Weed and games and memes and nostalgia! All of these words properly describe the vibrant death metal outfit Bonginator. Since 2022, Bonginator has been a staple of the Massachusetts metal scene, and they've amassed quite a colorful cult following. Their album "Retrodeath"  is another one of their albums full of two-stepping neon weed death, or so they say. I've never listened to death metal with this kind of personality, so I'm bracing myself for whatever the hell Bonginator does best for the next forty-six minutes.

Like any modern album ever, you have to release some singles to draw attention. Bonginator chose two songs to be uploaded on the Testimony Records YouTube channel beforehand, the first being "Pizza Time," featuring crossover thrash band Belushi Speed Ball. A funky intro straight from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turns into a thrashy frenzy with a trashcan snare and lyrics recounting the events of the 80's TV show. Musically, the track is relatively basic in instrumentation, but fun in attitude and use of vintage media as sample material. Wonky solos and some surprisingly slammy gutturals are other parts of the track. The crossover thrash feel brought by Belushi Speed Ball shone through the song, as Bonginator leans more to death metal than anything. The second single features another act in the form of the acclaimed brutal death metal band Fulci. "Intruder Organism" actually starts with an interlude, lasting about two minutes, and taking up a track slot. "Intruder Organism Interlude" is nothing but a sample of a piece of media unknown to me, and some vibey synths. The song officially begins with clear influence of Fulci, as the riffs get chunkier and the vocals get grimier. Down-tuned chugs and "bleghs" are there, but there's mostly nothing too brutal to handle. The last single is actually the first in terms of release date, but I only found out that "All Cops Are Biomechs"  was a single via metallum. The 80's electronics take full control of the wheel alongside Robocop clips, emanating a synthpop feel that Bonginator can somehow cleanly turn into metal without missing a beat. I can suck Robocops's metal what now?

Now on to my usual album chunking™. "Sequence Initiation (Intro)" is a minute-and-a-half of robotic sounds and synths that just acts to build atmosphere. "All We Really Are Is Livestock"  is a track to chew bubblegum and kick ass too, especially if you're out of bubblegum. The song starts to border on slam metal, with those muted riffs and grunty breakdowns. Singles aside, "The Fog" and it's own interlude round out the first half of "Retrodeath." The interlude simply doesn't need to exist, but it's postlude sure does. The instrumentation and organ (?) share some attributes of melodic death metal, as there's distinct melody. A simple track from the dudes.

The next half goes through singles, and the next track features two bands this time: the funky genre mixing bowl that is Big Ass Truck, and Ohio-based groove metal act Ignominious. The track title "Small Ass Bus" is a nudge to the first featuring band. The lyrics are a bit problematic, using the "r slur" in conjunction with smaller busses usually in use for students with disabilities. The track grooves like Ignominious, and some rap parts are provided by Big Ass Truck. This song is not super tasteful, and every musician here knows it. "Lunk Alarm," in reference to Planet Fitness, is some brutal death metal with ape-like drumming and Limp Bizkit-like spoken word. These guys were not raised with a swear jar, I'll tell you that. This is some PeelingFlesh slam with some honestly impressive-sounding vocal olympics. "Who Let the "Things" (1989) Out" is a track where nothing really stands out, and the LP finishes aptly with "Outro," featuring Tim Capello. Not sure what he does, nor what he did for the song. Vaporwave is a weird genre to round things out on.

This was one hell of an emotional and musical rollercoaster. Some songs were undeniably fun and sampled in a cool way, and others were a bit problematic and distasteful. Now that was probably on purpose, of course, but are we running out of retro topics to sing about that we have to resort to some sort of gym training clip about being called all sorts of names? The final nail in the coffin are that the interludes take way too long when they don't even add anything - it's just taking up album time. The last one is like four minutes! I have very mixed thoughts about "Retrodeath."