«Who are these guys and why haven’t I heard of them before?», I thought, examining the promo package from Arctic Music Group which contained a CD of Homo Iratus. The name of the band, which means «Angry Human» in Latin, certainly wasn’t telling me anything. Only their label gave me reason to believe that Homo Iratus was playing something in the area of death metal, and this «something» would most likely be quite heavy (as a matter of principle there are no «easy» bands signed to AMG). After gently putting the CD in the maw of the CD-player, I took the press release in my hands and plunged into reading, leaving my ears available for obvious reasons.

Homo Iratus turned out to be a young Greek band born in July 98. After the first month of their existence, the band issued the «Absence Of Progress» demo tape which contained grindcore in the vein of early Carcass and Napalm Death. After having several line-up changes and issuing a two-track demo during the Summer of 99 (one track of which was featured on the «Vibes From Below» CD compilation put out by Psyclone Sinphonies), the band changed its style somewhat, played with a couple of famous bands (Malevolent Creation, Napalm Death, Impaled Nazarene, etc.) and recorded its debut album, «Human Consumes Human», which I’m reviewing now.

Now that we are finished with the press release, let’s turn our heads to the album itself, starting with the visual side. Despite its simplicity, I instantly liked the artwork — the cover features two human beings standing face to face and wearing gas masks, with their oxygen hoses connected to one another. Each time the word «human» appears in the album’s title, it is printed directly below one of the aforementioned «gas-mask men», apparently to denote their species — little things do a lot sometimes, right? The cover, the picture of the band, and the CD’s ass (the back cover, that is) are printed in stylish (it’s not a curse) red-and-yellow colors that provide an impressive contrast with the black-and-white inlay and tray. In sum, the artwork can be called grim and effective. Considering the fact that the cover concept was an idea of the band themselves, Homo Iratus give off a positive impression from the start.

Okay, all preconditions for pastime are present, what am I waiting for? Why isn’t the music playing? After an investigation was conducted, it turned out that while I was examining the artwork and reading the press-release, the maw of my CD-player and the disk have managed to get off with each other. That’s right; after all this time, they were still involved in their personal affairs. The «play» button quickly demonstrated who’s the boss to these far-reaching belches of post-industrial capitalism and I started to listen.

To the amusement of my dandruff flying around the room like crap hitting the fan, it turned out that Homo Iratus play something which can be defined as groovy deathcore rock. There could be no other reason for the author’s active headbanging, which started immediately. More specifically, try to imagine a cross between the deathrock of Pungent Stench (circa 91-94), the groove-thrash of Konkhra’s «Spit Or Swallow», metalcore riffs which are similar to the ones on Sepultura’s «Chaos A.D.» album, and fast riffs in the vein of Carcass (»Symphonies Of Sickness» era). Perhaps now you can understand what «Angry Human» sounds like.

The guitar parts are quite diverse in the stylistic sense, ranging from very heavy rock (reinterpreted from a death metal point of view), to unhasty groove-oriented thrash, to melodically high (yet almost illegible) trills accompanied by a brutal death metal rumble. The low-tuned guitars usually play in unison, creating an incredibly dense lump of low-frequency sound. The bass, as far as I can tell, is quite clear and very powerful — its close collaboration with the guitars creates a sound that is so dense and fertile area that any given sludge band could could die of envy. The drum parts are very interesting — they’re either blastbeats with fast hardcore battering, or rock and funk rhythms. All these styles are often heard within the boundaries of one song, and sometimes even within one theme (which can be heard clearly on tracks like «Absence Of Progress» and «Crawling Principles»). The vocals are somewhere between «Spit Or Swallow»-era Konkhra and Waco Jesus in terms of depth, power and audibility, and sometimes take a low-end dive into the sewers (i.e., it’s quite peculiar and impressive). If you haven’t heard the aforementioned bands, imagine the sound that would be produced if a vocalist pressed his lips into a heavy pipe and started growling. Sometimes you can find samples of a «clean» guitar, but they are few and far between. More often, you’ll find sporadic keyboard and percussion parts which serve as the back drop for everything else, then quickly disappear as the song evolves.

The structure of the songs is quite varied — you’ll find that some songs adhere to the «verse-chorus» structure, but others are more «free-form» in this area (i.e. do not operate within the aforementioned «verse» and «chorus» framework). Despite the fact that the riffs themselves aren’t complicated (and may even seem primitive), the songs’ diverse and relatively rich composition won’t allow boredom to set in, although you’ll sometimes find stuff that is a bit monotonous. The live and powerful sound augments the music nicely, and the energy and intensity of the musicians easily compensates for the dearth of melodic distinction and possible sameness. Simple and well-written lyrics speak about the problems of child prostitution, abortion, nazism, militarism and other foul traits of human civilization. As far as standout tracks go, I liked the third (»Project: New World»), and sixth tracks (»Crawling Principles»), the latter of which is where the band is especially successful in mixing Mortician, Pungent Stench, and a couple of black metal riffs. There’s also the ninth track (»Sonus In Terrorism») and the last (»S.H.I.T.», which means «Science’s Homicidal Ideas Thrive»), which is somewhat lengthy (six minutes) compared to the other songs (there are 14 of them occupying 40 minutes of playing time), but it provides a good curtain fall for this very strong debut.

Despite its shortcomings (lack of melodical originality, some sameness here and there, and a couple of filler songs), «Human Consumes Human» can be boldly recommended to those who want forty minutes of non-stop headbanging, as long as they don’t mind the clumsy ass-wobbling that comes with it (metal fans were never able to dance conveniently, he-he). Fans of Pungent Stench and «Facelift»/»Spit Or Swallow»-era Konkhra will love this album to death. The debut of Homo Iratus will be enjoyed by all who love powerful, intense, energetic, and heavy music with a scent of originality. If you listen only to black, gothic, doom and stuff like that, this disc is enemy territory. I want to congratulate the guys from Homo Iratus for their largely successful debut, and recommend that they make their music even more diverse and unique with each subsequent album. I wish them luck in all their musical pursuits — they have to issue at least three more albums on Arctic Music Group, and I’ll be waiting them impatiently.

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