Maximum Metal Rating Legend

Gutted With Broken Glass Beaten to a Bloody Pulp Company: Grindhead Release: 2007 Reviewer: Al Kikuras Genre: Grind, death

A real pirate would have the sack to do something different

They call it "original pirate grind," but as I remember reading someplace else before spinning this one for myself... what the hell IS so pirate about it? Aside from the one pirate-related sample that, in typical grind fashion, leads off a song. The artwork? Well, not the cover, but the inlay and inside of the cover do sport a skull and cross-swords, and a pirate ship, respectively. Three of the 14 song titles are pirate-related, so I would be led to assume they are lyrically as well, but with this kind of vocal delivery, the fella with the mic may as well be reading from an LL Bean catalog. What I was excited about when I read "original pirate grind" was the possibility of the blending of sea shanties and grindcore. I could sort of imagine it. But what really got me excited was that I couldn't REALLY imagine it and was curious to see how Gutted With Broken Glass would pull it off.

Well, they don't. Beaten to a Bloody Pulp is standard fare; down-tuned, messy, guttural grindcore that, aside from the idea of it being "pirate grind" really does not stand apart from other albums of the same ilk. In fact, the whole "pirate" thing is more annoying that anything else because Gutted With Broken Glass (great as that name is) don't really commit to the concept. Looking at the logo, (which looks like someone hocked up a blood-laced loogie onto a tissue) and the cover art, it is almost as if GWBG (as much as I dislike acronyms, I am tired of typing that out) wanted to play it safe... as safe as you can with this kind of stuff, that is. Illegible logo? Check. Disgusting cover art? Check. Generic and vile album title? Check. So the 3 or 4 dozen fans of death grind that must have everything that blasts and burps will see this CD in one of the two or three record stores that are still open and feel safe picking it up. Had these fellas, undeniably competent at what they are doing, really walked the plank in that pirate direction, Beaten to a Bloody Pulp could have brought new life to a genre that has, well, been beaten to a bloody pulp. But instead we have just another release from another band that really is doing nothing different. And, for the record, I am a fan of this stuff, but because I got excited about the prospect of them doing something new and they fell so short, I am being a little harsher on GWBG in the numbers department.

Apparently it is being pushed as a full-length, but the number of songs does not make a release clocking in at 14 minutes and 26 seconds an LP. Guys? Please. Go pirate. Don a hat. Get a freaking peg leg and an eye patch, and write some music that sounds like a bunch of rum-soaked pirates playing grind core. A real pirate would have the sack to do something different.