Fluids – Not Dark Yet (Review)

So the cover of the record has a corner covered in gore and bodyparts in black and white and the rest is total blackness with the name and title in the upper corner. Not that unique for a death grind album and clearly not the most telling.

It begins with an intro that tells us of the last moments of a person commiting suicide underlayed with dark electronic sounds that makes you expect you’re about to get some cybergrind.

But oh boy are you wrong! As soon as it’s over you are hit with some heavy, dragging riffs and hard drums, combined with deep gutturals. This is what you’re in for now. The first two tracks play this slowmotion bulldozer sound with moments of fast and hard drumparts. From then on you are getting rolled over with heaviness. This carries on into track three but with a much faster pace, wich is unexpected but very welcome. Here you also get some nasty squeals mixed into the vocals that diversivy the nice dark gutturals. Track four is an absolut highlight, as it’s a beast of a groovemachine (seriously get that into your ears!). Killer stomping beat with nice change of pace in the middle. And it is followed up by one of the faster tracks that overruns you and pushes you right into the ground. The squeals give this one the kick.

After that there’s a skit similar to the intro with dark electrosounds to give you just enough space to recover for the next immedeate dose of the slow motion bulldozer that drags with heavy guitars, slow drums and dark gutturals. This carries on into the next ones with a few but never less heavy and fast parts – this is the distinguishing quality of the whole record. When track nine is reached you get the next snuff-movie-esque skit similar to the others that soon enough turns into a slow-motion groove dozer which speeds up immensely just to go back to slow dragging brutality, switching between those two. It all ends with one last super heavy bulldozer of a track.

In concluison: if you don’t like super heavy dragging bulldozer grind this is not the stuff for you.

The whole thing stomps you into the ground with a few fast and groovy moments dominated by deep harsh riffs and blasting times near oppressive drums with deep gutturals and some squeals for the mix with a rather raw and dirty sound that are supported by the dirty snuffesk mood that the skits create.

8/10 Hammers!

Favorite Tracks:
“Dignity Swindled” – groove machine!
“Life Spent”