The intent is there; to create a dirty sloppy old school death metal record akin to Autopsy, Massacre, Incantation, early Death and such, and Riddick as a pure musician is surprisingly adept and playing the instruments. But that being said, I know how to use a  pen and ink and can draw stuff- but my art isn’t going to be gracing a Dark Descent Records release any time soon. But the result never matches the intent and never rises above the level of two dudes who like early death metal jamming in their basement and recording it. Listen, I did the same thing when I was 18, but those recordings smartly never saw the light of day.

I’m trying to be as tactful as possible here out of respect for Mark and his status in the metal community, but everything but the mood and tone on Blood Nurtured Nature is off. Vocalist Adrien “Liquifier” Weber (you’d think Riddick, with all his metal contacts would be able to pull a bigger name or two for their assistance on this project) delivers a lifeless, monotone growl, the production is rough, albeit appropriately old school in a 1989 cassette demo kind of way, and the 8 songs are just a mess. It’s the kind of murky, messy, second rate stuff that Razorback Record is seemingly now releasing, but the fact they didn’t even release this and it was relegated to a webzine’s distro/label- that’s a bad sign (no disrespect meant to metalhit.com). The best thing about the release is the Halsey Swain (Krang, Havok, etc) cover art. There’s a couple of faster songs (i.e. “Consuming the Fleshy Wax (“The Rule of Decomposing Eminence)”)  but its mostly mid paced songs  with ridiculous 90s titles like “Life is the Symptom (Thy Entrails Rot)” and “Hominal Peel Diggers (The Swarm of Necrobies)”  and there’s doomy songs and some forced atmospheric keybaords  (“Contribution to Your Dis-Elaboration (Sustenance of the Void)”), there’s songs that drag out all three (“Thick Slabs of Moribund Fat (Hung on Hooks)”) , but none really amount the anything.

Not to deter Riddick from something he obviously has a true passion for, but remember when Michael Jordan tried baseball? Sometimes you should just stick to what you are great at…