I’m not what you’d call a hardened death-head, but when a disc arrives with a booklet filled with grainy images of mutilated women and crude drawings of snuff-film scenarios one’s interest was definitely piqued. Of course you will have read my article on this fine publication all about snuff cinema and currently my head is firmly entrenched in the writing of part two for which I have recently overdosed on all things pertaining to underground, brutal, plotless gore-ture fests never to see the light of the mainstream DVD store.

Much like an August Underground feature, Hacked To Perfection is brutal, nasty and unpleasant, taking a sledgehammer to the face and pounding it over and over again until beyond recognition. That said, there’s quite a lot of melody to be found here especially in the lead guitar work which has a bit of a Mike Amott vibe going on. Thrown down the steps into the ‘Hyperbaric Torture Chamber’, this has the dark, menacing aura filled with hostility and cruelty while guitars sever away like a hacksaw to the limbs of a tumbling doll of flesh. Over to the operating room and the heart monitor beep beeps as we begin the ‘Sloppy Surgery’. This is anything but sterile and fuck surgical precision; disembowelments and while we’re at it let’s rip out your liver, kidneys and why not your lungs too? You can’t get that on the NHS! Sew you back up and whoops I think I left my scalpel in there…We hear an unnerving clang, like a load of tools spilling from a table, I think our surgeon has been swigging at the vodka while he works!

With some neat lead guitar work, ‘Mutilation Supreme’ begins with a slight nod to Raining Blood and thrashes on with ferocity as the drums pound ten tons of shit out of the eardrums. ‘Bereft Of Conscience’ seems to blow in with a whirlwind, sending loose limbs flying about. Vocals here are naturally guttural and grinding, while there are some really solid riffs for banging the head to. There are hints of technicality without veering into the “wanky” territory. ‘I Made Her Famous’ is every bit as menacing and furious as a snuff director demanding his cut of the royalties…come on, it’s not like they had to pay the leading lady! Cheapskates. This is a respectable debut; brutal, filthy yet with plenty of melody and definitely not for the faint of heart.

(7/10, Luci Herbert)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Never-To-Arise/117489404980631