Originally written by Jordan Campbell
There was a time, roughly 2-3 years ago, that Willowtip was absolutely unfuckwithable. The label put out a handful of records that would set the standard for the death metal to come in the latter half of this decade, razing the landscape and establishing a reputation for excellence. This excellence was largely predicated on bands with a slightly surgical touch to their mayhem (Arsis, Alarum, Gorod, Neuraxis). But there were messier, wilder motherfuckers lurking in the Willowtip shadows as well, waiting to rape your face with a shotgun barrel at a moments notice (Watchmaker). After a few lean years, the label unleashes another bundle of similarly-violent grindcore upon a hungry public in the form of Kill The Client’s second album, Cleptocracy, effectively getting the ball rolling once again.
This is a hostile, scorned bastard of a record – the kind that will punch you in the mouth, collect your shattered teeth, and jam ’em back into your bloodied gums…just to force your cracked, jagged, horrifying grin into a mask of masochistic glee. Never sacrificing heaviness for speed, all 18 of these hyper-brief bursts of nihilism are nearly perfect in their execution. Dirty, filthy, and pissed – but somehow keeping themselves in control – the band heaves and blasts with with an effectiveness that would make Nasum proud. Like most high-quality grindocre exhibitions, Cleptocracy works best when swallowed whole – the progression from opening riff to final blast is righteous-as-hell. The first two-thirds of the tracks fly by at a breakneck pace, as cuts like “Christian Pipebomb,” “Dog Tagged,” and “99% Takeover” maul their way into each other in a blinding fury. After a good fifteen minutes of full-on speed, however, “Downfall” (essentially a glorified breakdown) drops in, and the stark contrast makes it come across like the heaviest fucking thing ever recorded. The placement is simply brilliant, as is the glow of the band’s furor.
This is a textbook burst of four-dude piss n’ venom; a whipping torrent of crusty/flawless guitar work, manical drumming, and socio-political indcitments in the form of hatevomiting vocal convulsions. In short, Cleptocracy is the go-to grind record for both aficionados and neophytes alike in 2008, and cements Kill The Client’s status as an elite voice in the genre.
Fucking awesome.
