G&P Review: Nashgul

Nashgul
El Dia Despues al Fin de la Humanidad
Power It Up
If Cujo has taught me nothing else, it’s that you should vaccinate your pets because this shit usually starts with rabies.
Sure enough, right off the top of zombie audio film El Dia Despues al Fin de la Humanidad (The Day after the End of Humanity), Spain’s Nashgul are bellowing about the “Hidrofobia.” Somebody put Ol’ Yeller down before it’s too late. I joke, of course. It’s already too late.
Shotgun-wedding Max Brooks horror with a Mike Mignola aesthetic to a more Carcass-ian attack than Humanicidio, the band’s prior collection of splits and 7-inches, Nashgul script and soundtrack a zombie horror film lacking only the visuals. Dipping into the always reliable well of Fulci and Romero, Nashgul drop what arguably was one of the best grind albums of 2009, had I gotten to it in time.
The vocals are suitably Jeff Walkeresque and the prominent bass sounds like a rotten femur strung with a twanging tendon and the Repulsion influences are notable, especially in “Cremated Remains.” But then there’s other, less expected influences burbling up like corpse gas in a Louisiana swamp. Bassist Luis rumbles like a reanimated Cliff Burton during the startling Metallical close out to Resident Evil-style charmer “La Plaga.”

Nashgul – “La Plaga”

Anyone who bought Humanicidio will recognize a few of the titles here: “El Vengedor” gets recycled while in true Hollywood style swinging, bent string ’70s-style instrumental “Mad Max” gets sequelized as “Mad Max II.” Zombies and grindcore go together like Tom Savini and latex gore and while Nashgul don’t reanimate any new corpses with El Dia Despues al Fin de la Humanidad they know where the choice bodies were buried.