Slam and goregrind go together like week-old roadkill and a mid-July heat wave—between flail and fester this oft-maligned corner of brutal death metal hobbles with neither functional brain nor censor. Well, no censor on Bandcamp if you rock with goregrind and not pornogrind. Bandcamp has standards after all.1 At the slampicenter of these thick string rattling, pong snare clanging, sample-infested in-joke bands rests a bevy wildly stylized vocalists, allowing the throat-singing influenced snorter Larry Wang (Gorepot, Virginity Fraud, and many more…) a dank spotlight. Over the past decade, Wang has amassed dozens of credits to his own projects and even more as a guest performer, his overtone array of chirps, burps, and squirts being key hooks in many scene slam outings. Now with his first output of 2023, can Wang continue to inspire metalheads everywhere to get their twerk on?
To put it simply, Wang doesn’t have to—he runs his own merch and music distro, Fat Tub of Lard Records, emboldening the scene with garish and drippy shirts, patches, and whatever else fits a logo. Befitting the ethos of a slamtrepreneur, I Am at Your Disposal does nothing that Wang has not crossed before in other bands, coming across instead as a band at play. You need to have a wildly morbid sense of humor to appreciate the care that goes into the featured clips on tracks like “The Toilet Is the Person” or “Looks Like Meat’s Back on the Menu,”2 both the probable result of endless scrolling through YouTube rabbit holes and C-movies for inspirational slamples.3 Fatuous Rump oozes calculated, tongue out rebellion.
Beneath the layers of unmentionable substances that litter the workmanlike stomp (and liquified cover) of Fatuous Rump, I Am at Your Disposal functions primarily as a portfolio piece to showcase the various reasons why Wang should feature on your next equally grimed-over outing. Does harsh cricket chirp beat-boxing work for you? If so, you’ll revel in the upfront and constant crackles on “Wherever We’re Opened, We’re Red” and “Sometimes Bad Babies Go in Timeout.” Do you prefer your mic mouthing a little more wet and popping? Look no further than “The Airtight Bag in the Freezer” and “This is the Condom I Used When I Lost My Virginity.” If there’s music playing, then there’s Mr. Wang showing off his resonant throating talents—take it or leave it.
But what about that music, it’s still there right? Fatuous Rump backs Wang with some of the most serviceable and interchangeable slam you could ask for. Outside of the chair-squirming slamples and occasional memorable intro lick, Wang remains the star and the slippery chugging grooves and ritualistically chimed ride remain his primer only, roll-down windows, sputtering muffler Corolla. Oh yeah, there’s a bassist too, not that his sound matters much, with the low-end presence being dominated by weighty kicks, synth bass drops, and some weird bass filters (“Looks Like Meat’s Back on the Menu”). While some songs pick up the tempo and show some effort beyond the chirp-chug-slam-repeat formula (“No, Can You Lick Them for Me”), Fatuous Rump plays straight through with their highly concentrated, niche stumble and grumble. So, yes, Fatuous Rump plays music enough to fit the claim.
Depending on your tolerance for the cornerstones of this intentionally abrasive genre, the 35-minute plowing of I Am at Your Disposal will either be the next fixture in your ‘DRAG KNUX, HANG NUTS’ playlist (try it next to Bonginator‘s latest) or the evidence submitted by your loved ones to the coroner. Fatuous Rump holds no pretense over what they push, and by all accounts, Larry Wang himself is a relaxed individual who makes sounds because, well, he loves to do it, which is admirable in his chosen country of Taiwan where his scene is quite outside the norm. Those sounds, however, don’t make an album of merit alone, and, for many, I Am at Your Disposal in its entirety will not thoroughly clap cheeks. But if you ever find yourself in the nook of Taiwan that hosts these happy slammers, consider anyway experiencing a live slamming sermon. Unfortunately for Fatuous Rump, the traditional album experience does not bode well for I Am at Your Disposal.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Brutal Mind | Fat Tub of Lard Records
Website: facebook.com/fatuousrump
Releases Worldwide: April 28th, 2023
