Here at AMG we have a feature that runs every so often called Contrite Metal Guy. For those who’ve never seen one pass by, this is our take-backsies article, where we retroactively up or downgrade review scores with the benefit of hindsight. As they are infrequent and I’m rarely wrong, I haven’t participated in one yet, but I have been brooding over one entry I must someday make. I overrated Foetal Juice’s last album Gluttony, just a tad. It’s a very good album, but not a great one. It doesn’t have the memorability to give it sufficient longevity for a place among the hallowed 4.0s. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an incredibly entertaining slab of no-nonsense death metal, though, so I was looking forward to plunging into the next bowl of grisly grits from the Manchester gents.
When your nearest ancestor is Cannibal Corpse, a band famous for not changing at all, a similar absence of evolution is to be expected. Indeed, Grotesque confirms Foetal Juice has one goal and sticks to it. Phlegmatic growls and gurgles keep pace with twisting riffs and rapid-fire drums. The organic quality of the vocals serves to hide the amount of technical prowess these guys have, and with the pacing largely on the upper end of the scale, it’s easy to get swept up in the battering tidal wave of gore. Most importantly, the fun factor was not lost, as the gleeful gore-philia is infectiously joyous and the music largely lives up to the tongue-in-cheek song titles like “The Walking Groin” and “Two Bongs Don’t Make a Right.”
Try as it might, though, I can’t help but feel Foetal Juice has tippy-toed downward on the ‘Fuck Yeah’ scale across the board. This downsizing is subtle. Grotesque still has all the fury and all the riffs, and on first listen I thought this entry was entirely on par. But the tracks do blur together more than before. Comparing the verses of “Cemetary Leachate,” “The Walking Groin” and “F.K.E.O.” requires getting into the grisly details; on the surface, they are practically identical, and such homogeneity is replicated across the album in different ways. Foetal Juice clearly decided to focus on the excellent choruses, where the killer riffs get the most room to show off, but the spaces between are disappointingly formulaic. The production has taken on water as well. Despite no difference in studio or producer, the rich master and delicious overweight bass have been replaced with cardboard cutouts of the same, opting for a much more generic sound.
It’s not a bad production by any means, though. The bass still has more presence than your average OSDM, particularly on “Mountain of Gore” and “Torn Apart,” and the mix is spot-on. Moreover, while the lack of variation is notable, there are certainly outliers dotted across the tracklist. “Legion of the Grotesque” is the unfortunate negative exception, where the band seems to run out of inspiration and poorly hides it behind generic chugs and too many title drops. But “Two Bongs” is a fun bite-sized rager, and though closer “Gruesome” lingers in its unusually calm intro for too long, it turns out to be worth the wait. Exploding into an uncanny fury, this is the track that subverts the joking nature of Foetal Juice and shows a darker side of the band, blowing the fuses with deep-seated anger that feels genuine.
I would love to see Foetal Juice explore this direction more. “Gruesome” is the track I came back to the most, a spot of intensity amidst the levity. Despite its flaws, Grotesque does still entertain. It has lost some of the things that made its predecessor special, but retaining the energy and glee ensures it’s still a solid record. But when the most serious-sounding track is the most impactful, perhaps it’s a sign the joke is starting to show its age.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Gore House Productions
Websites: foetaljuice.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/foetaljuice
Releases Worldwide: November 17th, 2023
