Deathgrind isn’t the kind of genre to pull any punches. It doesn’t kiss you goodnight and rub your forehead when you’re feeling poorly. Instead, it treats you to a punch in the face and a long sleep six feet under. NECROBIOS, a currently unsigned two-piece Russian Deathgrind band from the region of Domodedovo understand this. But while they may have a much better grasp of their genre than a significant number of other unsigned artists, this doesn’t prevent their latest EP “Pathological Changes” from quickly slipping into mediocrity, albeit with a few saving graces.

In a traditional Grind fashion, the album is very short, with few tracks creeping over the one minute mark. Taking into account that two of the tracks are an electronica based intro and outro, that’s 11 core tracks totaling to around nine minutes. Now, even for a Deathgrind album that’s very short, as many artists include 20+ tracks to compensate for the short track length. What’s on offer though, is bitesize chunks of Deathgrind very much in the vein of artists like GUTTURAL SECRETE, with constant blast beats and the occasional breakdown. Some of the guitar sections are very promising; particularly on tracks like “Abortion” and “Paedophilia Rising,” but the track length and more specifically the highly irritating programmed drums prevent them from being developed even further.

At times however, the band does get things right, such as on “Rectal Blues” and “Obsessive Craving” where Evgeny Popov’s GUT-inspired perverted vocals shine through, and the songs are just long enough to give them weight. But on the whole, it’s an album that lacks direction, with few tracks actually going further than a single repeated riff. If it were Grindcore, I would understand, but you adopt a Death Metal style, and the songs need a structure to match. It’s a mixed bag of an album, which I would only recommend if you either love Deathgrind, or want to own an album with possibly the most intriguing cover image ever.

(Online April 22, 2011)