Fuck...I'm Dead – Another Gory Mess

October 13, 2012 • self-released

And here I was, all ready to name Book Burner Grind Album of the Year... and then I found this.* I found their first album Bring On the Dead, listened, loved it, and forgot about it pretty quickly. But when I saw this come out, I remembered how much I loved their debut, and then I was floored by how much this band has improved since then.

However, it's hard to pinpoint exactly why Another Gory Mess is so good. It sounds like just another typical deathgrind release... and, well, it is; there isn't anything particularly unique or gimmicky about Fuck... I'm Dead's approach to the genre. Yet listening to this album is so incredibly satisfying. It's partly just the sheer intensity present during the whole album—a near-constant torrent of furious grinding guitars and some really intense and diverse drumming (insane blastbeats, thrashy grooves, punky rhythms, etc.). The band's performance is spot-on, and it sounds like they're using real drums this time around, I think, which is a huge plus. The drum machine on the debut was decent, but real drums make everything better overall. If they're not real drums, they certainly sound like it.

Even the album being as huge as it is—nearly half an hour and over twenty tracks—it's so relistenable and I am always tempted to play it a bit more. Riff after riff are just perfect; there's no point where things get boring or stale at all during the album and not a moment is wasted. Granted, they've had ten years to write these songs, but to me that was definitely time well spent.

Okay so maybe I'm gushing again, but really there's nothing bad I can say about Another Gory Mess. It's just pure awesome the whole way through. Better than Pig Destroyer? Hard to say. One of this year's best, in general? Definitely.

*Which I wouldn't, because I've only heard maybe five of the possibly hundreds of grindcore releases that came out this year. Not important!

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Amputee – Amputee

2010 • self-released

It takes a lot to excite me with grindcore these days; sometimes I feel like the genre is too constrained to have much really groundbreaking happen with it. Aputee is a relatively new grindcore band (as this demo came out in 2010), and they're pretty good, though you'll have a hard time telling it from grind that's twenty years old.

Amputee takes after some of the classic death metal-influenced bands like Agathocles or newer Napalm Death, with typical blasting merged with some slower punk/thrash parts. They can get very satisfyingly heavy, and their songwriting is pretty impressive; despite the songs' naturally short lengths they cram quite a bit into each one while still keeping a structured feel.

Although Amputee definitely improves on the classic deathgrind formula, as of yet they haven't created a very unique sound to differentiate themselves from the hundreds of similar bands. Hopefully they've changed a bit since then.

5

Napalm Death – Utilitarian

February 27, 2012 • Century Media Records

Another day, another Napalm Death album. One of the oldest grindcore acts and still going strong after thirty years is nothing to sneeze at, of course, though I haven't been keeping up with them aside from hearing their debut Scum and a couple albums around 2005/2006 (The Code Is Red... Long Live the Code and Smear Campaign). In the six years since, it sounds like they haven't changed one bit; whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate.

Admittedly, for a bunch of old farts they still have their chops; the technical aspects of the album are quite good. It may often be a bit slower-paced than your average modern grindcore and death metal, but they still play well. The drumming is nice and varied (and when it gets blasty it's very solid), the guitars are what you'd expect (kind of thrashy at times, deathy at others, with the occasional punk riff), and the vocals are the same as ever.

But Utilitarian still suffers from the same problem I had with The Code Is Dead and Smear Campaign, and probably moreso: The songs simply aren't very memorable. Perhaps I'm simply jaded, but I feel like a lot of these songs are just retreading the same stuff I've heard from plenty of other death metal bands lately. Of course there are some exceptions; for instance, I really like "The Wolf I Feed" which has this punk / industrial fusion thing going on. So it's apparent they still have a few tricks to pull out now and again and their sound isn't totally stale.

I didn't really expect to be totally amazed by Utilitarian though, and I more or less got what I thought I would: An entertaining album, if somewhat rehashed and disposable, and I'll probably forget what it sounded like in a few months. I wish they'd stick more to grindcore than death metal, but whatever makes 'em happy.

5