Alright, well, CURNIMUS - A Groove-Death Metal Band hailing from the Land of Fins - has been dropped onto my lap like a wet dog. And like a wet dog dropped onto my lap, I'm not in particularly high spirits afterwards. If that sentence hasn't already summed up my feelings for this particular album, allow me to divulge. And divulge I will.

First off, CURNIMUS does indeed hail from Finland. I can't say if this is a good or bad thing, but I can say it. However, I'm not from that particular country, so I'm going to dock a point off because I'm an American cowboy who hates foreigners, non-Christians, liberal media outlets, and everything else (sarcasm alert). This album is CURNIMUS's maiden album, following up on 2010's "Values" demo. This could very well be a blessing in disguise, as newer bands are always trying to find their voice, as it were.

Okay, let's get right to it, no more bad jokes or caustic remarks. The reasons I do not like this particular album are many, and very significant. For one, the vocals do that thing that many, many, many bands these days do: they overdo it. Every line is delivered in the exact tone of voice that is ultra-guttural, indecipherable, and lacking in dynamics or definition. I understand if Death Metal is known for its vocal style, but if you listen to some of the pioneers of the genre - KREATOR, SLAYER, DEATH, MASTER, MORBID ANGEL -  you'll see that very few of them were imitating cookie monster. But CURNIMUS does, and it suffers for it. It plays less like an energetic set piece and more like a shortcut on the way to boredom and disinterest.

Secondly – and this is the big one. This is the make-or-break of any musical creation. And that is simply that the music sucks. It's just not very good. The riffs are stale, repetitive, and one-dimensional. No particular songs stood out from any others. The bass is audible only if you are good at imagining things. The soloing doesn't even exist. Why would they make such a stylistic choice? No solos only means that you had better have a good riff that catches the ear well. But they don't have that. After listening halfway through this album, I began following the clock, counting every second until I could say the album was done and I could sit down and bash it with mean, acerbic text. But before I did that, I tried to really think of one good riff that stayed with me or was stuck in my head like a brain parasite. Nope. Just regular, non-musical brain parasites.

I tried to be charitable with it. I really did. I hoped that something good would happen. But for a band in a genre with the word "groove" in it, I didn't find it very groovy. Where exactly is the groove? Is it hidden beneath the shit vocals and sound quality that, to be forgiving is horrible? If you find it, let me know. But you won't. Because it's not groovy. It's boring, it's repetitive, it's stale, it's repetitive, it's not pioneering, it's repetitive, it's simplistic, it's repetitive, and it's lacking in all the ways a good metal album shouldn't. And it's repetitive.

Hey, nothing personal. Not everyone is going to hit the bull's eye. Points for trying, guys. 4 points, to be precise.