Review: Organ Dealer – Visceral Infection
Good news everybody, New Jersey was just voted the least liked state in America by the other fifty states. That seems fitting given that we have an obese blowhard governor who has set the state back economically for many years to come. The state song is “Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi. People think we all act like that group of guidos and guidettes from MTV’s The Jersey Shore, and that’s a pretty fair representation. We’re famous for some guy called “The Boss” who doesn’t do shit. There’s potholes in just about every road, and the entire population of the state is concentrated mostly in the northern area of the state which makes for awesome traffic jams because just about everybody drives their own car. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, but enough about all the terrible things, there’s plenty of good music here in the Garden State. And when it comes to bands that play heavy music, the stuff that’s coming out of the speakers is a reflection of what it’s like to put up with all this crap on a regular basis. Enter Organ Dealer who play a style of death grind that could only have been created in NJ because the conditions here bring an unpleasantness out of you.
Visceral Infection delivers twelve songs of blasting animosity that takes its cues from death metal, grindcore, and hardcore. Organ Dealer specialize in writing short songs while packing a punch served by a clenched fist with a pair of brass knuckles on them to give it a grind feel. Despite the brevity of the songs, there’s a lot happening within them. Machine gun blast beats over precisely played death metal riffs rage through each song to give you whiplash as you’re head banging along. They’ll pause briefly so you can take a breather as you ready yourself to windmill and spin kick along to breakdowns that will have you swinging for the fences. Vocalist Scot Moriarty is screaming his head off through every song while death metal growls back him up throughout.
There is no letup to be found anywhere on Visceral Infection. Organ Dealer pride themselves on dishing out wave after wave of unrelenting punishment in short explosive bursts. Songs like “Pyrophillia”, “Pear of Anguish” and “Piss & Gasoline” highlight the festivities as they make great use of genre mashing that blends everything together in such a way that no one element supersedes the other. The recording works well for Organ Dealer as all the instruments have room to breathe. Much like the mashing of styles in their music, there’s not one aspect of the recording that overtakes the other. Drums are upfront where they need to be but not upfront to the point of distraction. Same with the guitars, bass and vocals. It’s all evenly spread out so the listener can hear what everyone is doing. After several listens, the album I can most closely compare Visceral Infection to is The Red Chord’s first album, Fused Together In Revolving Doors which saw that band blending death, grind, and hardcore to a similarly brilliant result.
This album is reflective of the anger you feel when you are caught in one of those time consuming traffic jams where it takes you a half an hour to move one mile. As you inch along the freeway with hundreds of other motorists, you get so pissed that you actually want to abandon your vehicle and walk home because that would be faster than waiting for the idiot who was texting while driving to be cleaned up. Either that or you wish you had a tank so you can blast this album while tossing every other vehicle aside just so you can get home at a decent hour. In a perfect world you’d opt for the latter.
