It’s been a good five years since I’ve bought a Dodsferd album, and last I checked they were producing quality depressive black n’roll with some great riffs and raw, Burzumesque vocals to match, marred only occasionally by the odd foray into petulant-sounding adolescent whining. So what have they been up to during the interim? Well, if ‘The Parasitic Survival of the Human Race’ is anything to go by, they’ve gone a lot more punk.
A mini-album, ‘Parasitic Survival..’ is punctuated with sound-clips from the ongoing Greek riots; car alarms, frantic hollering, exploding Molotov cocktails. Opener ‘Breeding Chaos’ explodes into life with repetitive, hard-rock-meets-punk riffing and strained, yelped vocals, nose-diving into full-on Napalm-like grind complete with Mitch Harris-like screams, with some some slowed-down, blackened, sludgy bits thrown in for good measure. ‘Creator of Disease’ is straight-up, dirty crust-punk full of meaty hooks, segueing nicely into depressive BM that builds that builds to a satisfyingly downbeat plateau. Ah, there’s that old Dodsferd misery again! Some good Varg-like howls at the end there too.
‘Stupid Worthless Sheep’ is simple, balls-out rockiness with a hint of up-tempo stoner metal, albeit with those sickly, yelped vocals sitting on top. Nothing remarkable, even a bit vanilla, but good enough to down a beer to all the same. ‘Doubting Your Own Worth’ has more of a black n’ roll feel, with simple, mid-paced, catchy riffing and tribal drums, plus a genuinely raw and chaotic BM finale that sounds like something Behexen or Horna might put out. There’s a faithfully crude and red-blooded cover of The Misfits’ ‘We Are 138’ to look forward to at the end too.
Simple and effective, ‘Parasitic Survival…’ does the job as sure as knocking back half a bottle of cheap whiskey, but it doesn’t linger long after playing and I know from past experience that Wrath and Co. are a capable of much more filthy and misanthropic music than this.
(7/10 Erich Zann)
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