to know? Love it or hate it, buy it or fuck off.

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www.aversionline.com:
The debut full-length from this one-man act out of France boasts the tag "giallo inspired gore" along the side of the traycard, so what would you expect but 32 tracks of drum machine grindcore in 37 minutes!?  Sadly, like many such projects, the CD suffers from one key problem: A weak recording.  From what I can gather the songwriting seems competent: Quick blasts of no frills gore grind with utterly gargled low vocals that rarely hit a minute in length, keeping the tempos changing up from mildly groovy breaks to straight tremolo picking blasts or moderately paced thrashiness that has a little more character.  And of course there are some horror movie samples here and there, thankfully kept under control.  But the production?  Ehhh.  The drum programming is nicely handled, and the unnatural guitar tone is almost tolerable, but the vocals are ridiculously indecipherable and totally overpower the entire mix so that you can't really make out much of what's going on at all.  Therefore, to be honest, I'd pretty much had enough by the seventh song, so making it through the entire disc was a bit of a chore.  Occasionally there are tracks like the atypically paced "A Butterfly With Blood-Spattered Wings" to spice things up and provide some variety, alongside the thrash mastery that peeks through in the title track, but really, the recording is simply not adequate at all.  The vocals need to be clearer and lower in the mix, the distorted bass needs more differentiation from the guitars, and the guitars need to be heavier and more powerful in order to properly counterbalance the drum programming.  A cover is included of "She Met Her Fate on a Cold NY Night" by Savage Man Savage Beast (who I've never heard of), but it fits in perfectly with the originals of course, so there's no real variation there.  The layout looks pretty damn solid.  The illustrations are a little crude, but I like the color scheme and the rough drawings fit the style well, they're not shoddy or anything, and it all works.  Also cool is the fact that all of the text is handwritten, which adds a nice aesthetic here.  Lyrically of course everything is inspired by extreme violence and gore. what else!?  "Blunt and senseless battery, Chained and beaten into oblivion, Fingers crushed, shattered nose, Belly squashed, left to bleed and die."  I don't know, the dude who does this band also runs the Braindead website (subtitled "The Goregrind and Grindcore Webzine"), so my guess is that he's an absolute diehard aiming for that kind of crowd.  I'd almost think he'd be critical enough to want to push for more quality and creativity in his own work, but. honestly, without a better recording this disc has little to offer even as a tribute to the staples of the genre.  The quality artwork definitely had me expecting something more powerful from this one, but it definitely takes something a little more substantial for a release of this nature to grab me.  Maybe next time.  Tracks like "Plumage of Crystal" or "The Iguana With the Tongue of Fire" would definitely kick ass with a clearer and more in your face recording, so. the sound quality is certainly something to consider working on in the future. (5/10)

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