Originally written by Sasha Horn
Self-professed “abrasive grind/powerviolence” trio drops debut album, In Narcosis, and succeeds in both being abrasive and powerfully violent. What else is new. Maruta have left the kind of impression that only a band bearing the emblem of an angel with an arrow, can. In other words: Willowtip does it again.
Grindcore makes me wanna squeeze things really hard. Maruta makes me wanna squeeze things harder than that. In Narcosis is fifteen songs that would be hard to peg as “grind specific”. From what I know of this convulsive genre, Narcosis meets the requirement of sounding unwaveringly obliterating, yet multi-emotional, and dare I say “musical”. For one, the production here is crisp and punchy (it should also be mentioned early on, for the grind-bass enthusiasts, that these guys are intentionally short a bass player, but you wouldn’t know it by their thick and sick downtuned display), and not to say that all grindcore recordings are for shit, but handfuls of them are; if I didn’t know any better I would think it was scripture. The breathing room that Maruta’s songwriting allows for, paired with said “recorded sound”, shows a temperament that often brings to mind a latter-day Napalm Death’s moments of clarity, or anArts-degree-seeking Phobia, which can feel like deep exhales amidst the fallout. Still, there’s an unhealthy supply of blasting and breakdowns (not nu-breakdowns, just moments of less snare drum) held tight in the arms of vocal throw-up, so rest assured, you’ll punch mirrors trying to kick your own ass over this. But where you might stop and think, is aside the dissonant stiltwalk of “Demise of the Humanist”, or underneath the icicles of “Rise of the Iron Moth” (strangely, not so far removed from the cold Jedi-blackened-death-metal tactics of something like say, The Amenta); it’s all a fight to the finish, just one where you can actually hear them landing punches. Maruta can hang with these kinds of comparisons and then proceed to piss in the pool, simply because the musicianship is beyond capable, which is why they are successfully able to transcend their own definition.
Like any fine whine, this wouldn’t be as effective if I didn’t monitor its intake. I, personally, could not make this the soundtrack for every one of my waking moments. Make of that statement what you will, but it’s paying a huge compliment to their ferocity.
In Narcosis is steadily becoming one of my favorite palette cleansers.
