Toronto-based two-piece death metal/grind band Ubruxum start this off right with “The Grind Opening”, a seven-second grindcore rager that immediately has me all ears. However, second song “Mechanically Separated” changes gears a bit to a demo-Carcass grind, and, I mean, I'm still listening, the band's ugly take on raw death metal and grindcore very welcome, the gore-grind rubbing shoulders with sewer-grade DM impressively. 

I never, ever say this, but the drum programming sounds great: I actually thought it was real drums (it's sloppy and inconsistent, somehow), and it works really well. And the songs work well, too: “Bashed To Ashes Crushed To Dust”, for example, bashes and crashes (that was easy but it's true) wonderfully, the band tapping into an old-school DM sound and atmosphere that I don't really hear that often, despite listening to lots of modern bands who are tapping into different elements of old-school DM. Love the OTT grinding of songs like “Vertebreaker”, these two guys clearly loving the most antisocial strains of death and grind, which means it's an instant winner for me, the sound this band channelling here being about as pure musical filth as sound can be. 

“Intestinal Rupture” is peak DM noise, like Mortician at their worst, which is a good thing, while the five-minute “Denied Reincarnation” dips its toes into some blackened sounds. Ubruxum refer to their music as “teeth-grinding metal” and I gotta say, that's about right, everything about this one about as uncomfortable and horrifying as teeth getting ground down to nothing, hideous little stumps, music that serves no purpose but to make things worse. Good job!