Review by Jason Guest

You’ve been there before. You listen to an album and suddenly it’s compulsory listening, but not just for you and everyone you know, oh no. But school kids should be made to sing every word of every track in every morning assembly until every single one of the docile darlings is transformed into a miniature beast far beyond recognition or psychological repair. Cerebral Bore’s debut full length Maniacal Miscreation – set for re-release in April 2011 through Earache – is one of those albums.

It’s not often that albums make me laugh. Usually it’s because they’re a steaming pile of worm-riddled excreta. But Cerebral Bore have a very black sense of humour. For instance, take ‘24 Year Party Dungeon’, the subject of which is Joseph Fritzl’s underground love nest and his incestuous antics. Check the chorus: ‘She'll see, his evil pee-pee / See, his evil pee-pee’. ‘The Bald Cadaver’ is a bleak, ejaculate anti-homage to that nauseating pauper’s princess, Jade Goody. Tactful? Nope. Hilarious? Yep.

Like a festering Santa, guitarist Paul McGuire just keeps on giving when it comes to the violence-inducing riffs, and the malicious guitar sound is heavy and crisp. Kyle Rutherford adds slap bass to the dynamic for some remarkable lines. And drummer Allan MacDonald’s work is top notch. That the vocalist, Som, is female is a point upon which most would labour to the point of tedium, so I’ll be quick: Angela Gossow has got nothing on her. Nor have many other vocalists, female or otherwise.

What distinguishes Maniacal Miscreation from those once-lauded albums that all-too-quickly find their way on to that pile of gladly forgotten albums that refuse to rot out of existence is that this album has few chinks in its armour. Brutal death metal could easily lend itself to repetition but Cerebral Bore refuse to write the same song twice and this aural annihilation slams and grooves without pretention. Within a genre that could easily crumble into a pile of clichés, Cerebral Bore have produced a stunning album. Fancy another hole in the head? Yep? Get this.

8 out of 10

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