Review
Malignancy
Inhuman Grotesqueries

Willowtip (2007) Kevin Fitzpatrick

Malignancy – Inhuman Grotesqueries cover artwork
Malignancy – Inhuman Grotesqueries — Willowtip, 2007

a) "Neglected Rejection"

b) "Benign Reabsorption"

c) "Predicated Malformations"

d) "Embryological Teratomas"

Okay, here's how it works - you guess which ones are actual titles of songs by the band Malignancy, and which songs were created by me, inebriated after a night of Jäger-bombs using a thesaurus opened randomly to two different pages.

Give up? All the titles are songs by the band Malignancy. Most likely created with a thesaurus opened randomly to two different pages after a night of Jäger-bombs. This could very easily make the band seem dumb. Like, remember when Slayer would try to use big words in their songs to make them sound smart? Come on now - don't tell me you didn't scour the dictionary for abacinate the first time you heard "Angel of Death." Great band, great music, but let's face it - not the sharpest cleavers in the block.

Are Malignancy dumb? I didn't grade their SAT's, so who the hell knows? Besides, you don't need a MENSA membership to make a good album - and Inhuman Grotesqueries is a pretty darn good album in the death/grind vein. Good, meaty slabs of guitar with almost every three bars punctuated with a good-ol' fashioned power chord. I'll be honest - I'm a bit more fond of the band's earlier works - a bit more on the grind tip and they scared the shit out of me upon first hearing their latest release, Inhuman Grotesqueries with the generic acoustic intro to the first and title track, but at the eight-second mark, the album kicks in with all the growls, cymbal-bell stop-start time signatures and all is right with the world.

For fans of the band, there's not a whole lot new going on - the same beefy chugga-chugga-clang with the "clang" provided by new-ish drummer Mike Heller - a very capable drummer providing solid backup for what must be the stamina equivalent of a marathon run at full sprint. As always, vocalist Danny Nelson is more than ready to scare the shit out of the neighbors with his hellish growls and screams. Though you might not think it, "Pollutant is breathed through unclean oxygen / Viral strain begins its decadence" is hard to pull off and sound like you mean it - to scream them as if they're words worth hearing. Or at the very least, to say them without making people laugh.

Malignancy has shown through their fourteen some-odd years that they are a good band. Not necessarily memorable, but a good band nonetheless. A band that has shown some growth and maturity (no, really) in their songwriting and musicianship throughout the years, but can still maintain a winking eye at the old-school absurdity of the genre.

Malignancy – Inhuman Grotesqueries cover artwork
Malignancy – Inhuman Grotesqueries — Willowtip, 2007

Related news

Willowtip Signs Malignancy

Posted in Labels on June 30, 2006

Recently-posted album reviews

Sexfaces

Bad Vibes OST
Slovenly (2025)

Best thing about writing reviews is finding out about new stuff that I otherwise might not have heard. Also writing reviews for bands that aren’t friends of mine is pretty cool but when I hear a band I really like, like Sex Faces, it makes me want to be friends with them, I can't help it! I’m not even halfway … Read more

Unseemlier

I Have A Screw Loose, Somewhere
Sell The Heart Records (2025)

What does Unseemlier sound like? I've been mulling that question as I listen to I Have A Screw Loose, Somewhere for a while now. As I listen to more and more Sell The Heart releases, The band is from Boston, but seemingly influenced by late '80s DC. It's heavy, but more with hardcore-like vocals shouted over moving, building guitars and … Read more

Personality Cult

Dilated
Dirtnap (2025)

I had a hard time starting this review. I can’t help coming back to the fact that it sounds like Marked Men. It does, maybe intentionally so, as Dilated is the second of Personality Cult’s albums that is produced by Jeff Burke of Marked Men and Radioactivity. But I don’t necessarily like to say a band sounds like another band … Read more