V/A - This Comp Kills Fascists Vol. 1

by Cosmo Lee

Back in the day, this would have been a cassette tape. You would have played it until it wore out. Dubbed copies for your friends. Carried it around in a Walkman like a Bible. Now, in an age where "mixtapes" are CD's and MP3's, it's not quite the same. But Pig Destroyer's Scott Hull has made it damn close. On This Comp Kills Fascists Vol. 1 (Relapse, 2008), he's rounded up 14 bands for 51 tracks that total under an hour. Each band contributed a page of liner notes - no Photoshop allowed. There are illustrations, photo collages, hand scrawls, lots of typewriter. The booklet looks like a box of 7"s.

Brutal Truth - Forever in a Daze
Insect Warfare - Information Economy

On the spine of the packaging are two words: "POWER VIOLENCE." This is somewhat misleading. The disc has plenty of power violence (or "powerviolence," if you're so inclined), but it also has grindcore and hardcore. Not that such distinctions really matter. A punch to the face is a punch to the face. There are lots here. Brutal Truth turn in four tracks, their first original material since 1997. They haven't lost a step. Insect Warfare drop perhaps the final songs of their career, and they're blistering. Magrudergrind show why they're the most underrated grindcore band today. Chainsaw to the Face are, well, a chainsaw to the face. Kill the Client, Maruta, ASRA, Shitstorm (featuring two members of Torche), Total Fucking Destruction - this compilation is a who's who in grindcore today.

Magrudergrind - Burden
Chainsaw to the Face - Skewered

Relapse in-house artist Orion Landau brilliantly - and literally - illustrates this compilation's title. When I interviewed him, he said his primary influence was John Heartfield. Heartfield's photomontage style has cropped up in Landau's work over the years, but this artwork is a full-on homage to Heartfield. There's Dubya's head on a plate (that felt good, typing that), and caustic sendups of McDonald's and Walmart's advertising. I have only one gripe with this release: the name. It should have been called This Comp Kills Republicans.

Buy:
RevHQ
Relapse

Kory Grow at Paper Thin Walls (RIP) wrote a great feature on this comp, with interviews with every band but one - read it here.

Upcoming Willowtip releases 2008

by Cosmo Lee

Today kicks off Willowtip's War on Everything tour, which has an epic lineup of Impaled, Phobia, Illogicist, and Maruta. (See tour dates here.) Malignancy joins up for the first 2/3 of the tour, while Kill the Client accompanies the remaining dates. Despite losing Arsis and Neuraxis to larger labels, Willowtip has stayed strong by forging partnerships with Neurotic and Candlelight. The label's upcoming releases this year look to be scorching. Normally, I'm not in the business of pre-release hype, but advance clips have me salivating like Pavlov's kennel. Check 'em out, and get your drool on.

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Phobia - Protest/Solution

Who: Phobia
What: 22 Random Acts of Violence
When: October 28, 2008
Why: After a ton of EP's, splits, and full-lengths, the OC's Phobia still bring the grind. If "Protest/Solution" is any indication, 22 Random Acts will be violent indeed. Drummer extraordinaire Danny Walker is out with Intronaut, so Phobia will likely tour with another skinsman. You can pre-order this CD here.

Maruta - A Sea of Dead Serpents

Who: Maruta
What: In Narcosis
When: October 28, 2008
Why: It's rare now that a band gets signed to Willowtip on only its debut. Florida's Maruta peeled faces on Relapse's recent This Comp Kills Fascists (curated by Pig Destroyer's Scott Hull); In Narcosis promises more skin-flaying. If they're good enough for Scott Hull and Willowtip, they're good enough for you. Pre-order this CD here.

Terminal Function - Spawn

Who: Terminal Function
What: Measuring the Abstract
When: October/November (TBA)
Why: WOW. This clip gives me shivers. What I've heard of Sweden's Terminal Function reminds me of Zombi, Meshuggah, Death, Atheist and Cynic. (On a related note, Alarum is supposedly putting out a long-awaited new record later this year.) Technical, melodic, deep as fathoms. This debut will definitely be one to watch.

Severed Savior - Question

Who: Severed Savior
What: Servile Insurrection
When: October/November (TBA)
Why: South San Francisco/Santa Cruz has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of great technical death metal. Severed Savior, featuring Odious Mortem vocalist Anthony Trapani, have stepped up with more maturity and unpredictability - check out that sick bass break. The over-the-top artwork by Pär Olofsson is pretty gnarly, too.

Kill the Client - Cleptocracy

Who: Kill the Client
What: Cleptocracy
When: October 28, 2008
Why: After 2005's mammoth Escalation of Hostility, Dallas' Kill the Client have evidently gotten even dirtier and nastier. This clip sounds like a catfight, the kind that cartoons portray as a ball of expletives with legs and claws sticking out. I don't know who did the production, but it sounds like a Steve Austin job, with those fuzzy guitars bleeding into each other. Pre-order this CD here.

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Ultimate Grind 3-pack: Willowtip is offering a special pre-order package for Phobia, Kill the Client, and Maruta: 3 CD's and 3 t-shirts for $70. This package is limited to 100 orders - get it here.

XXX Maniak / Coffins - The Cracks of Doom (split)

by Jess Blumensheid

XXX Maniak and Coffins make a bizarre couple, but this split rumbles with monstrous intensity. In true grind fashion, Maniak punch the gut with 30-second songs; titles like "Raped by a Retard," "Hot Nazi Sluts Have Hot Steaming Guts," and "Perpetually Exploding Uterus" speak for themselves. "Aroused by the Rape Trial" is one big ball gag of pure shock value. Mastermind Michael Yale hammers home Maniak's horrific goregrind with the help of a drum machine. In nearly 14 minutes, 20 songs make skullfucking sexier than metal's usual face-slicing blasphemy.

XXX Maniak – Aroused by the Rape Trial
XXX Maniak – Raped by a Retard
Coffins – The Cracks of Doom (excerpt)

Coffins linger like a hangnail, poking two tracks into the last 16 minutes. This crushing Japanese death/doom outfit conjures the aura of the split's putrid cover – cigarette-smoking, strap-on-wearing skeletons hovering near rape victims. "Ebony Tears" pays sweet homage to Cathedral, while "The Cracks of Doom" has the bitter, bold taste of blood and feces. Still, this split doesn't do as much justice for Coffins as their latest full-length, Buried Death, on 20 Buck Spin.

Buy:
Relapse
The End
Creeping Vine

Metal pets: Graf Orlock, the cat

Steady Diet of Meow Mix

Speaking of the Governator, there is a cat named Graf Orlock. Its MySpace places it in Romania, but most of the comments are in Dutch. The page also confirms that this beautiful shorthair is named for the grindcore band, not the Nosferatu character. Graf Orlock (the band) is an Invisible Oranges favorite for many reasons, including nonstop profanity and samples from '80s action movies. Below are just two of the many featuring Ah-nold soundbites.

Panic at the Galleria
Todd and Janelle

Do you have a metal pet? Is your furry/winged/scaly loved one br00tal...ly cute? If so, we want to feature it. Please send photos and testimonials to invisibleoranges at gmail dot com.

Gridlink - Amber Gray

by Cosmo Lee

If it's possible, Jon Chang's voice has become even more abrasive since he fronted the legendary Discordance Axis. It's basically nails down a chalkboard. I cannot think of a better cure for low blood pressure. If Chang's Hayaino Daisuki project (which I wrote about here) is power metal on speed, Gridlink is thrash on meth - imagine Kerry King on fast forward. Both bands share guitarist Matsubara, of Japan's Mortalized, so the riffs are more metal and grounded than Discordance Axis' anime seizure. 11 songs race by in under 12 minutes, a perfect length; any longer invites heart attacks. Evidently, Gridlink live sets are 15 minutes long, and rare occurrences since the band meets for only two weeks each year. They have a brief East Coast tour this August with Hayaino Daisuki and ASRA - a face-melting show, for sure. Just don't show up late!

Severance Package
Pattern Recognition

8/14 - Brooklyn, NY @ The Charleston
8/15 - Baltimore, MD @ TBD
8/16 - Philadelphia, PA @ TBD
8/17 - Stamford, CT @ TBD
8/18 - Providence, RI @ AS220 w/ I, Destroyer
8/19 - Boston, MA @ Church of Boston

To arrange a show in a TBD city, contact Gridlink's MySpace.

Buy:
Amazon (MP3)
Hydra Head (CD)
Hydra Head (CD + T-Shirt Bundle)

The Endless Blockade - Primitive

by Jess Blumensheid

The day The Endless Blockade aren't pissed, there will be no god. (Ed. note: Or there might be one.) They live up to their name by instilling extreme wrath for human trash, wasteful lifestyles, and the fear of god in every release. Such hostility allows The Endless Blockade to enclose themselves with music elitism, pretentiousness, and isolationism. But taking hostility to such an extent is potentially counterproductive by inviting others to share the same distaste for humankind and love for powerful music.

Irrationalism Uberalles
Thick Skin, Transparent Blood
Perfection

Primitive (20 Buck Spin, 2008) explodes in severely acidic rage. The album slabs together a mash of coarse power violence, splintering harsh noise, and commanding power electronics. The Endless Blockade evoke the loathsomeness of Man Is the Bastard and the throbbing fast-slow-fast construction of Crossed Out. In particular, the rasping blastbeats and rapid riffs in "Irrationalism Uberalles" share similarities with those of Crossed Out's "Crown of Thorns."

With Scott Hull's mixing touch, Primitive breathes just enough. "Thick Skin, Transparent Blood" slows things down, opening with tasty, lumbering chords. Taps on the snare warn of imminent attack; guitars then spew their guts through projectile vomiting. Such wrath mirrors the Nietzsche quote in the liner notes:

All idealists imagine that the causes they serve are significantly better than the other causes in the world; they do not want to believe that if their cause is to flourish at all, it needs exactly the same foul smelling manure that all other human undertakings require.

The band lectures similarly in "Perfection" and "Do Not Resuscitate." In the former, deafening static accompanies snippets of religious discourse. Amid violent power electronics, the song hisses, "Man understands divinity like a dog understands electricity." Such words truly bring home The Endless Blockade's discontent with our ignorance.

Buy:
The End
20 Buck Spin

The Secret, Origin, Sourvein, In Flames

The Secret

I was watching UFC a few nights ago, and it occurred to me that brutal music is like mixed martial arts. One has to vary one's attack. When bands do blastbeats for entire songs, that's like going into a fight doing only high kicks. You look for any opening, then shoot in and take advantage of it. Sometimes you triangle choke, sometimes you armbar, sometimes you go for the good old-fashioned KO.

The Secret - Funeral Monolith
Origin - The Aftermath
Sourvein - Septic Werewolves

Italy's The Secret, whom I've reviewed at Pitchfork, understand this. Using fists, feet, elbows, and knees, "Funeral Monolith" reduces three and a half minutes to a bloody pulp; the breakdown at 2:29 is ground-and-pound in slow motion.

Origin, on whom I did a Decibel feature, are starting to learn this. Previously, they were guilty of blasting themselves into submission. On Antithesis, which I've reviewed here, they insert more space and melody, and launch themselves into my year-end Top 20 list. The CD's artwork, by Orion Landau, is amazing. It's a combination of Aliens, Star Wars, and Motörhead's Snaggletooth mascot. When I opened it up, I actually exclaimed, "Wow, that's cool!"

At Decibel, I've also reviewed the new live disc by Nasum, and a short but nasty EP by Sourvein. Try not to commit acts of domestic violence upon hearing "Septic Werewolves." At Pitchfork, I've reviewed the new In Flames; at Metal Injection, I've reviewed retro thrashers Warbringer. Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. What is up with Celtic Frost???

Plague Bringer - Life Songs in a Land of Death

After pulverizing debut As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest, Chicago duo Plague Bringer return with more drum machine death/grind. They sound like if Scott Hull mixed up Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and threw in some Godflesh riffs. The buzz for Life Songs in a Land of Death (Hewhocorrupts, 2008) has been huge, and it's mostly justified.

Suffering in Reverse
Shadows of Black Habit

It's tough to play against a drum machine; one has to excise the humanity from one's performance. However, Plague Bringer have mastered the art. Riffwise on a scale of 1 to 10, they consistently bang out 7's and 8's when most bands hover around 5's with occasional spikes. "Suffering in Reverse" pairs Suffocation-esque tremolo picking with scathing vocals that strangely recall Grace Perry of Landmine Marathon. "Shadows of Black Habit" has rather blatant Slayer riffage. Two seven minute-plus tracks delve into slow tempi, with surprising melodic touches from cello and hammered dulcimer; digital doom outfit Hyatari comes to mind.

Strong as these riffs are, they suffer from production that's ragged and slightly thin (bass guitar is absent, I think). The sound does have a certain hairy appeal, though (anyone remember '90s industrial cavemen Bile?). I don't understand why the beautiful digipak is covered by such a blah slipcase. The smoky textures on the digipak are stunning (Man Ray and Dali come to mind), stretching across three panels with raised ink. I prefer the explosive debut album, but this one is more of a complete package.

Life Songs is available physically (with free poster) at Indiemerchstore, and digitally at Amazon.

Devin Townsend, DEP, Dub Trio, and more

Devin Townsend

I've published 22 pieces since my last update a month ago. I've also started to write for Pitchfork. Both are somewhat ridiculous propositions, I realize, so I don't even know where to start. Just look at the sidebar and see if anything appeals to you. If you think all that will take a while to read - imagine the time it took to write it. I'm particularly proud of my Landmine Marathon live review. It's the first thing I've written in a long, long time that I actually enjoy reading.

Devin Townsend - By Your Command (excerpt)
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Milk Lizard

Despite all this, I'm already horribly behind on 2008 releases, and hopelessly so for 2007. And the other day, I saw some metal site's top 10 lists for 2006, and realized I hadn't heard the vast majority of those picks. Fie! You'd think it were a crime to listen to records more than once. Devin Townsend and The Dillinger Escape Plan added to my ever-expanding list of Top X records I didn't hear last year. Both appeal to me for their humor - Townsend, for his hilarious space opera about an alien in search of the ultimate cup of coffee, and DEP, for essentially cloning Faith No More, who were always winking and nodding at something, even if you never knew what it was.

Athrenody - Crazed Development

Also on To Live a Lie, in conjunction with 625 Thrashcore and De Rok, is Athrenody's Crazed Development. It has a nice story behind it. Athrenody was a Bay Area grind/death band in the early '90s, and recorded a demo in '93 sans vocalist. The tape kicked around for a while and gained notoriety, as did the band. However, Athrenody split up, and the demo passed seemingly into oblivion.

Nonsense
Crazed Development

Max Ward and Matt Harvey (of Exhumed) both had copies of the demo. Recently, they got to talking about it. When Ward said that he'd release it on 625 if it had vocals, Harvey offered his services. The result: a fine posthumous release. After mastering, the demo now has modern oomph, with Harvey's vocals added over a decade later. His low growls fall somewhere between Barney Greenway and David Vincent. The sound is akin to Terrorizer, straddling grindcore and death metal. 9 tracks, 16 minutes, all potent.

Crazed Development is available from To Live a Lie, De Rok, Very, and Interpunk.

Proletar - Back to Hatevolution (Discography)

55 tracks in 74 minutes! Gotta love those grindcore discographies - see Nasum's Grind Finale (2 discs, 152 tracks) or Yacopsae's Discoregraphy (2 discs, 149 tracks). Admittedly, this thing is a little hard to digest. Who sits down and goes, "I will now listen to 55 tracks of grind"? (If you do, whatever you're smoking, keep it the hell away from me.)

The Arrogant
A Design for Destruction
War Against the New World
1...2...3...Let's Rock

Back to Hatevolution (To Live a Lie, 2007) collects everything recorded to date (demos, splits, tapes, EP's) by Indonesian grinders Proletar. Hailing from Jakarta, they unleash straight-up, old-school grind a la early Napalm Death or Assück. The tracks are one-minute floggings with barreling bass drums, clattering blastbeats, and "papa bear, little bear" low/high vocals. No surprises, just bulldozing, down-tuned argh. With six recording sessions represented, the production quality varies throughout; the live cuts sound like they were recorded from inside the venue's bathroom. Yet the lo-fi sound only enhances the sense of seethingly pissed-off-ness.

The packaging is phenomenal, oddly housing a CD inside an embossed 7" sleeve. The sleeve has lyrics and a neat little flap that folds out to show pictures of all the band members, past and present. Lyrically, this is left-wing grindcore (is there any other kind? "Right-wing grindcore" seems as oxymoronic as, say, "posi black metal" or "straightedge thrash"), with diatribes against imperialists, colonialists, "George War Bush," and so on. The English is a little fractured ("The Broken of Your State Like My Broken Songs"), but that makes it even better. After listening to this, my ears feel like they've lost a layer of skin - exactly what grind should do.

Back to Hatevolution is available from To Live a Lie and Interpunk.

Bolz'n - Spalt>funktion

The current Decibel has a quote from artist Matthew Barney (Cremaster-mind and Björk squeeze) about Pig Destroyer: "I've never experienced a think tank, but Pig Destroyer records make me feel like I'm inside one. One which is functioning and positive - where ideas attack from all sides, with new ones replacing old ones before the old ones have a chance to die."

Totstellen
Fragmente

Perhaps Barney is describing old Pig Destroyer, as PD's latest record is strong but hardly polygonal. His comment would better describe Bolz'n. When I first heard this Berlin-based band (its name comes from German sports slang) on Aversionline.com last year, I had to track down Spalt>funktion. Even after many listens, it still feels alien. The almost complete absence of repetition and singer Alexandra's startling array of shrieks, howls, and downright manly growls make each listen a journey into the unknown. I don't know if there are songs here, but there sure is a lot of ass-kicking.

This record has the freshness of the first time I heard Fantomas, Napalm Death's Scum, and John Zorn's Painkiller. Guitars don't play riffs so much as divots of earth, spraying them in all directions like an epileptic golfer. This is grindcore in its truest sense, not as a format of death metal compressed into one-minute songs, but as pure, physical attack. In between spazzouts, the band takes breathers with slow, doomy riffs and industrial soundscapes. The whole stew goes through hairy, lo-fi production, as Alexandra's vocal flamethrower struggles to burn through, and usually wins. This band sounds like a small-scale war; it evokes that cartoon image of cats fighting in a cloud of dust, with limbs occasionally sticking out.

Sadly, Bolz'n is no more. Alexandra left the band "because of harshest quarrels," and a full-length Bolz'n recently recorded for Bones Brigade is now in limbo. So, if you want to release the record, contact the band's MySpace (which has clips from it). Also, Alexandra is looking for a new band. She is one of the fiercest vocalists I've ever heard, so I get the feeling she has to audition bands, not the other way around. If you think you've got what it takes, contact her MySpace.

Spalt>funktion is available at Bones Brigade, and on vinyl from Relapse and Slave Union.

Graf Orlock - Destination Time Tomorrow

Destination Time Tomorrow (Level Plane, 2007) has the most interesting, disgusting album packaging I've ever seen. Sure, CD's have come with fragrances, feces, and even friggin' rocks and dirt. But none compare to the Aliens-inspired brilliance of DTT. First, no jewel case. The CD resides in a transparent metallic static shield bag, the kind that holds sensitive electronic equipment.

A Shocking Interrogation
Corpserate Greed

Cut it open, and the CD sits, not in a tray, but in the horrifying grasp of a model facehugger. A facehugger, to refresh your memory, is the baby lifeform in Aliens that's basically a combination of vagina and spider crab (every time I look at this CD, I shudder a little). The 10" for this album has similarly-themed "chestburster" packaging, complete with 3-D alien popping out of the sleeve. For pictures, see Graf Orlock's MySpace.

Killwhitneydead probably preceded Graf Orlock in so-called "cinema-core," i.e., metal riddled with movie samples. But while KWD's lyrics (and choice of quotes) slant towards emo, Graf Orlock use only action and sci-fi movies. This album has soundbites from Aliens, Lethal Weapon, True Lies, Bad Boys II, Alien: Resurrection, Demolition Man, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park. Each song samples only one movie, and centers its lyrics around the clips.

Thus, there's some cheese factor, in a good way. Who else could write a song about John Connor's foster parents ("Todd and Janelle")? But like these movies, the songs have political commentary. Amid samples from True Lies, "A Misappropriation of Sector Resources" says, "You have killed our women and children / Bombed our cities from afar like cowards / And you dare to call us terrorists?"

Despite the cinematic focus, the music stands on its own. It's vein-popping, blastbeat-clattering grindcore with touches of melody and Southern swing. The recording is strong and natural-sounding. DTT's eight tracks add up to only 16 minutes, but they say more than records three times as long. From music to lyrics to samples to packaging, this is a work of incredible cohesion.

Destination Time Tomorrow is available from Graf Orlock's MySpace.

Left Hand Path #011

Grave in the Sky

Left Hand Path #011 is up. This installment of Stylus' metal column is massive, featuring 38 album reviews and an interview with Chris Bruni of Profound Lore Records, easily the metal label of the year with top-notch releases by Alcest, Caina, Cobalt, Portal, Pulsefear, The Angelic Process, The Howling Wind, WOLD, and more. Bands reviewed in the column include Coalesce, Crimson Moon, Helloween, High on Fire, Nominon, Rosetta, Skeletonwitch, Sodom, Souvenir's Young America, Unearthly Trance, Yakuza, and many more.

My picks of the bunch include Colorado black metallers Cobalt, Israeli digital doom outfit Grave in the Sky, Polish old-school blackened death metallers Throneum, and oddball grinders Total Fucking Destruction, featuring Rich Hoak of Brutal Truth.

Cobalt - Blood Eagle Sacrifice
Grave in the Sky - Donnie Darko
Throneum - Exhibition of Abomination
Total Fucking Destruction - Warfinger

Disgorge (Mex) - Gore Blessed to the Worms

I've been impressed by the recent output of Spain's Xtreem Music, the imprint of Avulsed frontman Dave Rotten (the label recently signed Obscene Gesture, whose demo I reviewed here). Disgorge (not to be confused with Austrian, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, and American bands of the same name) rolls out brutal, gore-oriented death/grind with an old-school flavor.

Next Mortuary Division
Cadaveres

The drumming is a delight, with atypically placed fills cutting through the riffs; the mix really brings out the ride cymbal work. Solos aren't frequent, but when they hit, they nicely balance chaos and control. Overall, the attack is ferocious and varied. I can see this stuff totally killing it live. Mexico doesn't fuck around when it comes to death metal, and Disgorge is another fine example of that. Gore Blessed to the Worms is available from the Xtreem webstore.

Neurosis, Watain, Pig Destroyer, and more

Neurosis, upstairs @ GAMH, SF Photo by Brendan Tobin

It's been a while since my last reviews update. There's so much good stuff now, it's almost overwhelming! At Stylus, I've reviewed Cephalic Carnage, Neurosis, Pelican, and Pig Destroyer. At Metal Injection, I've reviewed Akercocke, Toxic Bonkers, N.I.L., Deadlock, Merciless Death, Thought Chamber, and Watain.

Neurosis - Water Is Not Enough
Watain - Sworn to the Dark
Akercocke - The Dark Inside
Pig Destroyer - Heathen Temple
Cephalic Carnage - Divination & Volition

The Neurosis album will make my year-end top three. Watain might get up there, too. Akercocke would have stood a chance if not for the horrible hack mastering job. Check out "The Dark Inside" for the drum 'n' bass part that drops into the song - random but cool.

Resistant Culture - Welcome to Reality

Sentient Predator
Ecocide

Seventh Generation
2005


Resistant Culture has claims to fame in guitarist Jesse Pintado (RIP), who, post-Napalm Death, was working with the band before his untimely passing, and vocalist Anthony Rezhawk (aka "Tony Militia"), who did the last Terrorizer album alongside Pintado.

However, this band more than stands on its own, and I'm astounded that I didn't hear of it earlier. This CD kills. It's crusty grindcore with tribal influences - but the latter are truly tribal, working in Native American drums, chants, and flutes. The riffs are crushing, the recording is crisp, and blastbeats strafe the mix powerfully and precisely. 16 songs, 31 minutes, none less than fierce.

Rezhawk's vocals are strong and amazingly understandable: "Clear cut the heart / Strip mine the soul / Nature for profit / It's all out of control." These are sentiments I can definitely get with. The lyrics come in a simple, legible font, and the liner notes fold out to a bad-ass poster. I don't say this often - this CD truly touches my soul. You can find it at Seventh Generation.

World Downfall - Beyond Salvation

When you name your band World Downfall, you pretty much guarantee yourself a lifetime of Google page rank fights with Terrorizer (I wonder if Daylight Dies are pissed that Killswitch Engage put out an album with their name in it). And on Beyond Salvation (self-released, 2006), this Cologne band indeed walks a similar line between grindcore and death metal.

You're a Total Fuck Up
Your Shadow Moves Faster than Mine

But World Downfall adds modern edges to its old-school spirit. These touches aren't huge - the way chords move, the crisp production, a bafflingly throwaway electronic coda - and that's just fine. If you want ripping, no-nonsense death/grind with socio-political lyrics, varied speeds, and vice-grip-like execution, this is your album. Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy even contributes "guest vokills" on "Your Shadow Moves Faster than Mine."

The album's back cover says, "Feel free and encouraged to copy this recording for everyone who asks for it. Spread the virus. No copyright." Accordingly, the album is available for free download here. However, I encourage picking up the real thing, as it comes with live video footage and matte-finish artwork with aerial photos a la Isis' Panopticon. You can find it at the band's website.

Antigama, Throne of Katarsis, Get Thrashed, and more

Antigama

A bunch of new writing up - at Metal Injection, I've got reviews of Polish grinders Antigama, Norwegian black metal band Throne of Katarsis, and Los Angeles prog metallers Redemption, as well as interviews with Spanish band NahemaH and shredder Laura Christine from San Diego death metallers Warface.

Antigama - Neutral Balance
Naglfar - The Darkest Road
Stalaggh - Projekt Misanthropia (excerpt)

At Stylus, I've reviewed Rick Ernst's excellent documentary film, Get Thrashed: The History of Thrash Metal. I also have dual reviews of black metallers Naglfar/Nagelfar and the literally insane Diagnose: Lebensgefahr/Stalaggh. Stalaggh is hands down the scariest sound I've ever heard. Coil's Hellraiser themes, the original Omen soundtrack, Prussian Blue - all pale in comparison.

Antigama / Third Degree / Herman Rarebell - The World Will Fall Soon and We All Will Die

Polish metal week grinds on, so to speak, with this 2004 three-way split on Selfmadegod, the big name in Polish grindcore. Let's face it, grindcore's typical 30 songs in 30 minutes can get old fast, so mixing up bands adds much-needed variety. Antigama, Third Degree, and Herman Rarebell are all key players in Polish grind, so this split is a good introduction to that scene.

Antigama - Questions
Third Degree - The Tolerance
Herman Rarebell - Aftermath

As the most well-known Polish grind act, Antigama leads off this disc with six tracks. The band doesn't reach the jazz-like complexity of its later releases (its new album, Resonance, on Relapse is absolutely crushing), though hints of it surface here. Songs churn like locomotives, but with strange angles and accents, as if machinery simultaneously undertook self-examination and forward movement.

Third Degree is more straightforward, but no less skull-cracking, with dark melodies bubbling up among clattering blastbeats. The band has just finished its second album, which should come out this summer.

Why any band would name itself after the drummer for the Scorpions is beyond me. But given Ed Gein and Tia Carrera, I suppose that any celebrity is fair game for a namesake. This Herman Rarebell, who is lending its singer to Third Degree, spews forth old-school grind with papa bear/little bear vocals and raw, hairy production.

You can find this split at Willowtip and Selfmadegod.

Squash Bowels - Love Songs

Searching for the Kill
Ruthless Rabble

Lifestage Productions
2005


I suppose the social value of a goregrind group called Squash Bowels naturally comes into question. However, this Polish band brings the urgh, and that's all I ask for. I have no idea what the band is growling and gurgling about, as no lyrics come with its most recent full-length, Love Songs, but the bloodsoaked artwork more than tells the story. No detours, no bullshit - just fierce, heavy grind that smoothly shifts through various feels, speeds, and vocal registers. A big plus is the production, which sounds both filthy and steely (transistor amps, perhaps?). This is, quite simply, grindcore done right. 15 songs, half an hour - pick 'em up at Emetic and Willowtip.

Creative Waste - Colonies

God of Excrement

Moshpit Tragedy
2006



Creative Waste says that it's "the only grindcore band in Saudi Arabia thus far." I won't disagree, as Encyclopaedia Metallum lists a grand total of five metal bands for that country. An interview reveals that Saudi Arabia has no bars, as alcohol consumption is illegal there, and that Bahrain is where Saudis go for kicks - fascinating stuff.

The five tracks on this DIY demo are rawer than fresh carpet burn. They won't win any production awards, but the sound fits the material, a brawl between early Nasum, Napalm Death, and so on. The lyrics make no sense ("Austere I've become, delusional yet brainwashed by your lucrative acts of forgery / It weakens my taste like constant lavender in god's blue world"), but the various screams, squiggly leads, and occasional blastbeats more than make up for them. You can find Colonies and other CDR's at Moshpit Tragedy.

Leng Tch'e - Death by a Thousand Cuts

Cockporn
T.P.

The Spew
2002


A familiar conversation, I'm sure, for any music lover -

Friend: I'm starting to get into ___ band. I just got ___ album, and it seems pretty cool.

You: NO, NO, NO, NO! You don't know what you're missing! You have to get ___ album!

This is the feeling I get whenever people say they like the new Leng Tch'e album. I frankly think it's crap, and I say that in a "hate it because I love it" kind of way. The first two Leng Tch'e albums absolutely ruled, and even the rather polished The Process of Elimination generally kicked ass. But the new one is slow, lifeless, and over-compressed, and I won't harsh on it any more than I have to, as I've already reviewed it and done so.

I don't want to be one of those "their old stuff was better" curmudgeons/elitists. But it's really true in this case. Leng Tch'e's second album, ManMadePredator, is probably their best, and probably because of all its Army of Darkness samples. I have a soft spot, though, for their first album, Death by a Thousand Cuts. It's primitive, ADD-afflicted, and, most importantly, funny. The Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy sample in "Cockporn" is classic, and you really can't argue with an entire song about Beavis, "T.P." (lyrics here).

This one is tough to find, as no distro I know carries it, and both the band and label are sold out of it. But definitely seek it out - Leng Tch'e has always branded itself as "razorgrind," and, unlike its new album, this one more than earns that title.

Blockheads - Shapes of Misery

Misery
Silent

Overcome
2006


20 tracks, 27 minutes, face-to-a-sander grindcore. You've heard these albums before (Nasum's Grind Finale contained about ten of them), so why should you hear this one? Because it kicks, that's why. It's raw, it's pissed off, and it's efficient in a way that somehow seems environmentally conscious. I picture these Frenchmen working in soup kitchens to the sounds of Phobia and Terrorizer.

All the classic grind ingredients are here - clattering blastbeats, piledriving guitars, papa bear/little bear vocals. The songs fly by quickly, but, really, this album is one long cathartic fit with nineteen pauses for breath. Yet melodic and rhythmic variation keeps things interesting, and the production sounds natural.

The lyrics take aim at Dubya, creationists, capitalism, materialism, and so on. Socially conscious grindcore is almost a redundant term, but I am glad for each and every such record done well. Not only is it a vote against the status quo, every dollar and euro that goes to it is one less that goes to a multinational corporation. You can find this in the US at Emetic and in Europe at Overcome.

Melechesh, Leng Tch'e, Warface, Facedown Records, and reggae

Melechesh

If you were wondering where Andy from No One Here Is Asking and Jason from Sonic Corpse Glide went (and you will know them by their trail of dead blogs), they've joined forces in the blog merger of the year. Now they're at Clocked In - Punched Out, which is off to a running start. Some metal, some not, no bullshit, don't sleep.

At Stylus, Stewart Voegtlin and Todd DePalma have turned in a fine sixth edition of Left Hand Path. Stew did a feature on Outlaw Recordings, and Todd reviewed some hot buzz records - Bone Awl, Dead Reptile Shrine, Ruins of Beverast, among others.

Julie Pinsonneault has written a great feature, "Women in Metal," for Stylus. The title is overbroad, as the article focuses on the depiction of women in metal media, as opposed to the book-length treatment such a title requires. Though I would have liked to have seen more female musicians mentioned (the article's linchpin, Karyn Crisis, isn't even doing music now), it's incisive and very well-written.

Warface - Climatic Annihilation
Melechesh - Rebirth of the Nemesis
Comparison - Melechesh vs. Soulfly vs. Gregory Peck

Speaking of women in metal, at Metal Injection I've reviewed Warface, which features Laura Christine on guitar. Plenty of women play guitar, but few do so in metal, especially of shredder caliber. You see women behind the mic, bass, and keyboards, but not at the "skill positions" - drums and guitar. Why is that? I've also reviewed the new Leng Tch'e, which is, sadly, a dud.

Facedown Records has been on a hot streak, and they celebrate their 10th anniversary soon, so I un-inverted my cross and did a label profile. Look out for their new signing, Impending Doom - Christian gore grind, believe! I've also reviewed the sort-of-new Melechesh, whose schtick is black/thrash metal with a Mesopotamian twist.

One of their signatures is a drum pattern that totally reminds me of dancehall reggae (in "Rebirth of the Nemesis," it's the first beat after the blastbeats). I've posted an MP3 for comparison. The first clip is from Melechesh's "Deluge of Delusional Dreams," the second is from Soulfly's "Living Sacrifice" (which has the same beat), and the third is from "Pocoman Jam" by Jamaican reggae artist Gregory Peck. I also hear this beat booming out of cars here in Berlin's Turkish quarter. Does anyone know if this beat has a name?

Brutal Truth, Blut Aus Nord reviews

My reviews of the latest Brutal Truth and Blut Aus Nord albums are up at Metal Injection.

Brutal Truth - Dementia
Blut Aus Nord - Chapter III

Whorecore - Protection

Sharing Together
Chain Reaction

Self-Released
2006


Terrible band name, but thankfully the sound doesn't match! Whorecore plays neither, say, swoop-do'd metalcore nor gore-grind, as the name might imply. Instead, this Israeli outfit rolls out death/grind like Belgian bands Leng Tch'e and Aborted, with plenty of half-speed grooves amid the requisite blasting. In fact, Svencho of these two groups has joined Whorecore on vocals. How band practice will work with members in Tel Aviv and Ghent is beyond me, but supposedly a new album is forthcoming this year.

In the meantime, the band has released its debut full-length, Protection. 16 tracks race by in under 29 minutes. Original vocalist Ariel Ron does a fine job with a variety of growls and screams. The guitars run the show, though, mixing tremolo picking, chugging riffs, and creative use of harmonics and pick squeals. Dimebag Darrell is a strong influence; "Chain Reaction" lifts one riff from "A New Level." However, there are other sounds at play, like d-beat and straight-up grindcore. The band is still synthesizing its influences, but the force of these grooves is undeniable.

The production here isn't the greatest. The drums, in particular, sound both boxy and thin. Surprisingly, Pig Destroyer's Scott Hull mixed the album. Given his track record, he must have either been under a time/budget crunch or had bad recordings to work with. I don't mind, actually. The sound has a raw, "underground" vibe, although I don't think that's what the band intended. Syncopated material like this benefits from strong production, so I'm eager to hear what these cats do next. To get this album, email the band.

The band has since changed its name to They:Swarm.

Mumakil - Customized Warfare

When I heard that members of Knut and legendary Swiss tech-grinders Nostromo had formed a new band called Mumakil, I knew I had to hear them. And when their label, Overcome, posted clips on its site that scared the shit out of me every time I visited, I had to track them down. And track them down I did, with probably the most email the label has ever gotten about an upcoming release.

Well, I'm glad I pestered Overcome so much (though they might not feel likewise), as Customized Warfare is a simultaneous kick to the balls and punch to the face (pretty dexterous if you think about it). "Pleasant," you say in disgust, but we metalheads are a masochistic lot. This is raging, no-bullshit grindcore with little of the technicality that characterized Nostromo. 32 songs blaze by in 37 minutes, with no printed lyrics and only Roman numerals for titles.

Beards make for better metal

But this isn't all just "three yards and a cloud of dust" (that's American football, for all you Europeans). Songs go through half-time, double-time, two-step, thrash, and blastbeat grooves, with vocals ranging from high shrieks down to death growls and pig squeals. The smoothness of execution, variety of material, and quality of the recording suggest mid-career Nasum, which is great considering this band is just starting out. You might want to wear a cup (or other protective gear) before hearing these clips.

Mumakil - XX
Mumakil - XXX

As with Nostromo, this might be hard to find outside Europe. You can get this at Overcome - and if you don't feel like dealing with French, email the label directly.

Nostromo - Ecce Lex

Nostromo was a Swiss band that formed in the late '90s and called it quits around 2004. With its odd meters and polyrhythms, the group sounded like if Meshuggah played grindcore. It put out an EP and three full-lengths, including an all-acoustic (!) CD/DVD called Hysteron Proteron. Ecce Lex (on Overcome) came out in 2002 and was produced by Nasum's Mieszko Talarczyk (RIP).

In vocal approach and general ethic, Nostromo was at heart a grind band. But from its early days, the band had Meshuggah-esque complexity in it. This aspect grew over time, culminating in Ecce Lex. The arrangements in these clips are interesting, with great grooves that get steamrolled by blastbeats coming from nowhere. In "Sunset Motel," they don't drop until right before the end, an unexpected kick to the teeth. The drumming is sick, as it needs to be to pull off this kind of stuff.

Nostromo - Lab of Their Will
Nostromo - Sunset Motel

Ecce Lex might be hard to find if you don't live in Europe. Your best bet outside of Amazon UK/FR/DE is to order from the label. If you're not down with the français, email the label directly.

Fuck the Facts - Backstabber Etiquette

Since I recently reviewed Fuck the Facts' Stigmata High-Five, I thought I'd revisit 2002's Backstabber Etiquette. If Stigmata is a well-oiled machine, then Backstabber is a crazy, unhinged beast. This is the band's first album with Mel Mongeon, and while she doesn't have the control she has now, her vocals here are amazingly feral.

The songs on Backstabber are spastic as hell. "Ballet Addict" has awesomely twitchy riffs, while the chords and dynamics in the middle of "The Burning Side" bring to mind "The Call of Ktulu"! Grindcore is the foundation, but the band takes frequent detours through technical death metal, prog weirdness, and random samples and bits of dialogue. Two fuzzed-out ambient interludes help break up the already broken-up album. Dillinger who?

Fuck the Facts - Ballet Addict
Fuck the Facts - The Burning Side

The production is thin, but that only adds to the music's manic intensity. This is one of those albums you put on after a hard day when you just want to annihilate everything. Pick this up

@ Relapse
@ Willowtip
@ Crucial Blast
@ Fuck the Facts

Fuck the Facts, Landmine Marathon dual review

My dual review of Fuck the Facts' Stigmata High-Five and Landmine Marathon's Wounded is up at Stylus. You can read it here.

Cadaver Eyes - The Acquisition of Power over Fire/No Time to Haste

This past weekend, I attended a wedding that was half Jewish. One of the Jewish customs observed was dancing the hora. If you're unfamiliar with the hora, it's a