CEREBRAL BORE - Maniacal Miscreation [Review]
Genre: Brutal Death MetalLabel: Earache Records
Re-released: April 11th, 2011
Reviewer: Karim Tarek
Hailing from Glasgow, Scotland since 2006, Cerebral Bore is a relentless quartet offering heavy dosages of gory Brutal Death Metal. Surprisingly, they feature a female vocalist, Simone "Som" Pluijmers, who is pretty much some kind of supernatural compared to other females who hardly endeavor to perform harsh vocals. The band also has Paul McGuire on guitar, Kyle Rutherford on bass, and Allan "McDibet" MacDonald on drums, a squadron that I find so homogeneous and effort-exerting.
I find Cerebral Bore so influenced by the American-branded gore-related Brutal Death Metal; band examples being: Devourment, Putrefy, Disgorge, Pathology, Gorgasm, and I can go on on this forever, but I guess you just got my point, which is that Cerebral Bore play that kind of gory Brutal Death Metal that is considerably Goregrind-tinged, so let’s just say “…etc.”
On their debut full-length, “Maniacal Miscreation”, Cerebral Bore exerted a lot of effort that should draw your attention from the first listen and pull kudos from you. They also managed not to totally stick to the Slam Death Metal class, but rather introduced a handful of consummate diversification into the music that should keep you amused.
Quite frankly, I’m not much into that kind of Death Metal, simply because I find most of it lacking the appropriate musical value, creativity, and skills exhibition. I definitely prefer the very intricate, very tight, polished-sounding, and high quality/glossy-produced kind of Brutal Death Metal. If you’re a bit uneasy about that description, simply relate to bands like: Nox, Prostitute Disfigurement, Hour Of Penance, Aeon, Vile, Origin, and Kronos for instance. Nevertheless, I still found Cerebral Bore’s “Maniacal Miscreation” more entertaining and enjoyable than most of other gory Brutal Death Metal records. So, I’m talking here about something I like from the thing that I don’t originally like. Secret behind that being that Cerebral Bore use reasonable amounts of pretty much everything, and they’re always keeping a skillful grip on everything; you almost don’t find too much of Goregrind and Slam Death Metal elements, and that’s what I most appreciate about the music on “Maniacal Miscreation”, the restraint from being a 100% Goregrind or Slam Death Metal album, or having excessive abominable Brutal Death Metal tunes.
Vocals are an evident example for what I'm trying to communicate; Simone manages not to stick to a constant tone, but rather changes every once in a while, according to the transitions; you can find plenty of vocal styles here, she suddenly changes from deep, very deep growls, to lower-pitched growls, to high-pitched pig squeals, to down-tempo Deathcore-like growls, to typical pig squeals (what a super woman)… and so on. I mean, if she only used her very deep growls throughout the whole album, I would have got bored quickly, as I normally don’t enjoy such particular kind of vocals, and, conversely; if she used only pig squeals, I would have been bummed as badly.
Coming to focus on the music, I find that Cerebral Bore have good potential for producing heavy and vociferous Death Metal; some guitar riffs are pretty good, some technical guitar notes are amusing, some drum lines are cool, and most importantly, Kyle Rutherford is making himself an evident presence by backing up the music so fittingly, and adding some slick parts that showcase his skills. He deserves thumbs up for that.
After all, still I consider “Maniacal Miscreation” a mediocre output from a diligent band that are trying to get into the big scene by slightly adding some antics of theirs into a stereotypical type of music. It should be very enjoyable for fans of a band like Amputated Genitals, but as for me, this didn’t have its appeal for me nor got me any charmed, but nevertheless, it can still be sorted as “something not typical”.
Highlights: Epileptic Strobe Entrapment.
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