Damaged - Do Not Spit (1993)^{Release ID: 28933}

Ballarat deathgrind outfit Damaged first came to my attention when one of the members of my death metal band Neuropath played me their debut album "Do Not Spit" some time in late 1993 but I have to admit that I wasn't convinced to begin with. It wasn't until I had the great pleasure of witnessing Damaged in a live environment shortly afterwards that I became a convert of this Aussie extreme metal establishment because they were a completely different prospect on stage. A lot of that had to do with their psychotic, hyperactive drummer Matt "Skitz" Sanders who is nothing short of metal royalty in these parts & rightly so too. During the mid-90's he was by far the best drummer in the local scene & taught a lot of people what was possible with extreme drumming. I can still vividly recall the guys from Morbid Angel being blown away by Skitz during Damaged's opening set on the Sydney leg of the tour for the Florida death metal gods' tour fourth album "Domination". In fact, they even went so far as to dedicate their set to him from memory. A lot of the development in drumming between Neuropath's first & second demoes also owes a lot to the impact of Skitz on our own skinsman Luke Burns. Anyway... back on topic.. it's fair to say that "Do Not Spit" never really connected with me like it did for a lot of Aussie metalheads & I wouldn't truly get onboard the Damaged train until 1995's excellent "Passive Backseat Demon Engines" E.P. which I purchased on CD at the time. I didn't remember much about "Do Not Spit" going into this revisit though & I wondered if it might all sound very familiar given how many times I'd seen Damaged play live back in the day.

Damaged always possessed their own unique sound & it's kinda hard to describe because there aren't that many artists that you can draw upon as close comparisons. The deathgrind tag is generally the fallback option as it's about as close as you're gonna find but it still doesn't feel like its 100% accurate to my ears. I can't come up with a better genre tag for this release right now though so let's go with that. There are definitely death metal & grindcore elements at play as well as some hardcore punk & groove metal ones on occasion. Some of the riffs have a clear Terrorizer feel to them too. Vocalist Jaymi Ludbrooke's delivery isn't exactly a death growl though. His aggressive assault feels a little more grindy hardcore than anything else. The instrumentation is completely devoid of melody for the most part too which gives Damaged their signature sound with its abrasive & predominantly rhythmic feel that's been built upon Skitz' drumming. The production job on "Do Not Spit" doesn't do Damaged any favours though to be fair. Skitz' drum kit sounds pretty weak with the kick drums being far too thin & clicky. I'd also suggest that his skills were yet to reach their peak as I don't hear anything as mind-blowing as I recall experiencing from him back in the day, although there are admittedly a couple of really creative blast-beat variations employed. I'm not such a fan of the bouncier beats & riffs that Damaged employ at times though.

Damaged would get a touch more serious & up the ante on their extremity over the next year or so which would see their sound offering me significantly more appeal than I've found on this revisit to "Do Not Spit". Still, there are no weak tracks here as such. Many of the eleven inclusions contain sections that aren't exactly my cup of tea though & I find myself craving the more relentlessly ballistic blasting parts over the groovier punk-infused moments. Interestingly, it's the slowest number on the album that I regard as the genuine classic here in the crushingly heavy industrial metal anthem "My Grain". I also really dig the short burst of grinding energy that is "Ultra-Mild" & wish that there were more courses of that sort of material included. The rest of the material sits on roughly the same level, a standard that I find to be enjoyable but rarely compelling. On the positive though, there's something of interest in every song so I find it hard to be too critical of Damaged's debut, even if I'm doubtful that I'll return to it in the future. It may be held in very high esteem by many Aussie metalheads but I'm afraid I can't quite see it personally.

For fans of Blood Duster, King Parrot & Fuck...I'm Dead.

P.S. Interestingly, I used to tape trade with a young kid that was a huge Neuropath fan. One day he sent me a letter to tell me that he'd joined Damaged as their new vocalist & totally blew my mind as I was already a big fan of them by that stage & this dude couldn't have been more than eighteen years old. I can't remember his name any more but I'm gonna suggest that it was Chris Wallace given the age & timing.

Do you know when deathcore was invented? I say it was first realized as a full genre in 1996/1997 with releases by Abnegation, Day of Suffering, Deformity, and (you guessed it) Damaged, before Embodyment sealed the deal with their 1998 debut. This has to be said for the 60% of deathcore voters in this release's RYM genre-voting page, THIS IS NOT DEATHCORE. Sure there are some hardcore elements, but the mid-90s material of Damaged is just pure deathgrind.

And is their debut Do Not Spit a good album for me? I'm sorry but it ain't. The problems I had with their next couple releases are around in this one and at their worst, and it once again shows that deathgrind is out of my league...

The issues begin from the first few seconds of "Dreggs" after the guitar tone sounds pretty good but then gets trampled on by the stampeding bass and drums. Normally I'm a fan of that combo, but that was quite a buzzkill. I'm not really a fan of the vocals either that sound so constipated, and it doesn't help the riffing with constant interruptions. A troubling start to the album, and I have to ask why they placed it there. "Dust" is a better track and hints at a bit of their later proto-deathcore with some metalcore riffing that Unearth would later have. "The Travellin' Maniac" is not something I really need. A slow stoner-ish riff flows through the aptly titled "Slow (Heretic)", but it fits much better in a sludge band, not a deathgrind band like Damaged.

Next up, "Ultra-Mild" is just a half-minute experimentation with a riff before an abrupt stop. What the f*** was the point of that sh*t!? The blend of grind and death is more prominent in "Open Arms". This kind of instrumentation gives the song and much of this album more in common with Terrorizer, maybe even the Swedish death 'n' roll of Entombed. This is the kind of chaos that you can mosh around to, but not the kind of chaos I would enjoy in the long term. Also having some groove-ish riffing is the title track. There's even some melodic soloing, but nothing memorable. However, I enjoy the death-punk of "Resurrect".

Then it's back to the horrid rhythms in "Walk Blind". Then "My Grain" brings things back up with the sludgy riffing of Coalesce's demo releases. It shares the same track with "Nails" which is much faster, giving this two-part track a great "yin-yang" deal. After a minute of half of silence, an unnamed track comes on. It's actually a cover of Celtic Frost's "Dethrone Emperor", but despite staying true to its original sound, they really f***ed it up and it's perhaps the worst cover in that otherwise enjoyable category.

Do Not Spit has some good moments here and there, but in over half of the album, the instrumentation and vocals are all just awkward and out of place. Not outright terrible but not really for me. They would gradually become better in the next couple releases, slowly building their way up to the earliest stage of deathcore....

Favorites (only songs I like): "Dust", "Resurrect", "My Grain", "Nails"