Made in Taiwan: The Top 10 Bands of Larry Wang’s Fat Tub of Lard Records

In Taiwan’s extreme music scene, one man reigns supreme — Larry Wang, owner of Fat Tub of Lard Records and frontman of too many bands to mention. It’s more likely than not that he’s involved with anything in Taiwan that relates to extreme metal. Wang previously played in deathcore outfit Beyond Cure and one of Taiwan’s most well-known metal bands Flesh Juicer before forming what he would ultimately be known for – Gorepot, Fatuous Rump and an assortment of other slam and brutal death metal projects. If you want something to be brought into reality, sometimes you have to do it yourself, which may explain the number of projects related to Wang.

When commenting on the extreme music scene of Taiwan, Wang said:

“To be honest the scene here is pretty much dead. The fans became musicians without figuring out what they really like or dig too deep to find out what the world is about. They are very mainstream oriented so there’s no parallel scenes to the mainstream. There’s a couple of grindcore bands and this stoner/doom band I heard at practice but they never put anything out, so I would say there’s nothing that represents extreme music from my perspective. The so-called extreme music that exists now is not really extreme anymore. I really want to enjoy local extreme bands and want to discover them but since I know a ton of people in the scene I am sure they don’t exist.”

Keeping that in mind, let’s take a look at 10 of the best Larry Wang projects that have kept extreme metal alive in Taiwan.

Gorepot

Gorepot is the project that most people might have heard of. But if you haven’t, this band is a culmination of every aspect of Wang’s personality and talent for the extreme. Starting off with a big, hearty hit with 2008’s Happy Hour, the Gorepot project has released an album or split almost every consecutive year. With the amount of projects Wang has going, it’s crazy to think of his time management schedule. The latest release from Gorepot is 2022’s How Much is a Gram Over There? which continues the trend of humorous song titles, absurd samples and a focus on experimentation with extreme sounds – as if every album is a new strain of Gorepot.

Fatuous Rump

Probably the second most known band in Wang’s repertoire is Fatuous Rump. “The Rush is Worth the Risk,” a song from their 2021 album Perceptions of the Dark Ornaments is a nice slogan for Wang’s output in general – there is risk that the projects might go nowhere, but the rush of creating and performing brutal shit makes up for it. Fatuous Rump is the tub of lard from Wang’s Fat Tub of Lard records come to fruition – thick, greasy and a bit foul smelling – but really enjoyable if you get a firm grip and ride the wave.

Emasculated Vituperation

“There is no future for extreme music in Taiwan, period. The only youngsters I know are the people in my new band, Emasculated Vituperation who are 19, 20, and 24 years of age,” said Wang when probed about the state of the extreme Taiwanese scene and if there were any young musicians he knew personally making noise. With Emasculated Vituperation, though, the young bucks Wang employed certainly made up for the drought, with an album and accompanying cover art that push the boundaries of extreme. Nice one, Uncle Wang!

Facelift Deformation

Wang brings some apocalyptic science fiction horror into brutal death metal with Facelift Deformation. If Gorepot was too fast and zany to get into, then the slower, chunkier style of Facelift Deformation may be more fitting to your tastes. The cult legend Guang Yang provided artwork for their Cybernetic Organism Atrocities release, which fits the future gore theme like living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. With their latest track, “Joyful Bloodshed in the Woods,” it seems the sci–fi theme has been dropped for now in place of a brutal Bullwinkle wielding a bloody bat.

Lesbian Tribbing Squirt

First off, if you aren’t aware of what tribbing is, Google it with incognito mode on or something. Now, the cover of Tribbing is My Religion has two women with an octopus tentacle shared between their mouths – looking like a Daikichi Amano photograph – not much tribbing shown there but who cares. A brutal, sexual encounter is found with this Wang creation – “Queef Bubbles” really says it all.

Perversity Denied

Colombia’s Perversity Denied has been around since 2008, though enlisted Wang to do vocals on their 2022 full-length album The Arrival of Majestic End. The result is a hybrid featuring the usual guttural croaks and heaves from Wang and the brutal songwriting techniques of Alexander Clamot. After listening, make sure to go through the band’s back catalogue, which features several singles and splits before the full-length with Wang.

Gingivectomy

We’ve seen pot-related slam with Gorepot, sci fi-influenced brutal death metal with Facelift Deformation and sexual brutal death with Lesbian Tribbing Squirt. Now, sit down and say “ahhh,” because it’s time to get drilled by a sadistic dentist with Gingivectomy. Wang uses the pseudonym Dr. Ping Pong here, and one has to wonder if he’s had a cavity as nasty looking as this project is nasty sounding.

Umbilical Asphyxia

Las Vegas slam vocalist Clayton Meade (Condemned, Implements of Hell, Grieve) teamed up with Wang for this project. The Viremic Presence of Geostygmatic Pestilence record is something of a brutal Final Fantasy VII concept album, opening with that familiar intro jingle before all hell breaks loose with songs like “Quarantined for Mako Poisoning” and “Catastrophic Jenovian Entity.” Book this band at your next gaming convention.

Coprocephalic

Coprocephalic – one whose cranial cavity is filled with feces. While this band is on hold, much like a dump suffering from severe constipation, the band’s 2012-2014 fecal remnants remain to be examined. Wang again provides vocals for this band, and the two full length albums – 2013’s Gluttonous Chunks and 2014’s The Oath of Relinquishment feature him at his most vile, like an unrelenting flow of bloody diarrhea splatting all over a plate of groovy and chunky brutal death metal.

Maggot Colony

Maggot Colony are known as one of the top-tier brutal death metal bands in Taiwan. Though they formed in 2013, it wasn’t until 2015 when Wang offered his bass skills to their album Vile Reincarnation, which has been, to the date of this publication, their latest. Here’s hoping for another pulse from these maggots in the near future.