Review: Foetal Juice “Gluttony” [Gore House Production]

There aren’t many bands who would open an album with “Take Your Face For A Shit”. Fortunately Foetal Juice are one of them. To say these UK sewer rats swim in a sonic puddle of grime and grind reflects the depths to which they sink on braincell splattering tracks such as “Septic Mollusc”.

Gluttony confirms the Foetal foursome’s burgeoning reputation amidst the septic tank ranks of death metal and grindcore. This sophomore full length release has a dirty dozen songs all played out in their finest traditions of gratuitous grindcore, wuth ab overload of primal pounding on tracks such as the raging “Metamorphosis”.

In the past these Mancunian mavericks have delighted in the perverse, whipping pits into a frenzy with such harmonious radio-friendly skullslammers as “Big Trouble in Little Vagina,” “Semen Evil Smear No Evil,” not forgetting the timeless “Service Station Masturbation.”

On Gluttony however, while still retaining their insatiable appetite for gore and depravity, they also begin to channel some of their hostility, displayed through a raging torrent of frothing filth, with those who over-indulge in some of life’s more unsavoury elements – and we’re not talking meat pies here.

Incendiary hit-and-run blasts such as “Venomous Domination” and “Carnage” showcase the worst of modern day behavioural traits while “Antagonistic Bastard” more or less speaks for itself.

For all their toilet humour and general affiliation to anything distasteful, Foetal Juice have not spent the past 15 years just picking their own scabs. They can lay down riffs that a sumo wrestler would struggle to get off the ground while there are hooks here that would give your average salmon a sleepless night.

While they will have to wait a while to reinforce their deserved reputation as a ferocious live act, at least now we have these new firestorms to remind us that Foetal Juice is still available to order – although downing a full pint may push your guts to the limit.

After the explosive title track, the Manc marauders climax messily with the album’s longest track, “Spirit Leech”. With a pounding chug at its core and riffs as sharp as arrow tips, Derek Carley’s grinding vocals come together to create a pernicious powerplay all played out under the hooves of a blastbeat stampede.

Release date: June 12, 2020

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