I was a little worried when I saw Sanguisugabogg was releasing a new one sans-a-guy-named-bogg. Tortured Whole totally won me over. The psychedelic-leaning zaniness ante was upped even further with their amazing video release for “Menstrual Envy”. Who wouldn’t love Troma-fueled penis monsters devouring everyone in bloody mayhem? Who wouldn’t want to sign a contract with a dong clause? Who wouldn’t love such beautiful poetry as: ‘I want this for the rest of my life/It has now become a part of me/Infection grows inside my poor urethra/Blood exits out the hole of my pipe/Fluid spills and its absorbed by cotton/I want this to happen every week of every month’. What does it mean? Probably something about longing to have a period, or some shit. I don’t know. Sometimes you just love the things you love, and don’t question it any further, plus, I don’t care about death metal lyrics beyond a few key subjects I avoid (because lyrics in metal don’t matter, only vocals). Their sound was fresh. I loved Boggs’ wild and out there grasping for anything and throwing it into a blender until something horrid came about style. It was refreshing, heavy, yet playful, and could pair well on playlists with any heavy hitters in the respectful genre, or hardcore and pizza thrash.
When I heard Boggs had left, I thought that my new favorite death metal band might fall to the same fate as Fallujah (Alex come back) or The Faceless. Fortunately, Homicidal Ecstasy put any worry to bed and them smothered it with a pillow, because this thing is crunchy, meaty, bloody, and a full-on fucking blast of heaters only for 45 minutes straight.
In lieu of the zany and loose-ended wacky tendencies of their prior releases, the new Bogg focuses their efforts on crisp cohesion. You can hear it at the very onset of “Black Market Vasectomy”. The riffs lead the way, as The Boggies throw in quirky flair as a gentle nod to their founder and creator. The riffs shift and fluctuate with subtle tempo shifts that aren’t exaggerated but provide a smooth glisten to slide through. Further on down the line, “Testicular Rot” gives us an outro riff that just kind of makes you want to fucking slap someone. Its downtrodden, almost groove metal tempo lends way for some stellar riff shifts. It’s easy to connect the dots back to their previous work, although without prevalence. The open snares and harmonic pinches are in there, but much like a horror sequel, as in the familiars are doing their familiar work for familiar effect, there’s so much more to enjoy. Homicidal Ecstasy stands on its own merit.
My initial take when “Pissed” dropped was how fucking smooth the track was. I understand the implications of calling death metal smooth, but somehow The Boggers pulled it off, and made me intrigued enough to want to hear more. When “Face Ripped Off” dropped, I was immediately sold. Adding Aaron Heard into anything will do that for me, though. But there was also that smooth midtempo again that “Pissed” presented so well, and for added effort, the almost indecipherable pixelated black hole of a bass riff just kind of sucks you into its gravitational pull. That smoothness pulsates overall throughout this release. Pick any random track, and you’ll hear The Boggos laying smooth groundwork to freak the fuck out on as they build another castle of shit for us to gleefully and freely roam, much to our amusement.
I’m not sure if this album will win over any new Boggy fans, but who the fuck cares? This quartet is putting out quality death metal for diehards to enjoy. I say this as one of those fans, but more importantly as someone who still has a pending message out to them from a year ago requesting an interview (I GOT THEM RECEIPTS BOGGOS). I’m not even mad about it, really; as long as SansAGuyNamedBogg keep producing quality death metal like Homicidal Ecstasy, they can ignore me all they want.
