Nobody who is anybody – indeed, if that anybody were to be nobody, then nobody indeed, however, indeed, as it were to be, anybody can be nobody; nobody anybody, and vice versa – would, could, or should deny the influence Laparoscopic Assisted Vaginal Hysterectomy has had on the modern metal scene. These veterans from Ulsan, Korea, have an insanely prolific discography, and each of their songs functions as a branch that grows outward from the trunk of their stylistic mainstays as a group. We’re going to take a dive now into their history and discography as a band, looking at eight songs of theirs to figure out just what makes these bad boys tick. These songs may not necessarily be their best, but they are the most essential when trying to understand where they came from, and how they got to where they are now. This is the idea of “8-Track.” In case you missed our previous installments, here’s the basic premise, in a nutshell: We choose a band that we know has a storied history, and identify the eight songs that define their strengths as a band, musically, lyrically, and conceptually. This is not merely a “Favorite Songs of (Insert Band Here)” list, though for some writers, there will be overlap with the two. This list is meant to show anyone discovering the band songs that really speak volumes of how they are as a band, and songs that are essential to their development and evolution as a band.
Pioneering a grindy, atonal style of avant-garde, experimental death metal that influenced now-great groups like Gorguts, Krallice, and even two other Colin Marston bands, their style is unmistakably their own: complex buzzsaw riffs atop drums that are too fast for the human ear to hear, a dash of hardcore-inspired feedback coloring every section, and production that gives the whole package a sort of raw, organic flair that can only really be understood once it’s heard. Categorizing LAVH is difficult, since their existence seems to defy any sort of genre or musical conventions: they’re here to rock, and they’re here to rock your fucking ass off. Their most recent album, premiered by Pitchfork back in January, is a mind-bending masterpiece of drone metal, blackgaze, grindcore, and harsh wall noise; Even Massiver Removal Of Blowjob Schizophrenia calls to mind Oranssi Pazuzu, Negura Bunget, and Book of Sands as much as it does Bull Of Heaven, Teenage Time Killers, and Vomir. A little bit of William Basinski-inspired looping even shows up at times on the album’s massive closing track – but we’ll get to that later. Now, it’s time to dive into the astounding history of Laparoscopic Assisted Vaginal Hysterectomy, in the hopes of finding out just what makes them tick.
“See The Genitals Of The Mad Cow Disease” – Massive Removal Of Blowjob Schizophrenia [2011]
It’s here, at the beginning of their career together as a band, where the first inkling of ideas that would birth into a modern metal juggernaut appeared to astound the world. “See The Genitals Of The Mad Cow Disease” isn’t just a classic for LAVH, it’s a classic for death metal in general. Although at first they had somewhat of a rockier, less refined approach, and the production, well, leaves a lot to be desired, it’s important to start here, at the beginning of their career. In spite of their less-refined tools and, indeed, less sophisticated, more immature songwriting that makes this track only half of what it potentially could be, it’s easy to look at this and see where those around for Massive Removal saw a band worth getting hyped about. Listening to it now, it’s hard to reconcile this with the fact that their later approach would be so heavily improved, but one must realize that in its own time, “See The Genitals Of The Mad Cow Disease” was a track unlike anything anybody had ever heard before.
– Misha Mansoor
“We’re Going Slut Bitch” – Massive Removal Of Blowjob Schizophrenia [2011]
The leading single of off the hotly anticipated debut, “We’re Going Slut Bitch” was perfectly timed to ignite a musical revolution in the stagnant world of atonal experimental avant-garde progressive blackened grindy progressive technical progressive death metal. Due to its short length and catchy riffing, it got an insane amount of radio playtime on various metal stations across the globe, and when people heard it, they were in a shocked state of disbelief. Immediately, the thinkpieces about how LAVH was going to change the game entirely started appearing on various sites – “Will LAVH Change The Game Entirely?” “Move Over, Deafheaven, There’s A New Sheriff In Town, And His Name Is Slut Bitch” and “Millenials – Love ‘Em Or Hate ‘Em, They Make Amazing Music” are three of my all-time favorite pieces of investigative journalism – and everyone was not only agog, but also flabbergasted at how much this short song kicked fucking ass. Far more than just being a great piece of songwriting that would see Laparoscopic Assisted Vaginal Hysterectomy entering the upper echelons of metal from day one, “We’re Going Slut Bitch” is important because it shows just how primed this group of crazy Koreans was to take center stage in the realm of heavy music.
– Colin Marston
“Clitoris Explosion Of Genocide” – Massive Removal Of Blowjob Schizophrenia [2011]
Say what you will about Laparoscopic Assisted Vaginal Hysterectomy’s more accessible tracks, I’ve always been a bigger fan of their more experimental stuff, and nothing screams experimental on their end quite like “Clitoris Explosion Of Genocide.” Short and to-the-point, this track deserves a short and to-the-point analysis, which I will offer right now: hell yeah. Please buy more Slayer albums. They’re keeping my family as hostages until we sell 100,000 copies of Repentless.
– Kerry King
“Hymen Crushing Holocaust Chamber” – Massive Removal Of Blowjob Schizophrenia [2011]
Imagine: you are standing on a beach. The water laps gently at your toes, warm, inviting, invigorating. You begin to take a step forward, into the sea water, but as the droplets begin to rush back into the ocean from the tight grip of the beach’s sand, you feel a strange cold around your ankle. You realize, should you enter the water, the rush of vigor and warmth that will come to you will be but fleeting, replaced again with the cold mechanicality of society. It’s a tough decision, but you decide it is better to have loved and loss.jpg than to never have loved at all, and so you plunge head-first into the refreshing ocean water. In front of you, you see a shark, staring at you with its black, beady, deathly eyes, ready to attack, primed to tear you limb from limb. You realize that maybe you should not have gotten in the water at all, and that perhaps, the sublime experience you were expecting was the onset of death, as you are ready to leave this life behind. Then all of a sudden The Terminator comes out of nowhere and punches the shark in the face before shooting it like 7 or 8 times; the shark dies, floating to the surface, its slick skin pocked with bullet holes, oozing what you have to imagine is shark blood. The Terminator has saved your life, and now, he pulls you out of the water, and says “hasta la vista, baby,” before disappearing once more. Pretty cool, right?
– Slip Knot
“Geisha Sucks Cock Of Europe part 2” – Massive Removal Of Blowjob Schizophrenia [2011]
Although “Geisha Sucks Cock Of Europe Part 1” is forever lost to the sands of time – LAVH’s equivalent of Godspeed, You! Black Emperor‘s first album, All Lights Fucked On The Hairy Amp Drooling – part 2 of this suite is truly a masterwork of stylistic shifts. Starting off with some drone that would do Sunn O))) proud, letting a long, sustained note build itself up over the textured and coarse span of its existence, before switching into a blindingly fast, atonal-yet-somehow-melodic thrashy death metal riff that is an immediate earworm, “Geisha Sucks” part 2 is an instantly noticeable classic in the vein of the genre’s greats. In usual Laparoscopic Assisted Vaginal Hysterectomy fashion, a range of influences are melted down into a veritable smorgasbord of metal soundscapes, exploratory and forward-thinking while at the same time paying homage to the beloved classics of the styles they draw from. It’s hard to find a band that is both this excitingly fresh and new, while also immediately feeling intimately familiar to the listener, and on this track, both of these two sides of the coin come together in the best possible fashion. Freakishly original, totally out-there, yet also recognizably familial with the classics, this is LAVH at their finest.
– Papa Emeritus
“You Suffer (Napalm Death cover)” – Even Massiver Removal Of Blowjob Schizophrenia [2015]
Nobody else could get away with covering this. I’m sorry, but, it’s true: there really is no other band that could do justice to the mighty Napalm Death. However, Laparoscopic Assisted Vaginal Hysterectomy does this with flying colors; their cover at once pays perfect homage to the original, a blindingly fast grindcore track and the logical conclusion of metal’s brutal speed and efficiency, and maintains the LAVH-ishness. It’s rare that a band does a cover that gets close to the artistic vision of the original, and it’s just about unheard of that a band could manage to get this close to the sun without falling at all. With this cover, LAVH makes this song truly their own, another great addition to the pantheon of classics they’ve put out. For any band to pull off a rendition of such a classic song is difficult, for sure, but these guys go above and beyond in making sure that the cover feels natural and, above all else, graceful, is a sheer masterwork of staggering musical genius.
– Papa Roach
“Blood Flow To The Brain; Killing Homosexuals; United States Of America” – Even Massiver Removal Of Blowjob Schizophrenia [2015]
In the words of Heraclitus, “no man steps in the same river twice,” and LAVH makes sure to, well, assert this assertion on “Blood Flow To The Brain,” one of the band’s seminal tracks. Traces of Rage Against The Machine-esque funk metal worm their way into this short-yet-poignant attack on modern politics by way of discussing the secret ongoing battle between zeitgeist and romantic historicism. Bands like The Body and artists like Merzbow have forever tried to make songs that combine the musical appeal they need to succeed with their noisy, esoteric brand of nihilism, but it’s not until just last year that the sound they were really going for got summed up, of course, by this Korean five-piece. Combining the sentiment of Heraclitus – that we are all, at once, changing, and that transience is not to be lamented or celebrated so much as just accepted as a fact of life – with a complex, subtle, nuanced political message about the beautiful futility of life and trying to change human nature, “Blood Flow To The Brain” isn’t just a great LAVH song, it’s a great protest song that sums up quintessentially humanist values while dissecting what makes us tick. Really makes you think.
– Papa John’s
“William Taft Asshole Open Wide Night at the Museum” – Even Massiver Removal Of Blowjob Schizophrenia [2015]
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– Jerry Seinfeld