I was listening to Club Mondo Bizarre while it was uploading and was impressed again, 15 years later, at how solid this album really is. I can't tell if this is their best album or if it's Been Caught Buttering (coming soon). Either way, Club Mondo Bizarre kicks all kinds of ass. Read the original review, click the link below and decide for yourself. Stay tuned at the end of the album for four instrumental remix tracks.
Pungent Stench For God Your Soul, For Me Your Flesh Nuclear Blast
I hope you death metal freaks are ready for the freakiest death metal band ever. Believe it or not, Pungent Stench’s debut LP For God Your Soul, For Me Your Flesh is actually the mildest of their releases. It wasn’t until the next album, Been Caught Buttering, that Pungent Stench incorporated the porno/sexual/S&M vibe to their aesthetics. It also wasn’t until Been Caught Buttering that Pungent Stench started playing death-n-roll. For God Your Soul, For Me Your Flesh is, for its time anyway, pretty standard blood-and-guts, Carcass-worshiping death grind; with a killer album cover by controversial photographer Joel-Peter Witkin.
My copy of For God Your Soul, For Me Your Flesh is the original Nuclear Blast pressing from Germany. In addition to being record nerd fodder merely for its rarity, this pressing comes with a host of bonus tracks. Tracks 11-17 are Pungent Stench’s side of the split LP with Disharmonic Orchestra. The Extreme Deformity EP comprises the final three tracks. It’s hard to believe that Pungent Stench’s tamest album includes songs like “Embalmed in Sulfuric Acid” and “Blood, Pus, and Gastric Juice” but, trust me, it’s all downhill from here. More Pungent Stench is on the way (much more). Take the Pepsi Challenge with For God Your Soul, For Me Your Flesh.
“Club Mondo Bizarre” marks Pungent Stench’s transition from Carcass-inspired grindcore to death-n-roll. The lyrical transition for these Austrian perverts (I mean that in an endearing way) happened on the “Been Caught Buttering” album, when they moved from gore lyrics to pornographic subject matter. On “Club Mondo Bizarre”, Pungent Stench fully embraces rock acts like ZZ Top and Aerosmith while incorporating these influences into a death metal context. The results are nothing short of amazing.
In fact, “Club Mondo Bizarre” was a modest commercial success when it was released. Keep in mind that this was back in 1994, at the dawn of the Alanis-HootieFish years. The mid-90s was a stagnant period for metal, but Pungent Stench beat the odds. I remember hearing the song “True Life” on Z-Rock’s death metal show when I was a kid; quite an accomplishment for such a graphic band.
Speaking of graphic, the album’s lyrics are truly twisted in the Pungent Stench style. It’s all here, from scat fetish worship (“Klyster Boogie”) to autoerotic asphyxiation (“Choked for a Joke”). Of course, suicide, STDs, and murder make appearances as well. Giddy perversion aside, the strongest song on the album is “Pagar con la Misma Moneda.” In it, a raped woman takes revenge on her attacker. An ex-girlfriend of mine was very impressed that a death metal band was capable of being so empathetic, even in Pungent Stench’s unusual way.
Musically, “Club Mondo Bizarre” is Pungent Stench’s strongest performance. Each song on the record is a tight death metal groove that comes from the heart. It doesn’t seem forced, like mid-period Entombed. If the song “In Search of Perfect Torture” doesn’t get your hips shaking, then you should quit music.
Grab your girl (or guy), put “Club Mondo Bizarre” on the stereo, throw on some BDSM porn, and violate some commandments.
Here a live clip of "Klyster Boogie" from "Club Mondo Bizarre." The clip was recorded at a festival in Europe.
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