[In the spirit of the recent round-ups of things you may have missed out on in the first half of 2014, the resident grindfreakers at Last Rites pulled together a quick write-up of a few of the faster-louder-violenter releases to come along in recent months. We’ll try to keep them coming in a more timely fashion to keep your grindcore lust satiated…]
The biggest complaints one hears about grindcore are variations upon these: It all sounds the same; it’s all one giant song; it all blurs together.
And such complaints are certainly valid.
A cursory romp through Bandcamp shows that the world is full of mediocre grinders, from the rudimentary to the just plain rude. Grind is screaming and bashing at warp speed, and when it’s done poorly, it can be nothing more than a wall of distorted noise, listenable to only the most ardent fans of the abrasive.
But when it’s done well, it’s a wall of distorted noise that also happens to be the most visceral and exhilarating subset of extreme metal.
With this new semi-irregular (read: whenever we feel like it) feature, Last Rites’ grind aficionados bash their way through a few of the style’s more noteworthy recent releases – sometimes we’ll cover big-label blasters, sometimes Bandcamp gems, sometimes avoid-at-all-costs disasters. It’s a one-stop shop for grinders looking to brush up in appropriately short-and-sweet fashion. So let’s get to the grinding:
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DIE CHOKING – DIE CHOKING
It’s German for “the choking.” But not really.
Die Choking is a Philly-based trio, with members of Total Fucking Destruction, Cop Problem, and Burden, and this self-titled 7” is their debut. On paper, their blend of grindcore mayhem with touches of more controlled death metal riffing is nothing new, harkening back to classic Napalm Death and countless others. Regardless, in practice, it’s certainly savage enough to satiate anyone looking for one-minute bursts of anger.
The opening whip-tight blasting of “Low Finally,” the dissonant riffery and crushing drive of “Greed War,” the swaggering destruction of “Reason Resist / Reason Reborn” – it’s all here, all the appropriate boxes are ticked, and in fine form.
I’m reaching back all the way to the first of the year with this one, but it’s a five-song, six-minute EP that’s stuck with me since my first listen, so it’s worthy of investigation, without a doubt. Not groundbreaking, but still bone-breaking enough to make a sizeable dent. [ANDREW EDMUNDS]
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VARIOUS ARTISTS – MONSTERS! SIX OF A KIND
Kaotoxin has put together a (mostly) punishing hand of grind with Monsters!: Six of a Kind. After Total Fucking Destruction does their impression of boring, the mayhem begins in earnest with France’s Department of Correction and their spazzed-out, space-obsessed speedcore. They have a song called “Take a Walk on the Grind Star,” so they win everything forever.
Next up is C.O.A.G. (or Coalition of Abnormal Grinders, if ya nasty), a one-man ‘coalition’ from Bulgaria by way of Belgium. Keen readers will recognize the name Deha from Ian’s excellent review of his other project, We All Die (Laughing). This is certainly a departure from said output: four songs in as many minutes as opposed to one song in many, many more minutes. Because it’s grindcore. It’s good. I like it. You will, too.
France’s Miserable Failure is anything but with their off-timed blend of grind and metal. That’s an incredibly cheesy way to phrase “they’re fucking good,” but they finish off their section of this six-way with a section of “Hip To Be Square,” so tit-for-tat. Bleu, the vocalist, isn’t screaming so much as trying to make noises through being choked. Needless to say, it’s awesome.
Up next is… another French band. Unsu. They fucking rule. It’s like Rotten Sound had a kid with Rorschach and then pumped it full of steroids. It’s a tough kid, is what I’m getting at. Unsu isn’t here to fuck around, if their two tracks are any indication.
You’ll never guess where Infected Society hails from. No, not Omaha, dummy. France. They’re also the most technically proficient band on the compilation, which makes them a nice choice to wrap things up. Have I mentioned they rule yet? Because they totally do. These are the two longest tracks on the comp, and as such, they skew towards the metal end of things.
What’s great about this collection is that no one overstays their welcome. Six bands clocking in at twenty-six total minutes is close to perfect for grind – especially for grind as musically diverse as these combatants represent. The only way this could be any better of a package is if it were five of a kind. Still, it’s more than worth checking out. [CHRIS REDAR]
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THE DRIP – A PRESENTATION OF GRUESOME POETICS
In the pantheon of grindcore band names, there are many terrible entries, but usually, they tend to be attached to some craptacular third-tier gore-splattered noisemakers or to pornogrind basement-dwellers. As a name, “The Drip” manages to be both pretty weak and inexplicable, but thankfully, the music makes up for any nomenclatural shortcomings.
The Drip hails from the Pacific Northwest – Richland, Washington, to be precise – and after a few independent releases, they’ve recently signed to Relapse. This 12-minute EP of crusty gnarly goodness was produced and engineered by Joel Grind of Toxic Holocaust, and the contained sloppiness that characterizes his thrash applies here, as well. This presentation is perpetually on the verge of both explosion and implosion, razor-taut and yet filthy and frantic, like the whole thing might collapse or simply come apart at the seams, and yet it’s held together magically and perfectly in the chaos.
Vocalist Brandon Caldwell screams, growls, and rages atop the chaotic underpinnings of Bobby Mansfield’s guitars, perfectly crusty and gnarly. Witness Caldwell’s piercing shrieks in the closing moments of “Rise To Failure,” which leads directly into the eminently moshable introductory riffs of “Bygones Only Burn Once,” which is the album’s shortest track and its most powerful. (Final track “Lash In Lash Out” comes in a close second…) Don’t let the bland band name fool you – there’s destruction herein. [ANDREW EDMUNDS]
