Originally written by Jeremy Garner
Ever heard Internal Suffering? If so, great, you know pretty much the broad direction taken on Perception of Hate, but whereas with Internal Suffering there’s a strong emphasis on unrelenting speed and a particularly vicious onslaught of fretwork (Deeds of Flesh is another great example), Goretrade focuses more on the burly swagger exploited by American bands like Devourment without straying too far from their roots. If all the name dropping is making your head start to hurt, lets just say Goretrade are mean, burly, and have a remarkably effective cut to the chase approach and wall of sound delivery that cuts out all the frills and intricacies and gets down to business with savvy grooves and punchy rhythms.
Much to my surprise, the majority of the clips and samples presented on Perception of Hate actually fit the context quite well, but even more surprising, Goretrade manage to effectively keep the quality of songwriting consistent whether lumbering through the mid paced crunch of “Someone to Kill” or the viscous rumbling of “Impregnated with Deceit”. However, some, including myself, may find the stylistic simple-mindedness a bit lacking, but this is more of a stylistic critique than anything else. There may not be a whole lot of ingenuity jumping out to grab you by the balls, but there’s a systematic absence of anything even remotely resembling filler. The only serious issue I take is that I’ve heard all this before, and due to the lack of originality Perception of Hate ends up being a bit more bark than bite, but I would be doing a great disservice to the band if I wrote them off completely for those reasons.
On the one hand I’m a bit perturbed that Goretrade fail to expand the genre or at least leave their own distinctive mark on the sound, but at its best, Perception of Hate accomplishes nearly everything the band intended, and even if I can’t find anything that novel about it, there’s nothing amiss in the delivery. It’s all been done before, but the amount of conviction and aggression this album conveys is its saving grace. Much like the boys of Aborted, Goretrade could really give less of a damn about being revolutionary, and if you don’t either, Perception of Hate will be a welcome addition of to the rabid fans craving more Columbian brutality.
