Look at that cover. Just look at it. A machete and a dildo in the same place? I know you can’t believe it, and neither can I. Machete Dildo was brought to my attention by a lovely young woman who definitely has good taste when it comes to disgusting music that nobody except a few people (like myself) would clearly enjoy. Machete Dildo absolutely fits into this column. Self-described as a sloppy and wet goregrind band, Machete Dildo is a two-man operation with guitar, vocals, and a drum machine that is clearly abused in a good way. Having very odd stage persona’s, custom made masks, gore, and sometimes an equally disturbing entourage of mental horrors, these two men want nothing more than to give you nightmare-inducing and brutal goregrind.
After digesting this three-track morsel multiple times, one would think that hailing from California would mean they tend to follow the same sound and styles as other brutal death metal and goregrind bands. But, I have found there to be more of a correlation to Michigan-styled brutal death metal and goregrind, particularly in the vein of bands like Intestinal Alien Reflux, Syphilic, and Gutrot. The frantic riffing and spastic drum machine with continuous non-pitch-shifted guttural vocals really gave me that impression, making it feel as if Brian Forgue and the Stiles brothers were at the helm of Machete Dildo. The first two tracks, ‘Intestinal Debris’ and ‘Female Feces Consumption’ really drive that point home, in my humble opinion. The third track, ‘Doorway Beyond Sanity,’ felt like a mixture of Inhume and Oxidised Razor, but obviously with more spastic guttural vocals being used. Just to hear some of the sounds the vocalist makes is pretty crazy for it not being pitch-shifted. While these ideas aren’t exactly new in their own way, Machete Dildo takes a usually simplistic brutal death metal/goregrind mixture and makes it as their own. Combining that with their unique and energetic live performances I can see them carving themselves out a nice sliver in the niche that is guttural brutal death metal/goregrind.