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Oh,
Tampa Bay, what the hell happened to you? Time flies,
that’s it. Plus, we people have too many expectations.
It certainly feels like less than two decades have
passed since Florida death metal took over the world.
Sure, Deicide and Obituary are still together, at it
when necessary and absent most of the time. Morbid
Angel? Yeah, they were awesome. There are a few other
bands still raising the flag. Most of them are hybrids.
Light Yourself On Fire signed to Seventh Rule, but their
debut did not exactly lit me up. And then there is that
other death metal band with a name long enough to be
forgotten by all. Yeah, they got signed to Nuclear
Blast. Who else is there?
Enter St.
Petersburg’s Flying Snakes, this trio’s sound is much more
exciting. Raw shit. Metal infested, crust oriented, and punk
informed. I can perfectly imagine cavemen playing this stuff.
That’s just because of the virulence of their sound because
there are smarts to this. The riffs are eloquent, well-written
and very structured, rowdy, ugly and very sludgey. Therefore,
Bludgeoning Frequency delivers such a visceral pummeling.
But the Flying Snakes can’t keep a riff going for a full song,
which brings me to a point; upon listening to the low tuneage
that starts off with “Scalp Collector” I was quick to think of
the sound of bands like Stormcrow, who usually rock one riff per
tune. Flying Snakes have kept that type of grime, but have added
enough parts, twists and turns to also appeal to a crowd that’s
a bit more forward thinking. What’s best is that there is
nothing polished about this. This music is rough around the
edges and inside out. Zero pretension and full on aggression.
Bludgeoning Frequency is such a solid album it is hard to
pick a stand out song. Of “Ripe With Plague” I particularly dig
the instrumental middle part, where the mid tempo accelerates
just not enough to ever get fast, where the drums sound like the
beat of a mid-race horse, and also the latter half, where the
band just smears its nasty sound all over your earlobes. “Death
of Civilization”, come on now, I’ve fallen in love to cheating
‘interludes’ like this, where the Flying Snakes build a
dirtied up slow tempo and dense clarity into a metal riff that
could have fit well into a roughened version of a Riot (Thundersteel-era)
tune. All before getting into a D-beat that gives way to an
unceremonious end. “Oven” hops and hops every time in more
unorthodox ways and “Dead Rabbits” is many things at once, but
mostly is sludge stoner without the blues backbone.
The crudity of the Flying Snakes’ sound is perfectly matched by
the dual vocals of bassist Cletis Chatterton and guitarist
Jonathan Warzybok, one has this down-in-the-well growl while the
other less frequently offers a higher blistering pitch. At
times, both vocals surge together, speaking their lines
arrhythmically but in such incisive fashion.
I don’t know
if Bludgeoning Frequency means something to the maybe
inexistent Tampa scene. Judging by its power in sound I hope it
does. Judging by the almost elusive fashion with which this trio
dishes out the riffs and by the taste of the masses, it is very
unlikely that it will induce younger bands to adopt a sound this
fierce. I can just hope I am wrong.
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