Broken Hope - Loathing (1997)

Country: U.S.A.
Genre: Death Metal
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© 1997 Metal Blade Records
Reviewed by Sea of Tranquility.org

There are death metal albums that strike you at first but eventually collect dust in your CD rack; there are also death metal albums that strike you at first and continue to lash out powerful songs long after its initial release. Broken Hope have, at times, produced all of the above. Their 1990 demo turned heads and raised the dead with unchallenged brutality(at the time), and the debut album on the defunct Grindcore International label fared well with gore-grind legions worldwide. The 1993 masterpiece The Bowels of Repugnance came up aces by expertly creating a void where ultra-brutality met sheer melancholy, a voyage of pure sickness through 13 fine-crafted songs. It's follow-up (1995's Repulsive Conception) didn't stray too far from Bowels' plan of attack, but wasn't nearly as memorable.

Broken Hope returns with Loathing, which should be titled Repulsive Conception Part II. The original formula is still intact, but treads water instead of blazing past in a bolt of gory glory. After several listens, only one song stands out as a whole(the opener "Siamese Screams"), and the rest is remembered only by bits and pieces rather than by solid songs. The guitar solos still shine, but seem out-of-place at times and fail to set a mood the way they used to.
Lyrically you get another batch of Jeremy Wagner's twisted literature, topics spanning from the A.I.D.S. virus ("Skin Is In") to Government cloning experiments gone awry ("The Cloning") to the completely laughable "Auction of the Dead" (an ode to buying and selling decomposed body parts).
Loathing also makes Broken Hope the 947th band to sample the film Hellraiser, and one more to dish out another mediocre death metal album.

tags: broken hope, loathing, 1997, flac,