Blast Rites: Couple Skate – Human Resources Review

“Sometimes you just need some… disgusting blastbeats and just like… y’know…”

“…some fuckin’ sick fuckin’ vocals, man.”

And when you do, then here you go.

From the idyllic Midwestern paradise of Lima, Ohio, comes Couple Skate, an irreverently snarky mincing goregrind trio, and with them now comes Human Resources, their first new release in three years. Like those on the Couple Skate releases before this one, these are seven songs of raw punkish grinding – although Human Resource’s tracks are markedly less raw than earlier Skate-rs like Gore Orphanage and Asinine Insertions Of Inappropriate Implantations. This stouter production is an improvement, for sure, in the form of better-sounding drums, thicker guitars, and a greater range, and it actually doesn’t come at the expense of the lo-fi unpolished sickness that the style aims for, leaving Resources still sounding appropriately gross but also hitting harder.

Aside from its sonics, Human Resources is built on the requisite mince-core bits: pitch-shifted gurgles (augmented with higher pitched screams as backgrounds), tempos that alternate between a manic blasting and energetic punk rock, and simple yet effective crossover-thrash-leaning chord patterns with the occasional hint of a more traditional style metal riff. And of course, there’s a slew of samples, the origins of not a single one of which I recognize. (I am clearly not cool enough, and I’m okay with that.) Each of these tracks is a giddy little gross-out romp, with Resources’ highlights in its middle run of “Fuckin’ Catalina Bowel Mixer” — with its broken-down monster-gurgle swagger — to “No-Member November,” from whence my opening quote is lifted, and the downtuned roiling churn of “Unshaved Mysteries.”

I first ran across Couple Skate on their split with Haggus, and was impressed enough with their mincing madness to explore further. Thankfully, they’ve made it all available for a low low package price on the ol’ Bandcamp, so it’s serendipity in mincegore form: Just as I’m catching up, they drop this hiatus-ending return, and Human Resources is both a damned fun grind record and my favorite Couple Skate release thus far.

And I’ll admit that, in some ways, writing a piece like this is a fool’s undertaking, attempting any serious critical evaluation of eight minutes of mincing goregrind, but hey, unlike the fellow whose critique closes out “Meaty Urologist,” I was anything but “bored shitless by nearly every second of this record,” so I guess I win. High five. Go team.

Disgusting blastbeats and fuckin’ sick fuckin’ vocals for the win.