Sunday 2 November 2014

Cannabis Corpse/Ghoul - Splatterhash Split 12" (Review)


Album Type: Split 12”
Date Released: 7/1/2014
Label: Tankcrimes

Splatterhash’ Split CD/DD/12” track Listing:

1. The Inhalation Plague (CANNABIS CORPSE) (02:42)
2. Shatter Their Bongs (CANNABIS CORPSE) (03:07)
3. Inner Sanctum (GHOUL) (05:06)
4. Spill Your Guts (GHOUL) (01:43)

Bio:

Featuring four tracks of rabid, brutalic insanity, the Splatterhash 12” will be unleashed via Tankcrimes January 7, 2014 on CD and digital download. For their portion of the split, GHOUL returned to Earhammer Studios in Oakland, California where they recorded both Transmission Zero and Splatterthrash. CANNABIS CORPSE recorded at bassist/vocalist Land Phil’s own Blaze of Torment Studios in Richmond, Virginia. The whole rollicking shebang was mastered by Dan Randall at Mammoth Sound and Santa Cruz, California and features cover art by Andrei Bouzikov (Municipal Waste, Skeletonwitch, Toxic Holocaust). The release marks the first CANNABIS CORPSE material to feature Land Phil on vocals and Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus of Gwar) on lead guitar.

CANNABIS CORPSE, who recently joined the Season Of Mist roster, is amarijuana-themed death metal assault from Richmond, Virginia. Featuring members of Municipal Waste and Gwar, the red-eyed riffmanglers inCANNABIS CORPSE pride themselves in their exceptional knowledge of good green, face raping riffs and death metal parodies. Future live ceremonials from both
bands to be announced in the months to come.

The masked legion known as GHOUL – Cremator, Fermentor, Digestor, and Dissector – are mutants from Creepsylvania specializing in the execution of bone-snapping splatterthrash, grave robbing, flesh devourment and a variety of gory night time rituals. The band will bring their audio indecency to the stage Halloween night opening for the mighty Danzig in San Francisco. Additionally, GHOUL will co-headline the first annual Black Sky gala founded by Skinless’ Sherwood Webber. Denver Black Sky will be held on December 14th, 2013 and features a absurdly sick lineup of: Dying Fetus, Exhumed, Speedwolf, Power Trip, Mammoth Grinder, Call Of The Void, Reproacher, Weekend Nachos, Iron Reagan, Axeslasher, Primitive Man, Vimana, Of Feather And Bone, Native Daughters, Black Sleep Of Kali, Dead Temple and Flight Of Sleipnir.

Review:

At 12 minutes and 37 seconds, hand-delivered by a label in Oakland featuring bands from Richmond, Va. and deep within the bowels of Creepsylvania, ‘Splatterhash’ is a brutal, 4 song EP ready to assault any auditory system. Both bands destroy their tracks, doing what they do best, crushing metal filled with over-the-top gore & chaos.

Cannabis Corpse began when Phillip “Landphil” Hall and his brother Josh (aka, “HallHammer”) coined the term and thought it would be a great idea for a band. Weed themed death metal. I mean, right?!?  But here’s the twist, each of their songs’ characters always meet some horrible end from smoking weed, usually in a horrifically gory manner. Throughout the years, this band of deathly stoners has only released two albums and (now) three EPs, having been through several line-up changes and eventually settling as a three piece with Brent Pergason (also in Gwar) on guitar.

Their first track on the EP is ‘Inhalation Plague’, a gnarled tale about a green vapor of THC and bathsalts spreading over east L.A. Of course the protagonist must get high off the vapor, because why not? As the bathsalts begin to take over, he quickly loses his mind and breaks into the neighbor’s house to massacre the family. Why? Because METAL! ‘Shatter Their Bongs’ is the second song, about a mental patient forced to smoke weed for science until “he’s addicted to hi-grade potent weed eternally.”

And then there’s Ghoul, the mysterious madmen of Creepsylvania. A strange place with creepy trees and a sordid past, you can read all about Creepsylvania in the 11 paragraph history on Ghoul’s website. Pretty interesting stuff, Attila the Hun even briefly owned it until he “accidentally” lost it in a card game. However, these days the land is filled with bands of roaming ghouls mutilating people and playing metal.

The longest song on the EP at 5 minutes, “Inner Sanctum” is the band’s story on how they lure the innocent into their lair for grisly torture. Their second track, “Spill Your Guts,” continues the story with HOW Ghoul will torture you or anyone else they capture. I especially liked the line about once spilling your guts they’ll sop up the drippings “with your Iron Reagan shirt,” in a grim nod to one of Landphil’s other projects.

‘Splatterhash’ is short, fast and loud, capturing the best of both bands in just the right amount of time to piss off the neighbors when cranked up. It’s also one of the last recordings—if not the last--of Ghoul with alumni, Dan Randall, on guitar as Dissector (he also mastered the first few Iron Reagan EPs/album because the metal world is rad like that). You could always buy the cd or download it, but for just a little extra, why not pick it up on split colored vinyl? That way, when you’re old and broken, you can pass it onto the kids in one last attempt to prove you were once cool and thrashed with the best of them.

Words by: Mat Weir

You can pick up a copy here



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