Idylls – Prayer for Terrene

March 30, 2014 • self-released

Finally, some mathcore I can really get into. I'm usually of the opinion that the genre is too messy and incomprehensible to be that enjoyable, but Idylls are doing something really cool here.

Sure, the album has its share of chaotic blasting, but it always feels like they still keep some sort of rhythm going so the listener doesn't ever feel lost. Plus, it's often glued together with some solid sludgy chugging sections, which I always tend to enjoy. There's even a bit of great melodic sections like "Fagged Out on the Beach" (probably one of my favorite tracks) to break up the crazy grinding. That's not to say Idylls doesn't do crazy grinding well—they definitely do.

Aside from the staggering seven-minute opener, almost all of the songs all clock under three minutes. But every one of those minutes is totally packed and Idylls squeezes everything they can out of their time on this album. I also have to give props for the production—I love the squealing saxophone that pops up every once in a while, and the growly, dirty bass sound is really great.

My one misgiving is that I don't get the weird tangents they sometimes go off on, like the bizarre bluesy thing they do for part of "PCP Crazy" or the weird surf thing on "Crashing Boar"—it breaks my immersion a lot and simply isn't in a style I like. At least they don't dwell on it for long.

Anyway, even though I haven't been following grindcore much this year, I'm glad this album crossed my path. It's definitely one to take a taste of for anyone into that sort of music or is looking for anything a little on the aggressive side.

As We Draw – Mirages

October 4, 2014 • Throatruiner Records

Compared to Lines Breaking Circles, not a whole lot has changed except that the band has somehow gotten a lot better. Thought nothing much has changed since their debut, something about it really grabbed me and I think it may be one of 2014's finest so far.

Mirages basically comes in two flavors: long atmospheric sludgy tracks, and shorter Converge-esque chaotic hardcore / mathcore ones—and there's definitely something to be said for both. The longer tracks (basically just "The Window" and "Shipwreck") have this great post-rock-influenced buildup structure that works really great with the heavier guitar sound without being too clichéd. The shorter tracks are almost perfect: full of blistering energy, stabbing guitar lines and crashing drumming, and never overstaying their welcome. They're angry as hell, but they don't get too wrapped up in it that they lose sight of the song structure.

I don't know for sure why this one is hooking me a lot more than their first—maybe it's my mood, maybe somehow my taste for this stuff has grown—but I can't discount the fact that this music just grooves hard and in a way that I am really enjoying. It's not an album that I'll be able to listen to often—it's a little too punishing at times and the whole thing can be a bit draining. But when I do get the urge, it satisfies handily.

Gaza – No Absolutes in Human Suffering

July 31, 2012 • Black Market Activities

I have no clue why I tried out this album; I generally have no interest in mathcore / metalcore and haven't liked most of what I've heard in the past. Gaza may be a turning point for me; while they may not be too different from other extreme metalcore bands they do seem to have something pretty cool going on with this album.

No Absolutes is, first and foremost, really ugly and dirty music—the guitar is downtuned to hell and has a grimy tone to it; the raw, guttural vocals have a distorted edge to them, and the drums are absolutely monstrous with trading off between punkish grooves and some pretty damn intense blastbeats. I've heard plenty of extreme music in my time, obviously, but as far as stuff in the punk family goes this is sitting comfortably near, if not at, the top of the list.

At the same time, they'll pull out a calmer and more emotional moment now and again (comparatively speaking, of course). These sections really mesh with the faster parts well—both contrasting with and accentuating the album's normal intensity and standing up on their own as good examples of sludge/doom. Take "When They Beg"'s slow and brooding end, or the title track's churning sludgy sound, or the slow doomy end of "Not with All the Hope in the World"—especially the way the latter calms the listener down a bit, only to basically smack them in the face again once "The Vipers" starts up. It's pretty great.

You might need to be in the right frame of mind for Gaza—one that is prepared to accept some pretty high levels of brutality—but it is definitely worth the ride and has helped rekindle my interest in the genre a bit. Not for everyone, but I'll definitely take it.

7

Plebeian Grandstand – How Hate Is Hard to Define

March 2010 • Basement Apes Industries

This album is another entry in the long list of furious, chaotic, pounding mathcore albums that follows in the steps of bands like Converge and Botch, and while it follows the formula pretty closely and doesn't bring anything terribly new to the table it's still a pretty solid album in its own right. I'm nothing of an aficionado of this style, admittedly, but How Hate Is Hard to Define stands up alright.

Like the aforementioned Converge, Plebeian Grandstand's sound employs a nice blend of fast technical riffing and somewhat milder, yet still brutal, breakdowns. The band's performance is pretty tight throughout, making the constant changes in tempo and time signature seem simple; there are also some more consistent songs like the sludgy "Easy to Hate / Hard to Define", showing that the band does have a bit more diversity in them than it would first seem.

Like a lot of music in this style, though, the songs can be difficult to follow at times and so the album can be a fatiguing listen. There are only a few places that the audial face-stomping finally lets up (the interlude "Pie in the Sky" is a welcome respite) and to me a lot of it still sounds kind of messy. I don't mean this in a technical sense (as I've mentioned, the musicians are quite proficient); rather, the music itself is just all over the place and it's hard to find footing in what I'm listening to during the more chaotic parts. But there are a few places where the riffs really click—the start of "Are You Angry?" has a really nice groovy rhythm to it of which I would have liked to hear more.

So while the album isn't really my style, I can appreciate it alongside the rest of my tiny mathcore library. While it's not something I'll be revisiting very often, truer fans will probably enjoy it, and that's at least a mild success.

6