WORMROT / I ABHOR, split (2010, Scrotum Jus)

The skull:
This image appears to have been ripped from some old ’40s crime magazine or pulp fiction paperback. The skull hovers above a woman seemingly in distress. He leers with a perverted grin and is enormous in size compared to the woman. While the hand in the lower left corner suggests a skeleton — breaking BDS’s ‘No Skeletons’ rule — we’ll overlook it and move on. The woman is unidentified thanks to the black bar over her eyes. On second thought, maybe she’s expressing pleasure, a hussy who only enjoys sex with humongous skulls. Oh, the lascivious thrill…

The music:
Bonus points immediately given for the intro to this split. I Abhor’s “Downfall” starts with Sesame Street classic “12” (remember the funky song and pinball animation?). Things get remarkably less exciting after that brief sample. I Abhor rages and blasts in a way that puts the “core” in grindcore, and they’re good, even excellent at what they do, but this stuff always bores me shitless after the first song or two. The noisier, muddier, bleaker Wormrot is slightly more interesting, but it still gets dull quickly. I appreciate them more than I Abhor (the tempo variation helps) and I can understand why grind connoisseurs hold them in high regard. Two bands, 13 songs, 11 minutes. Inconsequential stuff in my world. Almost invisible.
— Friar Wagner