Wow. I needed that.
To let you in a bit on my life of late, I’d struggled across the last few months with a review or two of albums that were solid enough but in most ways unremarkable, easy to describe in one word (“good”) but not in, say, 300 words (short of repeating “good” 299 additional times, which I reserve the right to do in future reviews). I needed a blast of fresh air, something to come in and kick things up a bit, a record that put a smile on my face and my fist in the air, a record that spoke to my heart and my ears and not merely tested my vocabulary and my attention span.
Enter the verbosely titled Invincible Gate Mind Of The Infernal Fire Hell, Or Did You Mean Hawaii Daisuki? (The question mark is theirs and not mine, and regardless, I will not type that full title ever again.)
I had missed the first Hayaino Daisuki EP, but I’m very familiar with the work of vocalist Jon Chang (Discordance Axis, Gridlink), and I remember wanting to hear that first Hayaino release after reading Erik Thomas’ review on these very pages. Invincible Gate Mind is a blast of thrashing goodness with a more-than-sizeable debt to melodic death metal, Maiden-esque traditional metal and Chang’s grindcore history. Chang’s trademark rabid screech isn’t for everyone, and he seldom varies his attack, so I would wager that some of you fair readers won’t be able to stomach the vocals on Invincible, at least not for long. But if you can take those, there’s more than enough merit in this music, my friends. Picture, if you will, a thrashy melodic death metal band, playing at grindcore speed and with an admittedly grindcore-like raw production, all the while with Jon Chang bleating atop it like a demented hyena.
Four songs in fifteen minutes still doesn’t leave a lot to talk about, but it does rock like hell and it does put a big goofy grin on my face. A melodeathgrindthrash extravaganza.
