Poland's
Squash Bowels have been around since the mid-'90s; this is their fifth full-length, and they've released countless singles and split EPs in between. Their homeland has produced some extremely technically adept metal bands, including
Vader, Lost Soul, and
Decapitated;
Squash Bowels are not among them. As a power trio,
Squash Bowels keep their music brutally simple; it's a blend of primitive thrash, D-beat punk, and grindcore, with lyrics that mix pure joyous crudity ("Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Ass") with equally rough-hewn left-wing politics ("Abhorrently Stinking Rich Man"). The vocals shift between guttural growling and a higher-pitched shriek, while the guitars and bass, as befits the band's intestinally minded name, are downtuned and offer plenty of rumble. The longest song on this album is the comparatively epic "Child Victims," at 3:30, but the overwhelming majority fall well short of the two-minute mark. None of the artiness of recent grind bands like
Discordance Axis,
Antigama, and
Pig Destroyer is present here; if you're a fan of the more punishing, musically simple side of death/grind, like
Napalm Death,
Phobia, or
Circle of Dead Children, though, you'll enjoy
Grindvirus a lot.