Venereal Messiah- Bleeding The Humans

Venereal Messiah is a brutal death/goregrind band based in New York. The band has been around since 2005 and have released a few demos and splits during their time together. The band features Barret Amiss II, the owner of the very prolific death/grind label Sevared Records, on vocals. This release features eight tracks and clocks in at just under twenty minutes. Though the album may be short plenty of time is given for Venereal Messiah to get their blunt point across.

Unlike many bands of this nature Venereal Messiah doesn't just hide behind a wall of noisy, half assed grooves. There are plenty of heavy grooves to be had on Bleeding the Humans but they rarely come across as half assed. The guitar tone featured here is kind of detrimental to the overall sound, it just seems kind of flat most of the time. Adding some thickness to it would help give the riffs more impact in the future. Luckily the lack of power in tone is made up at times with catchiness (see the repetitive but effective "Oral-Fistula Transmission").

One thing that is unique about Venereal Messiah is that they feature a dual bass assault. Getting audible bass is a rare occurrence in the first place, having two different bassists plucking away is almost unheard of. Bass heavy tracks like "Gynacide" definitely come across as a breath of fresh air when they make an appearance. With the bass being so high in the mix the way they mesh with the guitars is almost reminiscent of early One Step Beyond (though they are worlds apart in style). The lack of power in the guitar tone is pretty much completely redeemed by the fat, creeping bass lines that are so prevalent in the overall sound.

The vocals are made up mostly of guttural burps and gurgles. These are the type of spews that are sure to trigger violent flashbacks to your last case of explosive diarrhea (in a good way of course). There is a major lack in variation but fans of the genre should be used to that at this point. That being said an occasional more traditional growl is thrown into the mix keeping things from growing entirely stale in the vocal department.

Overall Venereal Messiah has a solid chunk of brutal death on their hands with Bleeding the Humans. This is far from being groundbreaking by any means but they deliver the goods and fans of the genre will be more than pleased. If you find yourself enjoying most of the stuff Sevared puts out this will most likely sit nicely in your collection. This is a band that is worth keeping an eye on, they show quite a bit of potential here and with some minor tweaks they could definitely put out an excellent, punishing release.