By Matt Lewis
An ambitious disaster is how I would describe this record. As complex a record as this is, its this simplest description that sums it up. War From A Harlots Mouth, hailing from Germany, has recorded quite possibly the “what the fuck was that” record of the decade. MMX is a mix of technical death metal, jazz influenced melodies, stringed instruments and, last but not least, grindcore. The band took all of it and smashed it together like two three year olds pounding their toy trucks together.
It flows, sputters and spurts like someone who just ate Taco Bell. It is completely chaotic and, like I said before, in that what the fuck was that kind of a way. It tries to be too many things at once: avant garde, progressive, technical and jazz all in one song, let alone one album. The spectrum is as wide as the grand canyon, using eight-stringed guitars to violins. You get that huge low end bursting through after a quite high end melody with a stringed section. It is annoying and jolts the listener out of sync constantly.
It seems to me that there are two possibilities here. Either MMX was done with a lot of thought and they over analyzed it or they were as fucking high as Hunter S Thompson. Don’t get me wrong I like chaos in my music, I like jazz sometimes in my music and I even like them smashed together but underneath it all it has to make a little sense to draw the listener in. I give the record a 10 for ambition but a 3 for execution. Back to the drawing board for this band.
(Lifeforce America)
Rating: 3
