Inverticrux: Malcontent Manifestation Monitoring Program

This album has probably received the most listens out of anything we’ve ever encountered.  It can so easily change the opinion of the listener it deserves it, because you go into it expecting one thing, come out with another, go back again, come out with yet another, it never ends.  Inverticrux, formerly Vintage Flesh, is one of the more unusual bands we’ve had tossed our way, and in many ways it was a pleasure to listen to this so many times to fully fathom what in the Hell we just listened to.  And hey, stop, trust us, we’ve had some pretty bizarre submissions before, but this one earns the title in an entirely different way.  It’s confusing.  Malcontent Manifestation Monitoring Program has all the hallmarks of sickening, blackened horror, but there are a few things that cause it to falter.  Apparently, chatting with the vocalist, there was quite a bit of turmoil involved in releasing this, a bit of sweat, maybe a bit of blood, but the dude’s hella nice, and we wanted to give it chance after chance to fully understand where it was going.

 On Six Limbs by Inverticrux on Grooveshark 

It was a strange process.  The first cursory listen was pleasing, the second was irritating, and then after that the whole thing kept bringing us down and up.  One day we’d say “yeah, nevermind, dig this,” and the next we’d erase the memory and state “what in the Hell, why?”  It has one of the most unusual effects on the mind, but before we delve into that let’s consider what Inverticrux has going on.  Malcontent Manifestation Monitoring Program has elements of several types of metal, though it tends to ride the blackened death pony, but it includes odd samples and some of the strangest vocal delivery we’ve heard in a long time.  The riffs, for the most part, have a sweet grind to them that sticks to the roof of your mouth and coats your throat on the way down, with that bitter aftertaste this kind of disgusting rawness requires.  Check out the grind in “On Six Limbs,” which we’ve linked directly here for you, especially that bizarre chorus section.  The good thing is simple, when Inverticrux wants to give it to you dripping in blood, they do it, they shove it down your throat right out the end and coat the toilet seat for you.  The drums in particular, are brutally dense and vast at the same time, just awesome there.  The vocals, when they deliver, they deliver, as in deliver a hideous sermon covered in bodily wastes and blaspheming holy artifacts without a lick of cliche.  Check out that track again, because when dude hits those coffin rasps, he sounds like a mutated preacher licking at the bones of a congregation of decaying body parts, with no certainty on sex or identity.

 

But here’s the strange thing about Malcontent Manifestation Monitoring Program.  For all the awesome, grinding, raw, sickening blackened chunk, there’s quite a bit of oddity, too much.  The riffs, though there are several sweaty and sticky moments, begin to wear themselves down.  By the end it kind of all melts together and requires a separate listen to get a grasp of them again.  That is, you really won’t remember any of it after it happens, only during.  One of the likely reasons for this are the vocals.  When Raypissed is on, he knows exactly what he’s doing.  His tongue reaches so far from his throat it’s all over your body before you know it.  But there are two problems.  One, they’re recorded too loud, so loud they sometimes cover the rest of the music.  Two, and most importantly, at times they’re simply ridiculous, there’s no other way to say it.  He goes from a voice that sounds like raw chicken breaking and poisoning your palette to an opera singer taking a fart.  Malcontent Manifestation Monitoring Program gets you going, and then it throws you to the floor and takes a piss all over your face, as if it were all some sort of foolery.  It’s always interesting how easily vocals can kill a sound, and when these do, they really do it.  But, strangely, at times the oddity of them actually works, it’s just not consistent enough.  And some of these titles, how are we to interpret them?  “Attack of the Scarecrow Clowns from Planet Spider?”  There simply isn’t anything to be said like that.  That being said, these guys have the foundation to create a monolith of blackened depravity, they just need to take themselves more seriously, because some of their direction is a genuine detriment to their overall sound.

 

Inverticrux Official Facebook

Written by Stanley Stepanic

Inverticrux: Malcontent Manifestation Monitoring Program
Exalted Woe Records
3.5 / 5