Whourkr - Concrete (2008)^{Release ID: 30790}

The 2008 sophomore album from French cybergrind duo Whourkr is one truly unusual beast & I’m honestly not sure I’ve heard anything like it before. These guys take a penchant for extreme metal genres like deathcore & slam death metal & combine it with a bizarre array of electronic weirdness & then layer the most psychotic vocal performance you’ve ever heard over the top to create a record that will certainly startle the unsuspecting listener. A great production job certainly helps with the thick guitar tone really accentuating the chunky riffage on offer. The incorporation of cut-up breakcore beats has worked nicely here too as that component has been well integrated into the band’s sound but it’s the vocals of - i snor that are the really alarming element at play. If you took Mike Patton’s weirdest efforts & multiplied the insanity level by a margin of three then you’d be getting close to understanding what this twisted individual has been able to muster here. It’s a feather in his cap that he’s able to continuously come up with new & ever more ridiculous forms of oral battery & I’d imagine it would be almost a full-time undertaking.

As for the cybergrind thing… weeellll…. I’m not really hearing a lot of grindcore here to be honest. The clear protagonist is the avant-garde nature of this music & I’d hazard to suggest that the only primary genre tag necessary with “Concrete” is the avant-garde metal one given that they have a lot more in common with Mr. Bungle & Arcturus than they do with Pig Destroyer or Nasum. Interestingly though, it’s the two more traditional & progressively inclined tracks in “Santo” & closer (& album highlight) “Plantea” that really float my boat with some of the other material perhaps taking me a little too far in regard to unhinged experimentation. “Concrete” is a pretty entertaining record nonetheless though & I’d suggest that there might be a few members of The Infinite that might get more out of it than I have. Ben too actually.