It’s kind of a shame that (in my opinion) some of Gut’s best and most memorable songs are usually on splits shared with relatively mid bands. In the big heaping mountainous pile of splits that Gut has taken part in there was bound to at least be one split where the other side(s) matched up with Gut’s quality of material, and I think I found one. Gut and Rompeprop are equally known for their extremely raunchy themes, disturbing album art and lyrics, so it’s no surprise that two of the biggest allstars of the de-facto subgenre “pornogrind” were bound to share a split together. I’ve personally spent a lot of time listening to the Gut discography within the past few weeks and I can safely say across 2 decades worth of splits this one and the one with Distorted Impalement are probably my favorites. For genre-consistency sake, I’ve decided to review this one. Right out of the gate I just want to say Masters of Gore is a pretty bad and generic name, couldn’t they call this like Porn Kings, or something a little more on-brand with their common themes / aesthetic? Oh, well at least it’s better than the other splits where Gut calls their side one thing and the other band doesn’t title theirs.
First track on this album isn’t even a real song, but it’s still so amazing. Later-era Gut has a reputation for experimenting with hip-hop and electronic music and the fact that this intro contains riffs overlayed to proto-trap beats, done in 2006 no less, is totally mindblowing. Next song after is arguably Gut’s best and most recognizable track “The Nympho Is a Gee”, which is probably the most catchy grind song ever made (if you could even still classify the band’s own brand of extremely esoteric experimentation of goregrind as even grind by that point anymore). It contains a chorus, coherent understandable vocals/lyrics and unbelievably catchy/bouncy riffs that would make most early 2000s nu metal bands jealous—if it wasn’t for the porn sample I would bet this song could get a spot on German rock radio.
Unfortunately however the Gut side kind of takes a steep downhill after these first two tracks. The rest of their songs tend to mostly be blatant rip-offs of Cattle Decapitation‘s early sound and their novelty of making super-fast-and-it’s-already-over grind tracks (just attach porno samples at the start and call it a day). The annoying high-pitched whines of the drummer are something I never quite understood why they incorporate in their music, they’re (obviously) not good vocals and I’m pretty sure even the band are aware of this. It almost feels like a troll/shitpost-sort of moment whenever the dude opens his mouth. Sure it serves as an effective juxtaposition to Bukkake Boy’s crude pitchshifted snarles and barks, but vocally their music would be even if he just kept his involvement solely to the drums and nothing more. Despite their shortcomings Gut really are innovators and I truly respect their dedication to stepping outside of the comfort zone which most grindcore bands never would dare to do. I love ignorant groovy riffs coupled with nasty guttural vocals (see: my slam death metal reviews) so naturally I enjoy Gut, but I think they could have included better material for this.
Next up Rompeprop songs: to the untrained ear Rompeprop may come off as indistinguishable to any typical goregrind band and they do without a doubt have their similarities to Gut, but are different enough (and lack Gut’s adventurous experimentation) to result in a fair amount of variety for the release’s sake. Romp’s songs are a heavy groove-laden assault of catchy goregrind complete with the band’s own trademark of goofy sound samples and their native Dutch humor. Their material almost comes in as a breath of fresh air to the Gut tracks, in that it’s nice to experience some “purist” pornogrind during the second half. In my view Rompeprop, soundwise, are more similar to Cock and Ball Torture than they are to Gut, it sort of makes me ponder as to why all 3 never took part in a split together. It would have been a very welcome addition to have CBT apart of this as by the time it’s all over the release feels very short. Overall Rompeprop does a great job in the songwriting and guitar-tone department, if there’s one thing I could say they need to work on it’s probably their confidence over using a vocal-pitchshifter, as they’re clearly a lot more insecure about it than other bands in their genre: the booklet for this split literally has a note by them which reads (in verbatim) “If you think harmonizer/pitchshifter-vocals are fake. so is your distortion on your guitar!! We just like such fucking vocals, so fuck off, verrekte dolle schup!”
If you’re a total fiend for underground grind splits then this is some pretty good stuff. Despite the handful of weak songs the better moments surely make up for the duds, and I don’t mind coming back listening to this every now & then. I just wish Gut could’ve included another banger or two half as good as “The Nympho Is a Gee” and less of those 5-second studio bowel movements.
rafazardly 