Venomous Concept is a side project of some pretty big names in the metal world: Shane Embury and Danny Herrera from this little know band Napalm Death, are joined by John Cooke (live guitarist for ND), bassist Dan Lilker (way too many band to mention) and vocalist Kevin Sharp (Lock Up, ex-Brutal Truth). I actually didn’t realize until doing a bit of research that these guys have been around since 2003, and with that fact I had figured this album would have been quite a bit better than it was.
With the aforementioned bands, there should be little surprise what you’re getting with the 3rd LP from these guys is the tried and true hardcore punk/grind sound. The album consists of 21 tracks with all but a few going over the 1-2 minute mark. They’re all mainly the standard blast heavy grindcore sound, and with track titles such as “Johnny Cheeseburger”, “Leper Dog” and “Fucked in the Czech Repub”, it’s obvious that this is a very tongue-in-cheek weekend buffoonery project for this group. The musicianship is solid, if unspectacular, and the production definitely doesn’t hurt the album at all.
There’s not much point in going into too much detail here, as it’s obvious what the listener will be getting. The album as a whole was quite underwhelming and frankly pretty boring, and I can hardly recommend it as anything more than a passing glance. That’s disappointing considering the talent that is on display on the band members’ other projects, but again this is hardly a serious project with very lofty goals.
