Gorgasm is smarter than you think. That being said, let’s talk about misogyny for a minute.

This band was formed when you couldn’t rummage through a metal cd rack without getting slapped in the face with album cover upon album cover of dismembered women, and in today’s PC climate that doesn’t really happen anymore- maybe for the best, mind you, but as a semi-privileged dude, I’m not going to pretend this was ever offensive to me in order to save face among other like-minded pretenders. I love horror movies and low-brow entertainment, and that stuff and metal do kind of go hand-in-hand.

Gorgasm may be the one case I can think of where the participating band in question maybe didn’t get the memo that the ‘90s are over, and that stuff kind of isn’t ok anymore. I mean, you can’t fault them for being consistent I guess, and one look at the band name should tell you what you’re getting here- every song is going to be sexually perverse lyrically and if you like death metal, can put down your microbrew for a half hour and get down with a Troma movie and 20 piece Chicken Mcnuggets every now and again to escape what is most likely your overly apologetic fun-devoid existence, you should hopefully like Destined to Violate. And for those of you (males) calling yourselves feminists just to sound deep enough to get laid, you’re more depraved than these fuckers, for sure. Remember, nobody really likes women, especially women. But they happen to have a hell of a lot of power so let’s look at this record as a toppling of authority- a revolution if you will. And with that, Gorgasm has become extremely politically aware. Songs like “Kuntkiller” should tell you that much, anyway.

Now that that’s out of the way, I will say without a doubt that this is Gorgasm’s best record to date. They haven’t really recaptured the unintentional brilliance of their debut EP Stabwound Intercourse until now. They still, lyrical content aside, are smarter than you think as what made the band initially stand out is the occasional flirtation with neoclassical melody and harmony (I’m not kidding), and shoehorning these techniques in between brutal slam riffs and blast beats is a really fun and aurally pleasing contrast that not only provides the band with an identity that separates them from the kabillion youtube slam-a-thon bands but gives the actual songs identifiable characteristics that actually make you want to rewind the tracks. It seems as though Gorgasm presented a re-recording of “Corpsified” here from their demo days to showcase how far the band has come musically in contrast, and while that particular track can stand up to the likes of current death metal offerings, it doesn’t quite depict the varying moods they can harness and manipulate in 2014.

As for the new songs, the band really amplified their strengths here, as the slam parts are savage as fuck and the melody lines they sneak in are meticulously composed and leave as soon as you noticed them, teasing you as if you’re the band’s strangulation victim as they loosen their grasp for just that second before the lights go out to give you enough air to stay conscious enough for further torture. So while clearly song titles like “Funeral Gangbang” are hilariously written to provoke you, the band musically fucks with you as well, and no other death metal band I can think of pulls that off as effectively aside from maybe Mortal Decay, another remnant from the much more creative ‘90s. I mean, listen to the melody from the 2 minute point of “Depraved Depredation” and tell me it’s not nauseatingly beautiful. They haven’t penned something that dynamic since the Bleeding Profusely record with “Lesbian Stool Orgy.” Geniuses, they are.

Slam-based death metal is a soulless wasteland now. Most participants are no better than those who made up the metalcore explosion of soundalike, write-so-the-audience-can-move bands of the 2000s but while those under the death metal umbrella are composing with the metal spirit intact, you still can’t give them credit for being able to write songs. Gorgasm has a severed leg up on the pack in that regard, and if you aren’t an uptight, overly adult metal fan, you should be able to hear that here.

If you can keep the image out of your head that it was written by guys that sat behind you in class drawing dicks on their notebooks all day, you’ll be able to see that Destined to Violate is really fucking good, but as for this low-brow misogynist, that idea only furthers their cause.

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