Serrabulho – Star Whores – Album Review

Source // i.ytimg.com

Let’s see if we can sum up Portugal’s Serrabulho in 5 easy to swallow words; puerile, infantile, sick, gross & Grindcore. That paint a sticky enough picture for ya?

Positively wallowing in sex-obsessed filth and nonsensical attention deficit excursions into stand up comedy, Serrabulho are one unique bunch of miscreants and the balance between humour and slamming Death Grind is actually handled relatively well. With artwork painted by a horny Star Wars obsessed 12 year old, “Star Whores” may not be big, it’s certainly not clever but it sure as hell gets your attention.

“Testicular Torsion” amounts to the most ‘faithful’ Grindcore track on the album, more grind, less dick jokes and rather well performed. That’s the thing with Serrabulho, a seriously proficient Death-Grind band lays semi-dormant somewhere, fighting to be heard over the endless wail of comedy samples and re-intepretated children’s songs with sticky filth generously ladled over the top.

That said, “Buttman” is funny, very funny and on “Pentihoni nu Culhoni” the band appear to have hired Bobcat Goldthwait to provide guest vocals (if you were born post 1980 just view some Police Academy films to find out who we’re referring to). Each track follows a relatively simple formula. A comedy intro here, a bouncy little acoustic ditty there followed by 2mins of ferocious Grindcore madness. Easy and highly entertaining.

However, just like an overused condom, Serrabulho’s ‘humour’ eventually wears thin but there are moments of inspired lunacy, Death-Grind dexterity and enough slamming riffs to provoke a wall of death that could dwarf China’s pissy row of bricks. Recommended then, sort of. We’re confused and feel slightly dirty; time to get the wire wool out and scrub this filth from our bodily-fluid covered bodies!

Lest we forget, the last few moments of this insanity turns into a rave from the early 90’s. If you were ‘of age’ during this period, you’ll understand how distressing this is. Cheeky boys! 7/10