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Maledictive Pigs: Soul surgery

11/09/08 || Daemonomania

Yep, I never heard of Maledictive Pigs either. As far as I know, Maledictive isn’t even a real word, so that probably won’t help them in their quest to unseat Hasselhoff from the top of the charts in Deutschland. Ah Germany, the land of humorlessness and fecal consumption. Das Pigs have a lot of the former, but thankfully very little of the latter.

When popping in “Soul surgery”, the audience is immediately confronted with a meaty, slow, and punishing riff. The guitar tone brings back good memories of classic Swedish death, and that can never be bad. Throughout this disc I’m actually reminded of two out of three thousand bands inhabited by Rogga himself. Namely, Paganizer and Ribspreader, but with a more clear production and a lot more blastbeats. However, what Paganspreader lacks in spiffy production (on purpose I assume) they make up for in memorable choruses. It appears the Maledictive Ones surgically removed their choruses in a soulful manner.

Back to the lecture at hand, perfection is perfected, so I’m a let ‘em understand. The intro, pointless and short as most intro tracks are, fades. A pitch shifted voice tells us something about soul surgery, which you can BET is not covered by most insurance plans. Then boom, we get hit by a very pleasant amalgamation of slow grooving riffs straight outta the Grave alternated with blasting enslaved to the grind. The Maledicks can churn out decelerated sections like an Amish milkmaid on ice cream day, by the way. Focused correctly, they could put together one hell of an excellent mid-paced album. The problem is that they want to melt your face with the fast parts. Sorry gang, my face remains unmelted. Imagine if, at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, the Nazis had opened the ark, the ghost-type things had floated around, and then they just went back into the ark without much fanfare. It would have been disappointing to say the least, and there would have been no excellent liquefied visage scene to enjoy.

The vocals are low as fuck and from time to time sound a bit doctored, but praise must be given for avoiding the “guttural” tone so prevalent in metal today. The drumming is competent but anonymous. It could be Derek Roddy, it could be Mario Lopez, it could be Wayne Gretzky. In fact, it could be YOU playing the drums. Do you remember where you were throughout the year of 2005? Is it possible that you drank too much one night, took a flight to Germany, recorded workmanlike drum tracks for Maledictive Pigs, then woke up at home with a massive headache and some odd stains on your clothes? When you really think about it, the whole scenario sounds quite plausible. Guitar-wise, as mentioned, these dudes know their slow riffs but when things speed up the thrill is gone. And there’s no way they achieve that heavy low end without the help of the bass, so props unto thee bassmaster.

Would I recommend you rush out to your local German Metal Emporium and pick up a copy of “Soul surgery” right now? Not necessarily, but if you can pick it up at the Discount German Metal Emporium next door I’d say go for it. These guys will get your neck moving, even if you can’t tell “Death ride” apart from “Warzone”. Fans of the direction Grave went with “As rapture comes” will enjoy it for sure. Maltaddictive have a great deal of potential. Then again, they’ve been around since 1992. It is about fucking time to capitalize on that potential, ya damn Krauts!

6.5 Teutons with croutons out of 10.

Information
Released: 2005
Label: Cudgel Agency
Website: www.maledictivepigs.de
Band
Henry Grothe: vocals
Ronny Andrich: bass
Daniel Andrich: drums
Jan Neumann: guitars

Tracklist
01. M.T. 10.28
02. Soul Surgery
03. Genocide
04. Nihilism In Short
05. Vital Confusion
06. Blind Bleeding (the blind?)
07. Chaos, Fear And Despair
08. Death Ride
09. Warzone
10. Lobotomy

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