Demo-lition Derby: Gozer

Gozer
WARNING: Product May Contain Gozer
As with Mumakil’s Behold the Failure, the title of Gozer’s demo may be all the warning some people need, depending on their taste preferences. The Ohio band starts with an admirable conceit: there’s not nearly enough Bill Murray in grindcore. So they lard their 17 songs with a rash of choice sampled Murray-isms (amusingly, given the name, none from Ghostbusters). It’s a clever enough proposition that further underlines my dismay with how most other bands interweave movie bits into their songs.
So Gozer tee up what should be a fairly fun romp through grinding silliness, but their concept got lost in the execution. Unfortunately, the guitars sound like the demos I used to make by running my amp head straight into a cassette deck and hitting “record.” It’s a buzzy, blurry swamp that wars with the drum (machine?), making it hard to enjoy the music. That’s a shame because Gozer do pull a few neat tricks, such as the hopscotching panning pranks on “When Sweetmeat Met White Trash.” Additionally, Gozer are far too reliant on a tedious, stuttered chugging move to carry their songs forward from one musical idea to the next.
Overall, Gozer is amateurish but inoffensive. It’s a clever conceit that screams for better execution and a little helpful editing. You can check out their demo and a few other efforts for free at their Bandcamp page, but warning: the product may contain Gozer.