Darker Days Ahead by Terrorizer (2006) Review

Conclusion
Pete Sandoval on drums and the Mexecutioner, Jesse Pintado, on guitar for the last album he recorded before he sadly passed away due to a liver that couldn't keep up with the party. It is the only grindcore album I own, and my knowledge of the genre is limited to singing along to a few Anal Blast songs, so take my review with a pinch of salt and a shot of tequila. But I like it.

After recently reading up on clostridium botulinum, I decided this little fellow is so awesome that I had to dedicate most of my new layout to the bacterium. You may know c.botulinum as food poisoning or Botox, but I know it as the cause of botulism. Probably the most toxic substance known, a 2 kg bag of c.botulinum has enough potential to destroy mankind. Cthulhu would however make for a more cinematic apocalypse.


That's what could be lurking in your baked beans. Image taken from marlerblog.com.

According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, some of the favourite party tricks of c.botulinum include:

• double vision


• drooping eyelids


• slurred speech


• dry mouth


• difficult swallowing


• muscle weakness, and eventually muscular paralysis

Quite a little terrorizer.

Review

• All of the music is written by Pete Sandoval (Morbid Angel) and Jesse Pintado. Expect killer riffs and lots of brutality, although I found for the most part this album is less taxing than most grindcore out there. Read: sick, but slightly more melodic. If you are a grindcore purist, this might not be a good thing. I mean all the tracks are longer than a minute.


• Pete Sandoval's drumming may cause double vision.


• Anthony Rezhawk does a rasp of Cerberus similar to Steve Tucker's very own bark. Could just be my recent overdose of Morbid Angel, but this is the kind of growling I like. He also wrote all the lyrics. In proud grindcore tradition, a couple of verses are offered, after which the song title is repeated a few times. This is not rocket science, but it is good for shaking your fist. I said Cerberus, not cerebral.


• Ghost Train is a kind of piano and skull-fucking double bass pedal drumming interlude. The kind that would make Jaws float upside down. This track could cause drooping eyelids. Even for sharks.


• Apocalyptic visions delivered in slurred speech, with a slight tequila and mescaline nasal drip. Ah, tequila. Just the thing for a dry mouth.


• The fact that all the tracks are longer than a minute makes for difficult swallowing. Similar to health drugs. But that's only if you are a grindcore purist. Sandoval plays in one of the founding bands of technical death, so a little meandering is expected with the brutality. Rest assured - there's enough complexity to merit an average of 3,5 minutes per track.


• Muscle weakness? No, there's not much of that here. This is a review for Terrorizer, not c.botulinum. But if you've ever had one of those 24 hour fill-station shop pies, I'm sure you could write a good review of c.botulinum, or at least salmonella enteritidis.

Track listing

1. Inevitable


2. Darker Days Ahead


3. Crematorium


4. Fallout


5. Doomed Forever


6. Mayhem


7. Blind Army


8. Nightmare


9. Legacy of Brutality


10. Dead Shall Rise V.06


11. Victim of Greed


12. Ghost Train

Personell

• Tony Norman: bass; vocals.


• Jesse Pintado: guitar.


• Anthony Rezhawk: vocals.


• Pete Sandoval: drums.

Rating