Pungent Stench - Dirty Rhymes & Psychotronic Beats (1993)

For me, this is where PS began to really cook and come into their own. Sure, I loved the previous two albums but as someone who grew up listening to as much Zeppelin and The Doors as Bolt Thrower and Entombed, I was ecstatic to hear the band go all out with incorporating more rock elements into their sound. I also found the techno remake of the band's chestnut, 'Blood, Pus and Gastric Juices' to be a mind altering blast as well, not to mention the band's filthy cover of The Mentor's 'Four 'F' Club'.

I wasn't terribly surprised to see the more "militant" faction (which comprised the greater half of the underground in those days) of PS fans get butthurt and abandon the band as a result of the growing number of "outside influences" began to make its way into their aural arsenal. I always found that to be rather unfortunate as you can clearly see that not much has changed in regards to the overall aesthetic and besides, I always felt that the more straightforward aspects of the band's previous album (Been Caught Buttering) were a bit dry and quite frankly, uninteresting. This time around I felt as if the band had quelled their ever-so slight dilemma by incorporating just the right amount of weirdness into the equation by adding rock riffs, techno beats and industrial elements into the mix. With the release of Entombed's 'Hollowman' ep and then this, I was very open to the future of this rather bizarre and groovy result of blending unconventional elements with the more fundamentally extreme sounds of death and grind.

To this day 'Dirty Rhymes...' sounds just as fresh and as far out as it did way back in 1993. I'm almost certain that once everyone's transparent and "apparent" obsession with "old school" death metal subsides, all eyes will be turned towards this rather bizarre faction of extreme metal where death and grind were brilliantly mixed with industrial, classic rock and electronica, and why not? I couldn't think of a more deserving form of music. One that never really caught on with many folks due to their inability to properly categorize and thoroughly pigeonhole the bands within that faction, beyond the absolutely lame and rather erroneous moniker, 'death -n- roll'. Oh well, even if they don't "catch on", fuck 'em. I've found that most of the denizens swarming around on this planet have unbelievably lame taste in things and I've never sought out the approval of anyone else to determine if something is good or not. For my money, DR&PB is not only good, it's fucking grrrrreat!