01. Scalp Collector
02. Oven
03. Dead Rabbits
04. Death of Civilization
05. Cillia
06. Ripe With Plague
07. Goddozer
08. KrutchesCountry: USA
Genre: Progressive Metal, Crust, Sludge, Metalcore
Label: Financial RuinOh, Tampa Bay, what the hell happened to you? Time flies, that’s it. Plus, we people have too many expectations. It certainly feels like less than two decades have passed since Florida death metal took over the world. Sure, Deicide and Obituary are still together, at it when necessary and absent most of the time. Morbid Angel? Yeah, they were awesome. There are a few other bands still raising the flag. Most of them are hybrids. Light Yourself On Fire signed to Seventh Rule, but their debut did not exactly lit me up. And then there is that other death metal band with a name long enough to be forgotten by all. Yeah, they got signed to Nuclear Blast. Who else is there? Enter St. Petersburg’s Flying Snakes, this trio’s sound is much more exciting. Raw shit. Metal infested, crust oriented, and punk informed. I can perfectly imagine cavemen playing this stuff. That’s just because of the virulence of their sound because there are smarts to this. The riffs are eloquent, well-written and very structured, rowdy, ugly and very sludgey. Therefore, Bludgeoning Frequency delivers such a visceral pummeling.
But the Flying Snakes can’t keep a riff going for a full song, which brings me to a point; upon listening to the low tuneage that starts off with “Scalp Collector” I was quick to think of the sound of bands like Stormcrow, who usually rock one riff per tune. Flying Snakes have kept that type of grime, but have added enough parts, twists and turns to also appeal to a crowd that’s a bit more forward thinking. What’s best is that there is nothing polished about this. This music is rough around the edges and inside out. Zero pretension and full on aggression. Bludgeoning Frequency is such a solid album it is hard to pick a stand out song. Of “Ripe With Plague” I particularly dig the instrumental middle part, where the mid tempo accelerates just not enough to ever get fast, where the drums sound like the beat of a mid-race horse, and also the latter half, where the band just smears its nasty sound all over your earlobes. “Death of Civilization”, come on now, I’ve fallen in love to cheating ‘interludes’ like this, where the Flying Snakes build a dirtied up slow tempo and dense clarity into a metal riff that could have fit well into a roughened version of a Riot (Thundersteel-era) tune. All before getting into a D-beat that gives way to an unceremonious end. “Oven” hops and hops every time in more unorthodox ways and “Dead Rabbits” is many things at once, but mostly is sludge stoner without the blues backbone.
The crudity of the Flying Snakes’ sound is perfectly matched by the dual vocals of bassist Cletis Chatterton and guitarist Jonathan Warzybok, one has this down-in-the-well growl while the other less frequently offers a higher blistering pitch. At times, both vocals surge together, speaking their lines arrhythmically but in such incisive fashion. I don’t know if Bludgeoning Frequency means something to the maybe inexistent Tampa scene. Judging by its power in sound I hope it does. Judging by the almost elusive fashion with which this trio dishes out the riffs and by the taste of the masses, it is very unlikely that it will induce younger bands to adopt a sound this fierce. I can just hope I am wrong.
Flying Snakes on MyspacePurchaseFlying Snakes - Bludgeoning Frequency (2009)
1. Your Daughter's Eyes
