Angry Metal Guy
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Italian brutal death metal/horror synthwave act Fulci are one of the weirder groups lurking in the extreme metal scene. With a deep, abiding love of Italian horror cinema and especially the work of Lucio Fulci, these denizens of splatterporn always strived to serve two masters. On the one hand, they set out to deliver grotesque old school death metal capable of caving in skulls and removing scalps. On the other, they fetishize the creepy vibe of the late 70s/early 80s Italian horror era and want to load everything down with dated synthscapes akin to Goblin. Blending these disparate styles has proven challenging for the band. Where the mix was quite effective on 2019s Tropical Sun, approximating the mood and tension of Fulci’s classic Zombie (Zombi 2 outside the U.S.), the half-death and half-synth split on 2021s Exhumed Information was odd and not entirely successful. Now we get Duck Face Killings, which is one of the worst titles ever with a concept based on the infamously grim Fulci film, The New York Ripper. That nasty piece of celluloid featured taunting phone calls from the titular ripper who spoke in a bizarre Donald Duck accent for unknown reasons. To nail the film’s dark mood, Fulci once again includes a treasure trove of soundbites and synthwave noodling alongside reliably pig-faced brutal death metal that dwells in the crawlspace between Suffocation and Barnes-ersa Cannibal Corpse. Are you ready to give a duck?
When Fulci put their best blood-drenched foot forward, they can make an impression. Opener “Vile Butchery” is such a moment, going all in on early Cannibal Corpse-style excess full of crushing grooves, sub-sub-basement wrenching, and chugs beefy enough to turn a vegan into a rabid cannibal. It’s military grade caveman death heavy enough to kill your neighbor’s sod installation, and it’s good fun. As it slowly fades out, you get cheeseball synth interlude “A Blade in the Dark” which feels like something Nightsatan left in the sun too long. This in turn shifts back into brutal death territory for the charming “Fucked With a Broken Bottle.” It’s decent but doesn’t stimulate the anger centers of my ape brain. The lurching from ugly to cheesy is the hallmark of Duck Face Killings. It tries to approximate the experience of fleeing a sadistic maniac through a sleazy 1980 version of Times Square, but it feels scattered and uneven due to the infusion of out-of-synch interludes.
The album’s weirdest moment arrives with “Knife” which opens with a rapper in the vein of Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park) backed by heavy, sludgy riffs. Imagine “In the End” with an unexpected home invasion by an axe-wielding Corpsegrinder and you’ll get a sense of the overall weirdness. I give them credit for doing something new, but it doesn’t work for me at all. Luckily, the album goes on a lengthy run of straight-up death metal from there with “Slashereality” providing thrashing, pummeling horrors, and personal favorite “Rotten Apple” bringing the duckhammer down with slammy riffs and mouth-breathing, Suffocation-esque heaviness. The problem is that the meat n’ taters of the Fulci experience is about death metal, and only a few tracks offer good, brain-shaking examples of it. There are three or four solid nuggets here, but none rise much past good. There are also a few that feel generic and nondescript (“Fucked With a Broken Bottle,” “Human Scalp Condition”). When you add in the synthwavey, soundbitey vignettes, third-tier rap, and the odd instrumental closer featuring mournful saxophone wailing, it makes the 32 minutes of Duck Face Killings feel like a bizarre conversation piece rather than an album you’ll return to regularly.
Fiore Stravino does his gruesome best to vomit brutality in every color imaginable over the course of the album. His basic death croak is very effective, though I’m not a fan of the piggy, garbage disposal bits he lapses into. These end up more comedic than extreme and hurt the dark mood the album curates. His La-La-La moments during “Human Scalp Condition” elicit chuckles every time and derail an already underwhelming track. Domenico Diego and Ando Ferraiuolo manage some solid riffs and big grooves, and when they hit their stride you get respectable moments of weighty riffery. The occasional melodic flourishes are nice but underutilized. Sadly, a good portion of their repertoire revolves around basic chugs and grooves and these get tedious. Ultimately it’s the writing that lets Fulci down most, as the overall quality of the music isn’t consistently memorable.
Duck Face Killings is the kind of album you appreciate more for what it tries to do rather than what it actually accomplishes. I like Fulci and I like the concept, but the music itself isn’t good enough to make me come back again and again. I’ll savagely rip out the best parts for playlists and dump the bloody remains in the NYC harbor, just like the New York Ripper would. Snitches get stitches, duckface!
Steel Addendum: The lyrics are really awful.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: 20 Buck Spin
Websites: 20buckspin.bandcamp.com/album/duck-face-killings | facebook.com/fulciband
Releases Worldwide: August 9th, 2024
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Thu Aug 08 10:54:21 GMT 2024