Album Review :
Flactorophia - Redemption of the Flesh

Grindcore. You either love it or think it’s not music and wonder why it ever existed. There’s not a lot of in-between. It’s possibly the most extreme form of music that exists (it’s either that or some form of harsh noise). Flactorophia hail from Ecuador, have been around for quite a while. In fact, Redemption of the Flesh was originally released in 2006. The band released this one album and a few split releases, before its sole member, Jose Barragan tragically died in a fire at a local gig, along with several other members of other bands. Redemption of the Flesh has been remixed and includes an additional bonus track. I do not own the original, sadly, so I cannot compare/contrast the two, so I’ll have to stick to the music.

What we have here is proper grindcore, without overt influences from death metal (no guttural growls), hardcore/deathcore (no breakdowns or pig squeals) or noisecore (samples are kept to a tasteful minimum and there’s a complete absence of bleeps and blips). The production is spot on too. It’s raw and lo-fi, like it should be, but still listenable and you can actually hear the contributions of each instrument. To put it succinctly, it sounds like it was recorded in a basement, but not in a metal warehouse.

There are only 8 tracks, and at typical grindcore song-lengths, this album rips through them in about 8 minutes. The bonus track is an instrumental and has a nice, slower groove that is really dark and satisfying.

Highly recommended!