Cretin was an unknown act to me until I found their debut Freakery in my mailbox. The history of Cretin goes back as far as '92, but for some reason the band was put on hiatus in '94. Both drummer Col Jones and bassist Matt Widener have played in Exhumed in the meantime, before reactivating Cretin in 2000.

Cretin combines blasting grindcore with deformed death metal. The band is clearly heavily inspired by early Carcass and Napalm Death. Particularly the drumming bears a lot of similarities with Carcass. But I wouldn't go as far saying that the band is a clone, but they do borrow a lot from the aforementioned band. The songs are mostly kept around the two minutes which I think is fine. They are not too long, nor too short. It helps keeping the intensity and momentum going throughout Freakery. The music may be pretty fast, but the band always appears to be in control of what they are doing.

Songs like "Object of Utility" and "Walking a Midget" caught my ear right away, and the remaining material is good too. I didn't expect anything at all but Freakery turned out be an interesting encounter. I certainly haven't heard it for the last time.