Album Review: Haggus - Destination Extinction
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
Have you ever listened to music that, in defiance of the natural order of things, somehow smells? A specific stench too, nothing floral nor breezily delicate. No. The sharp sting of unwashed armpit sweat. Stale lager as well – Carlsberg Special Brew, for a touch of class. The soul-deadening reek of flatulence on an all-kebab diet. Teeth that haven’t seen a brush within the memory of mankind, scuffed clothes that were musty 3 weeks ago, and the carcinogenic miasma of smoke from cheap rollup tobacco seeping deep into jaundiced fingernails. Aye, insofar as an album can personify a grimy odour, this one does. Yet who am I to cast disfavour? I made my bed in this rancid bolthole in the musical landscape, and have been content to remain in sweet response ever since. The mouldering heap of stinking refuse awaiting my tender appetites no less a banquet for the remarkable advancement of it’s decomposition. Ladies, Gentlemen, and those of you somewhere in between: today, we feast on Haggus.
Spawned in some baneful vault in which Discharge were permitted to consume naught beyond beer, hot dogs and 1970’s gore films while being periodically doused in effluent, Haggus don’t really play so much as spew out this gloopy, gelatinous fusion of Punk and Goregrind. It’s gruesome and irreverent, almost offensively danceable, and swollen with a boisterous, adenopathic personality. Vocals are pitch shifted into a phlegmy paste somewhere south of the lowest octaves known to man, and soupy guitar and bass tones congeal together in a big, grisly lump of churning distortion. It’s a familiar recipe, one you’ll have sampled a few times if you’ve spent much time in this particular culinary swamp, but the odd interesting specimen of fungi or notably unhealthy carrion feeder does lurch to the fore now and again. “Bound by Realms of Cruelty” rivets Swedish melodeath leads to its curdling, bubbly grooves and finishes out with a wet deluge of blastbeats. Perhaps appropriately, it’s gangrenous charms are spreading – a septicemic, omnipresent groove courtesy of a simple but pleasing kick-snare pattern renders this platter of uncleansed viscera shockingly infectious, and had me throwing shapes the likes of which you’ve probably only seen if you’ve watched people with disco fever try to dodge gunfire.
The best moments are the ones that can merge approaches, the oompah-oompah of midpaced kick-snare beats ever-present but enhanced through being surrounded by blastbeats or other drum work. Conversely, the moments where Haggus glue themselves to that mid-tempo punk beat with little variation are generally the weakest. “Crippled by Stupidity” is straightforward to a fault. I’m not demanding Haggus channel the quintessence of Necrophagist and erupt into iconic founts of neoclassical tech death – I don’t need to, when “Crippled by Stupidity” is both basic and altogether too samey even by the standards of the rest of the release. Perhaps part of the problem is that I’m not altogether fussed about punk rock in general, so bands with so strident a display of their punk heritage do have a bit of a steeper climb ahead of them when it comes to my assessments, but even so – the band send forth uproarious, punk-laden examples elsewhere (the livid flaking crust of “Lobotomised Compliance” for one, accelerating more and more until it collapses on a big flashing button with “Grind” written on it at 0.57). And really, what I’m here for are those big “grind mode” moments – “As The Hammer Drops” hurtles out like a train covered in splattered skunk cadavers, and “Grotesque Reflection” kicks off with exsanguinating vigour before lurching into hammer-blow chugs. Really, it’s only when Haggus constraints themselves too tightly to one or two tools of the trade that their sound suffers - the moment they succumb to temptation and search their other myriad oozing crevices and crevasses for further implements, they lay down a noxious beating with raging aplomb.
You know Warhammer 40k? That tabletop miniature game with all the space marines and stuff? Well, within the lore of that universe (astonishing in it’s scope – there’s this one series concerning a foundational piece of the story called the Horus Heresy. I’m on book 24 of it at the moment. Book 24. Out of fifty-fucking-four books total. And that’s not even counting the Siege of Terra series that it leads directly into, which is another 12-ish books) there’s a being called Nurgle. He is the chaos God of Pestilence, Decay, plagues, sickness, and all other such associated nasty words. Also known by a few other suitably metal names such as “The Rotfather”. If Nurgle had a favourite band, there’s a fair chance it would be Haggus. They’re chunky as especially carrot-filled vomit, but for those of you with strong stomachs, they come wholeheartedly recommended .
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