Review: Bone Shredding Apparatus “Liquificationment”

When it comes to notable goregrind bands, the U.S. seems to have a severe lack of such. The only two American bands that come to mind on this topic, are the recently of late, off the map XXX Maniak, who haven’t released anything for a decade, and the Carcass imitation band The County Medical Examiners whom also share the deficit of new content with XXX Maniak. So maybe it would seem a newer American goregrind band could emerge and rise to the top of the scene with superb material and innovative music, right? With Bone Shredding Apparatus, I’m not too sure.

The aforementioned Bone Shredding Apparatus is not so much a goregrind band, but rather a gorenoise or noisegrind band, in the vein of later days Last Days of Humanity or for those more familiar with the genre, Gunk. BSA released their debut EP back in mid-November of 2018, and is definitely not metal in the sense that there aren’t any discernable riffs whatsoever. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it certainly does limit this release to a niche audience and could be seen as intimidating to newcomers or anyone looking to explore the ‘gore’ and/or ‘grind’ subgenres.

This EP feels like a tribute to Last Days of Humanity’s ‘Putrefaction in Process’: Blast beats, shredding and relentless guitars, heavily distorted bass, and vocals pitch shifted to hell and back, sounding like a deranged demon monster, hell-bent on regurgitating its own stomach. But whereas Last Days of Humanity sounds like a soundtrack to the apocalypse and end of the world, BSA sounds like the morgue got backed up and is now overflowing with the liquid juice of the corpses. It’s the subtle differences that make this EP less impactful and impressive, and more in your face and obnoxious. Sure this album is louder, and if they were going for brutality and just being loud, that’s understandable and they achieved their goal, but that doesn’t mean much in the long run, and comes off as lazy and forgettable. I could have just listened to the EP and I couldn’t name a single track without at least mistaking the plethora of interchangeable, “brutal” words used in each track. All 18 tracks are just loud, continuous grinding without any major various or technicality to it whatsoever. However, there are interims of ambient terror and subsonic static horrors that break up the monotony and offer a semblance of artistic intent. And the run time of 11 minutes is generous in that it doesn’t feel like a monumental waste of time.

Liquificationment, is definitely an acquired taste, a band that no one should start with, but could be enjoyed upon certain merits and interests. Combine the simple sound BSA went for (see loud) along with the wall of gory noise slathered upon my eardrums, I wasn’t too impressed by this debut, especially when bands out there have done it much better and with much more notable nuances and complexity. Liquificationment is a fine start for the band, but in a sea of noise, it’ll take much more than being a big wave to get noticed.