### Gutted: Bleed for us to live

#### 28/05/09 || Trauma

Ahh, Toledo, Ohio. What memories I have of that place. It seems like only yesterday I was trying to sleep after 14 hours of driving through a terrible flooding storm that wreaked havoc on the U.S. Midwest. Toledo was where I decided to stop since when I woke that next morning it’d only be a couple hours to my final destination. I will forever regret that decision. Never, ever, ever stay in a Motel 6 in Toledo, no matter how nice the previous one you were in was (and not because of the Miss South Dakota contestants).

What does that have to do with this band? Well, for one, that’s where this band hail(s)(ed) from. Dirty, disgusting Toledo. Just like this music. And that’s a good thing.

I’ve listened to this album multiple times over the past couple years and have just loved it to death. Some days I’ll even put it on repeat. That’s not to say it’s the best thing this side of a blowjob, but if I want some dirty (albeit cheesy) death metal with good hooks and groove I know where I can go to for some. It starts off okay with “Bleed”, “Sins of God”, and “Nailed to the Cross”, but it finally reaches a fucken great groove once it gets to “Death Before Dismember”. That main riff makes me just want to bang my head, my cock, my neighbors head and cock, anything really. “Skeletonized” is another one of those tracks. When these guys are on, they are fucken on. Thankfully the album has a super strong second half opposed to it’s first half, which isn’t bad. The solos, when they are there, are good and definitely don’t get in the way. The guitar sound is perfect to my ears. Everything seems very well balanced in the mix.

And the bass, oh man the bass. It’s nothing like “Those Once Loyal” or “HDCE” in terms of knocking your testicles to your tonsils, but it’s clearly audible and adds to the album. Clean and dirty at the same time if that’s even possible. He doesn’t often stray too far from the guitar lines, but since he’s also the singer I guess I’ll let that slide… and maybe cos you can hear it. And about his vocals. He won’t be winning any awards but he has a good growl, and doesn’t really sound like any other I know of. He just does this “oouugh” sometimes for no apparent reason. I got used to it, but it made me laugh a few times. Part of the cheesiness? At least he sounds like he has loads of fun doing this.

The drums are pretty good to my ears. If I had to complain about them, the cymbals could maybe be a bit louder in the mix, or something. They sound a tad weak.

In summation, I think this is a good album, but not perfect. If you look at the song titles, you can clearly see you’re going to get some cheesiness, intentional or not (I go with the former). This isn’t a blistering blast-fest or a fucken drone album. This is some solid Midwestern U.S. death metal.

7.5 corpses kicked out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 1994
- Label: Red Light/LNL
- Website: Gutted MySpace
- Band
- Mark Ditch: bass, vocals
- Mike Ditch: rhythm guitars
- Billy Mills: lead guitars
- S. Ditch: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Bleed
- 02. Sins of god
- 03. Nailed to the cross
- 04. Cold in the coffin
- 05. Chopped up at the altar
- 06. Death before dismember
- 07. Chock full of guts
- 08. Skeletonized
- 09. Kickin’ the corpse
- 10. Flood of blood