SICKBAY “Brutal Existence” EP

JESUS WEPT “Psychedelic Degeneracy” EP

By Dr. Abner Mality

Here are 2 new EPs from the reliable Redefining Darkness label. Let us see what they have to offer…

SICKBAY play a knuckle-dragging variety of hardcore-meets-death metal that we’ve heard a lot of over the years. Imagine HATEBREED/ACACIA STRAIN breakdowns meeting sludgy OBITUARY style swamp riffs with BOLT THROWER’s Karl Willets on grunting vocals. And...that’s about all there is to it. Heavy enough this certainly is, but even on this brief 4 song EP, SICKBAY have pretty much exhausted the limits of their style. A 40 minute full length of this stuff would make your eyes turn white like you were possessed by an alien. My guess is live is where SICKBAY does the most damage.

JESUS WEPT from Michigan sure wish they were CARCASS in the “Necroticism/Heartwork” period. Everything here including the cover art points to that one overwhelming fact. This release leaves me conflicted, because they hit that type of CARCASS sound better than CARCASS themselves do these days, but it’s such a clone job, it gives me the creeps. There’s not much of JESUS WEPT here. “Surgical Punishment Symmetry” starts with a coroner’s monologue just like “Inpropagation” did, “Dispossession” hits a classic CARCASS riff with just a very minor change, etc., etc. Yet I can’t deny this is really well played and generally slaps you really hard. Take what I’ve written here and use it to calculate your own response.

Both of these are far from perfect, but have their own peculiar virtues.

REDEFINING DARKNESS RECORDS

SICKBAY

JESUS WEPT