APF Records – 27th November 2020
James Wells
Sometimes, there’s just no substitute for a full-tilt, balls-out, gut-churning sludgy grindcore for providing that release. There’s something strangely soothing in the relentless blastbeats, the mangled-to-fuck guitar attack, the guttural growls of pain, anguish, and all-out fury. Corrupt Moral Altar get catharsis, channelling every last ounce of rage into fast and furious sonic blitzkriegs, and three years on from their second album, Eunoia, this five-track EP suggests they’ve distilled and bottled three years of fury into seventeen minutes of brutality.
For the most part, it’s pretty much business as usual, in that everything is a pulverizing blast whereby everything thunders and pounds away at a hundred miles an hour, each song leaving you feeling like you’ve been used as a punching speedbag for three and a half minutes. Five songs may not sound like much, but when punishment is delivered at this pace, and with this much force, it’s exhausting. You only have to hope that ‘Cathedral of Porn’ isn’t intended as a tune to wank to.
The intro to ‘Spirit Breaker’ marks a distinct change in tone and tempo, with chiming, post-rocky guitar, before, perhaps inevitably, it gets grimy and nasty and completely full-on. There’s a grand swathe of semi-choral vocals which ring out over the punishing double-pedal drumming and heavy-grind guitars, and it’s a surprising but rather moving shift, and it closes in a more contemplative that returns to the atmosphere of the opening. It’s by no means wimpy, but does abundantly demonstrate that CMA are far more than one-dimensional rage-merchants.
AA
