Review Summary: Australian Grindcore that does get a bit stale after repeated listens, but offers a decent Grindcore fix.
I'll give this to Blood Duster. They are most definitely underground. You can ask almost anyone, "Have you ever heard of a band called Blood Duster?", and they will probably shake their head while thinking of kicking you in the testicles, stealing your wallet, and then sprinting away like they had just seen Chuck Norris. Yet, as underground as they are, they somehow wriggled their way into the only music store in McMinnville, Tennessee, Hastings.Â*
The first thing I notice when the opening track "Wearethewordpolice" begins, it opens with an audio clip taken from a movie. While this is by no means new, especially to the Grindcore genre, it does get a bit annoying when only six tracks out of the original 19 tracks (since I own the bonus track edition, 20) don't contain these. However, none of the audio clips are extremely long (the longest being on "Spefeven"), so they are tolerable.Â*
Aside from audio clips talking about genitalia, the musicianship is essentially spot on. It is never too simple, but is also never so technical that you want to commit suicide for not being able to play an instrument as well as (insert any Technical Death Metal band) can.Â*
The vocals are, for the most part, completely coherent. For example, on my personal favorite track, "Pornstorestiffi", I can understand every word he says about the wonder of porn stores. That's another thing: this band is fascinated by fornication. I understand that they're trying to add humor to their music, but it does get to be a but much after a few listens.Â*
The guitar is primarily chord-based, and doesn't feature any Nile-esque fretwork. While simple, it is effective, and does pack a punch.
The drums are a bit technical at times, seeing as he does change pace quite often. Something that I did find interesting about the drummer is that he doesn't just blast away on the kick drum and smash apart his snare and cymbals. He actually adds rhythm to the majority of the tracks.
The band does try too hard at times, but you can tell that they at least went to an effort to appease their relatively small fanbase. I do believe that the album was probably a bit rushed, because the production values seem a bit half-assed at times. The songs are relatively quiet (for a Grind album) and sound a bit too compressed.
The song structures are widely varied. There are certain tracks that feel a bit more like traditional Grind, such as Napalm Death, and some that sound more like Nasum's more experimental songs.
All of the tracks, save for "The Corpse Song", "Sweet Meat". and "Dis-Organ-Ized", are under two minutes long, so the album lasts only thirty-two minutes. While I do not care for either of the five-minute tracks, they are the most experimental tracks on the entire record.
The band does get repetitive after a few listens, and the album offers only a quick fix, but it is a satisfying one. While not essential to a Grindcore fans album collection, it is worthy of a try. To summarize, Blood Duster's Cunt is an above average Grindcore album that has three key elements: Fun, heavy music, and a song about porn stores.
