7 Inch Grab Bag, part 3

In case you missed my recent haul post, I got a grab bag of ten randomly-selected 7" records. Here are my thoughts on the final four!

Bevil Web / 3 Dream Bag – Split

1995 • Simple Solution Records

Lo-fi rock from the hazy days of the mid-'90s. It's a bit too slow and uninteresting for me, though I have to admit Bevil Web can gloom it up with the best of them. It just feels a bit too sloppy and unrefined to really be of any excitement. Both bands are basically the same thing, though 3 Dream Bag is a bit more acoustic and nasally. Neither are really that great. Oh well.

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Destroy! – Burn This Racist System Down!

1992 • Havoc Records

Yes, finally, more grindcore! This is old-school stuff, too, from the early '90s. Songs are short, to-the-point, growly, razor-sharp; there's also a couple really long meandering ones in there too which is interesting. It's hard to expand much on what makes a grind EP good, so just take my word for it that these guys had their stuff down. Totally recommended (just don't cut yourself on those edgy lyrics...).

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Digression – Controlled

1996 • Surprise Attack Records

Early metalcore, and a very kind of primal version at that. Very aggressive, lots of chugging breakdowns, but also with this lo-fi punk aesthetic. It's probably not something anyone would consider "good" from a purely artistic standpoint but it's interesting to me because, for all the awful DIY punk I hear, I never have really heard any DIY metalcore, and it feels unique just for that. But that's just me, and this still isn't that great. Maybe. "Diary" is pretty good.

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Love + Respect – Deep + Heartfelt

1989 • Penultimate Records

I still don't like garage punk and I don't really like Love + Respect, but there's definitely worse out there. I don't like how most of it is just kind of dumb; I guess Love + Respect is at least tongue-in-cheek about it but that doesn't help that much. The music is just too simple-sounding to hold my interest. I dunno. At least "If I Only Had a Brain" has this neat noise rock thing going on that is a bit different from the rest of the tracks; I like that one.

7 Inch Grab Bag, part 2

In case you missed my recent haul post, I got a grab bag of ten randomly-selected 7" records. Here are my thoughts on the next three!

Humanbodyflawed / The Jan-Michael Vincent Car Crash – Split

2001 • Obtuse Mule

Grind! Grind! Grind! At least I think that's what's going on with the Jan-Michael Vincent Car Crash. It's crazy, technical, mathy stuff, and a great big mess of it. Weird growly bass, oppressive angular guitar, muffled screams make for a bizarre and alienating listen. Humanbodyflawed is similar but, somehow, even weirder; the extra guitar fuzz tries to mask some truly strange musical forays that go from Dillinger Escape Plan to Pig Destroyer to god knows what. This is an EP worth seeking out, for sure.

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Big Meat – Botulism

2003 • Sit on My 2-Faced Bitch Records

Not sure what I'd say this is. Hard rock with a punk edge? Garage rock, maybe? Probably. Anyway, I'm not totally thrilled by it, though it's not awful. Just kind of generic aggressive rock, very indicative of its time (early 2000s). Worth one listen, and then I forgot all about it. "Thundercleese" is a little catchy, though.

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Play Your Own Theme Song

1999 • Mortville Records

I hate reviewing splits, but at least this one has the unique premise that all four bands are recording theme songs for themselves. Kinda neat, kinda silly.

• The Chumps – Awful garage rock. Cheesy, unoriginal music, bad vocals, goes on way too long. Not even worth thinking about. Please move on.
• The Commies – Snarly pop-punk kind of stuff, a big anthemic song. Also cheesy but at least they seem to know it.
• Los Tigres Guapos – Something like horror punk maybe? It's also a little silly but these guys are actually kind of good. Not much to say about a one-minute track, though.
• Reclusives – More straightforward old-school hardcore punkabilly. I'm not a huge fan, but I can tell they're not a bad band.

Puig Destroyer – Wait for Spring

November 19, 2013 • self-released

Grab your ballcaps and gloves, kids—it's opening day.

Puig Destroyer is essentially a baseball-themed grind band in the vein of Pig Destroyer (big surprise), which should be enough to tickle one's fancy. They're a bit rawer than Pig Destroyer themselves but have a pretty similar style otherwise, with maybe a bit of Agoraphobic Nosebleed influence here and there; more on the punk side of grindcore than the metal side but still very abrasive.

I heard their first EP some time ago and though I don't have it in front of me to reference, Wait for Spring is pretty much on par with what I remember (apologies for more references to sports than is probably healthy). Not a lot has changed since, although there's quite a bit more downtuned, filthy production and some slow sludgy sections to break up the blasting. Unfortunately (like the first EP) it feels like it's over before it even starts, but I guess that's grind for you.

Anyway there's really no reason not to check this out—these guys are still good and their music is still free. Keep catching those fly balls, and stop fucking bunting.

Gridlink – Longhena

February 19, 2014 • Selfmadegod Records

Third albums are always interesting in the average bands' life cycle. You have the brilliant debut, the oft-disappointing and samey second effort, and then the stylistically-different third release that determines whether the band lives or dies. Okay so in this case Gridlink's second album was perfectly fine, and I'm happy to report that with their third effort the band's future is looking good.

Most noticeably, Gridlink seems to be bringing grind to a new level of technicality, if that was even possible for a band already famous for just that. Longhena is all about rapid stop-start riffs, wild lead guitar lines, crazy drum fills. There's less sheer brutality—not to say the album isn't brutal, because it definitely is—but Gridlink seems to have shifted focus a bit to seeing just how far they can push their playing abilities and grindcore's boundaries.

And it's about time, too; not that I ever found the genre to get too stagnant, but it's rare to see any grind band step too far out of line. But here we have string quartets and some clean guitar ("Thirst Watcher"), a couple different vocal styles, layers of tremolo picking, shades of death metal, a few major-key riffs... there's so much going on. For a band that played things relatively straight and simple on their first two releases, this one comes as a bit of a surprise the first time around.

But it's a welcome surprise, for sure; like I said grindcore isn't a genre that we see a lot of experimentation in. Compared to metal in general, Longhena really isn't that experimental at all, but it's very satisfying to hear Gridlink evolving in this way. Even though I've stepped a little bit away from grindcore lately, I'm glad I have Gridlink to come back around and remind me just how fun and exciting it can be.

Yautja – Songs of Descent

February 11, 2014 • self-released

Another random Bandcamp find; unfortunately I don't have a lot of background knowledge of Yautja, but I will say that going by this album, these guys are absolutely stellar.

Songs of Descent falls nicely into a bucket I like to call "sludgecore" (see Struck by Lightning and some KEN Mode), a combinations of dirty, heavy, chugging sludge with some of the faster technical elements of metalcore and modern hardcore—even a bit of grindcore, too, at least here. I haven't found many spectacular examples of this genre in action, but Yautja has definitely caught my ear. These are the kinds of riffs that really dig in under your skin—vile and nasty stuff but catchy and satisfying at the same time, and Yautja brings them non-stop and in full force.

The songs blast by quickly and there's a lot to process in a short time—fourteen tracks in less than forty minutes is lightning speed, especially with some of them being just a minute long. And they do a lot with the short time they have, going from Mastodon to Rotten Sound in seconds. It's a really interesting experience, one that demands attention from the listener as they never let what they're doing get repetitive or stale.

The one nitpicky thing I can think of is that the vocals are always pushed way far back in the mix (unless it's just my headphones?) that they often might as well not even be there. I think a better vocal presence could really push this band even farther. The rest of the band sounds great, though, and the mixing is otherwise very well-done.

Again, definitely worth giving a full listen. I definitely hope to hear more from Yautja soon.

The Atrocity Exhibit – What Time the Hidden Death?

November 6, 2012 • Grindcore Karakoe

Just a quick and dirty review today: Grind band The Atrocity Exhibit has been around for a while, though I don't know much about them aside from this EP from a few years ago. Although after writing this review, I realize I really need to look into them a bit more, because what they're doing is really darn good.

On the surface, their music sounds like relatively standard modern grindcore; it's easy to make comparisons to bands like Rotten Sound or maybe Wormrot. But there's no lacking in originality here, and even if there was, they more than make up for with the quality of their material. It's all too easy to make boring or bad grind, but these guys manage to keep things really interesting. Their approach to structure and riffs reminds me a bit of Discordance Axis (an endorsement right there if you ever needed one), with a surprising amount of technical stuff going on. But there's also a bit of old-school thrashy stuff (like closing track "13 Fingers") or the occasional busting down into a slow sludge- or crust-punk-like groove. No two songs are too alike.

Like most good grind releases, it does what it needs to quickly and thoroughly, then gets out of the way. I like that in an EP. And this one definitely goes above the call in providing some really awesome material.

(oh and that shit's free, yo)

Fear of God – Pneumatic Slaughter

1992 • Atrocious Records

I'm not terribly knowledgeable when it comes to really early grind and the general punk scene of the late '80s, but supposedly Fear of God is a good place to start. They're one of the pioneers of this sort of raw, uncontrollable punk, with songs that are more like noise experiments without a lot of structure and are hard to get a grip on. The old-school vibe of the late '80s / early '90s and bands like Agathocles is presented well here, complete with senseless disregard for audio quality (although this is a posthumous live recording, so it's a bit more understandable) and a very visceral approach. It's nearly impossible to make out the low grinding of the guitars over the overwhelming feedback and muddy vocals, but the band plays with such a ferocity that it hardly matters that you can't tell what's going on.

It's an aesthetic that I've never been particularly fond of, preferring the more modern and clean sound over this, but Pneumatic Slaughter and music like it has a definite appeal to it, albeit to a relatively small fanbase. And when it comes to this sort of stuff, Fear of God is definitely near the top of the list.

6

Rotten Sound – Species at War

January 18, 2013 • Season of Mist

It's surely no surprise that I love Rotten Sound, them embodying just about everything I enjoy about modern grindcore, but after giving their recent EP Species at War a hard listen I remembered why their last album Cursed didn't stick with me: I think they've been losing their touch.

While I've found Rotten Sound to always have a great aesthetic, recently they've spent some time cleaning up the production and those buzzsaw guitars are sadly a bit duller than usual. It sounds a bit more mechanical than before, with fast but very precise riffing and blasts. Intense, and groovy sometimes, but that human element isn't quite all there. Songwriting-wise, the band has become a bit predictable over time; while they were innovative and fresh ten years ago, they haven't changed much—they haven't gotten worse, either, but there isn't a whole lot on Species at War that will stand out.

It's not a bad release, but it's definitely one that doesn't really need to exist. Rotten Sound needs to step up their game if they want to compete with the more interesting, more personal, more exciting bands out there.

5

Apologies for the recent lack of posting consistency; there are various reasons it happened that I won't go into. However I have gotten back into the swing of things and have the rest of the month's reviews already scheduled out, so it shouldn't happen again (for a long while, at least).

Fuck the Facts, Bastards, Earthburner, Domestic Terror

January 25, 2013 • Carabar, Columbus, Ohio

I promised myself I wouldn't go back to Carabar ever, due to their atrocious booking skills that caused two shows I attended back in 2010 to last until 3 AM. However, they make it darn hard to resist with free shows and some really excellent bands. You may recall from my Disgorge Mexico review that Fuck the Facts is a pretty awesome band too, so I had to check this one out. It wasn't a fantastic show (largely due in part to the horrible audience), but it was fun all the same.

Domestic Terror

I didn't have high hopes for these guys going in, having sampled their stuff online, so I wasn't too disappointed by their mediocre performance. They market themselves as "shitty, but fun to listen to" (direct quote from someone who gave me a CD-R of their album), and at least the first part was right. As far as their sort of juvenile grindcore goes, there's definitely a way to do it right (Anal Cunt) and wrong (these guys). "Funny" song titles is not how you be a good band. Their drummer was actually pretty decent, using an interesting alternating-hand technique for blastbeats, but the guitar work and songwriting was poor.
3 • Most China Cymbals Award, Like Seriously

Earthburner

I did have high hopes for Earthburner, being more of a "sludgecore" band, but I found them to be a slightly disappointing example of it. Their music is very repetitive, as basically every song is the same open chugging over and over, with the occasional hardcore section sprinkled here and there. Decent for a song or two, but it got boring quickly. Still, they weren't horrible, and knew how to put on a decent groove. It might have been better if anyone in the audience seemed to care (aside from the half-dozen drunkards idiotically dancing around).
5 • Fanciest Les Paul Award

Bastards

Now here was a decent surprise. I was ready to dismiss them as being unprofessional after their incredibly long setup time (silly, I know), but they put on a hell of a set. They play a sort of death metal-influenced strain of grindcore, with lots of tempo and rhythm changes for thirty-second songs, and were technically very impressive. Particular praise should go to their drummer, who seemed to be making the fastest snare blasts I've seen by sheer force of will alone.
7 • Nerdiest-Looking Grindcore Band Award

Fuck the Facts

Unfortunately I don't have a whole lot to say about the headlining band's set—basically my opinion on the band was already laid out in my previous review, and their performance was reflective of that. Good energy, great songs—well, see for yourself! Someone was kind enough to tape the show. I don't think you can see me in it, though.
7 • Vocalist Who Looked Most Like a Receptionist Award

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!

7

Pig Destroyer – Book Burner

October 23, 2012 • Relapse Records

Ah, Pig Destroyer. Practically the reason I started listening to grindcore in the first place, and still one of my favorite bands in the genre (not something I'd say lightly). My interest in them has been waning a bit lately, but I couldn't pass up a new album by them, and I'm glad I didn't. Book Burner is the same classic Pig Destroyer you and I know and love, and maybe just a bit improved.

Admittedly, I haven't listened to the band much since their last album came out in 2007 so, at least for me, Book Burner is a perfect reminder that yes, this is a good band and they do grind as good as ever. It isn't often I'll praise a band for sticking to the status quo, but I like Pig Destroyer's status quo enough (and they release albums so infrequently) that it works for them.

The standard guitar-drums-vocals trio continues to work perfectly for them, and they still manage to deliver a pretty damn huge sound as always (and a bass would just muddy things). A bit more of the Agoraphobic Nosebleed sound is leaking through on this album as well (thanks to the shared guitarist), and that's not necessarily a bad thing—Book Burner definitely has noticeably more of that "cyber" sound, with very technical riffs and the occasional sampled drumming. But at the same time they still bring out really catchy, thrashy lines (like the end of the awesome "Eve"); the riffwriting is just so solid across the whole album and there's never really a moment where it gets dull or repetitive.

I can't even really find anything bad to say about the album (okay, some of the sampling is a bit cheesy, but that's not really a big deal). It's just been a while since I got this much into a grind album—hardly anything that came out in the last few years has really done anything for me. But 2012 continues to impress.

7

Unholy Grave – Crucified

1995 • Eclipse Records

I'm not totally sure why I keep coming back to Unholy Grave (maybe it's some subconscious attempt to justify buying one of their albums some time ago)—I simply can't find much appealing about them, and this album is no exception.

Musically they're a decent band, taking on a more traditional approach to grindcore—this being a 1995 album, it makes sense, and it sounds typical for its time—with a very punk/thrash approach to songwriting and riffs and a lo-fi aesthetic and production. I guess I've never been a huge fan of this era of grind in general, preferring the early 2000s stuff onward, but musically Crucified is alright compared to its contemporaries. It does get pretty repetitive though, which is understandable for a half-hour album but it's hard to take in all at once.

My biggest problem with Crucified (and Unholy Grave in general) is the painful clash between the mostly-serious music and the obviously-goofy vocals. The vocalist usually puts on a pretty decent low growl / high scream combo, kind of like Discordance Axis, that works pretty well. But then there are the times where he'll do some weird moaning or make stupid sounds or sing while inhaling (which sounds awful, if you haven't heard it), and it feels almost embarrassing to listen to.

It's just my personal taste, I suppose, but there's just so much other grindcore out there that's way better than Unholy Grave that I simply can't recommend anything by them. Fans of old-school grind might find enjoyment in Crucified, I suppose, and that's fine. I just won't be coming back to it. Grind has evolved a lot since 1995, and this band has been left behind.

4

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

Graf Orlock – Doombox

2010 • Vi.tri.ol

I'll say it again: I love EPs, and grind band Graf Orlock has delivered a nice little package themselves with Doombox. While not perfect, they have definitely created something polished and thought-out.

Graf Orlock's particular brand of grind is one that's heavily infused with a hardcore punk and crust punk, giving it a bit of a thrashy edge; while this style is nothing unique it's always nice to hear. For just six short songs, they throw quite a nice mix of styles at the listener without ever seeming too random or inconsistent and without mindlessly blasting. Mindless blasting has its place, sure, but here it's avoided well with the extra punk and metal bits.

Their decision to use two vocalists is a bit strange, and while normally I wouldn't mind, one of them is particularly annoying (I'm referring to the first one heard). It's probably listener preference, but I think the other vocalist's style fits the music way better. It could be because he sounds a bit like Agoraphobic Nosebleed's vocalist, so I can associate him with grind more easily, but that's just me.

This is the perfect release to pick up if you're looking for some quick and dirty grind that's fresh without being too cerebral. Apparently they have a few full-lengths that I ought to check out as well, and if they're as quality as Doombox we'd definitely have something special here.

7

Fuck the Facts – Disgorge Mexico

July 22, 2008 • Relapse Records

If there was such a thing as "progressive grindcore", Disgorge Mexico would definitely be an archetype of the style. Fuck the Facts have crafted a totally brilliant record that, while hardly letting up from the brutality, is full of excellent riffing and compositions which make it stand out as a fantastic album.

One of the album's strengths, and probably the reason I like it so much, is its ability to effortlessly fuse different styles and make it seem totally natural. It takes influences from mathcore, deathcore, sludge metal, maybe even black metal and alternative rock, especially on the album's lengthy monster "The Storm", which is nine minutes long but at no point does it feel drawn-out. The band uses a lot of dynamics, atypical of grind, to great effect. "Dead End", "The Storm", and "Apathy Is a Karma Killer" all start with quiet intros of clean guitar that slowly evolve into heavy riffing (giving it that "progressive" feel) and pull it off really well. None of songs are ever repetitive; rather the riffs change up pretty frequently yet it never feels too chaotic.

It probably helps that their particular brand of grindcore is one I'm already pretty fond of—lots of blasting, very technical riffs, very headbangable rhythmic grooves, and excellent screamed/growled vocals. In fact I haven't heard too many bands with female vocalists who do this kind of vocals where it sounds bad. I guess I just happen to like harsh female vocals for some reason.

I'm also sort of shocked by the fact that this album is actually 43 minutes long, which is immense for grindcore, yet at no point does it feel too long. Again, this is probably because the sound is so diverse (and the tracks are still mostly short, and if they're not short they completely deserve their length). With just a couple exceptions, no grindcore album has been able to completely justify such a length, but Disgorge Mexico has done just that.

Simply put, anyone into punk or metal should hear this. It's brilliant the whole way through and is definitely one of my favorite grind albums of all-time. There's simply nothing not to like.

8