Maybe this kinda production style on late 2000s / early 2010s powerviolence and hardcore hasn't aged all that well, but the music of Weekend Nachos surely has. The group have been quiet for a while now, but 2011's Worthless stands the test of time, as far as heavy music goes.
(June 2019 edit: this should have been posted years ago, so please excuse the promotional tone in which it is written!)
Okay, so here it is, the first release on the new Lines In Wax "label", the glorious split EP between thrashing Newport grinders and Hereford powerviolence trio Fetus Christ. We've been toying with the idea of doing a split for quite some time, so it fit perfectly with the intention to start my label, and considering we are supposed to be touring together at some point too. Both sets on this disc were recorded live at the excellent FHED Halloween weekender in October 2016 by the promoter and all round good egg James Payne. A full release of all the recordings from the event can be found at fhed.bandcamp.com.
The run is limited to 50 and gave me a chance to "try out" a number of suppliers, including The Duplication Service who did a great job on the CDs, and Disc Jugglers who have done a bang up job on printing the covers. The inserts I did on my super wicked awesome new Brother laser printer (just wait and see the tape inserts this thing has been printing).
Quick shout out to t'lads in Judas Cradle (RIP) for their patience with my strange ideas, Fetus Christ for being on the ball and generally just being awesome, and of course Mr. Payne for the recordings.
Its no small joke how long the world (well, the goregrind world) has been waiting for a new 2 Minuta Dreka record to drop, and now that it actually has, it has seemingly taken me a whole age to get around to reviewing it. The first thing I notice about Porno Bizarro is its fairly polished production job, which gives the whole thing a massive fucking gut-punch. The sampling has become more obscure, and lends an authentic, disturbing edge to the Dreka's maelstrom of shit. This is a band energised, and I can safely say that the record is worth the wait.
As far as gurgling, groovy goregrind goes, I have to say that I find 2 Minuta Dreka under-rated. Your average Gutalax fan wouldn't have heard of these guys, for instance, which is a massive shame. One of Italy's finest underground bands, for sure.
(Excuse the lo-fi art today, can't find anything with high enough resolution!)
This is a barking mad, rabid display of hardcore punk power. Strong Intention's music is underpinned by what seems like genuine disgust and anguish at the American work-a-day life, which sets them apart from their peers in a sea of similar bands. Songs like "Model Citizen", "Consumer Sucker" and "Economic Outpatient" are perfect examples of this malice utilized to deliver scathing punk noise with an alternative diatribe to the work/sleep/die/repeat model of life.
My only complaint with this record is that the sound is a little thin. Yeah, punk is DIY as fuck but a little boost to the sound quality here would be enormously beneficial for the band's anger and energy. It is not badly recorded, it just sounds a little flat compared to other records as it fitted into the rest of my listening for the day, which was absolutely fine when I got used to it, but it doesn't hide the fact that the production is a little flat. That aside, this is brilliant, and strongly recommended listening.
They do say that the devil has all the best tunes, and that is mos-def the situation here with Neuropathia's 5th album (I could be wrong as the band have a long and varied discography and I just took a cursory glance at Discogs lol). Prepare yon lugholes for a bombastic explosion of somewhat rock-n-roll tinged grindcore madness. Imagine Regurgitate meeting Blood Duster at a Malignant Tumour gig and distill all of that through a modern yet still organic production, and you'll get something akin to this devilish recording.
It's not all-go however; the carnage is punctuated with some doomier moments, slower tracks with samples running over them, or with sludgier riffs that call back to the song structure styles used by acts such as Gut (but with layers of grume scraped away by the clear sound). Song titles such as "On Your Knees", "Transsexual Worshipers of Satan" and "Iron Midget Buster of the Elephants" similarly hark back to that particular school of grind.
The one thing about this record that I don't understand is the bizarre inclusion of the ambient, moody track "Brain Damage" bang at the end of the, err, first act, as it were. As the listener, when you are full swing into the type of carnage presented here, the last thing you'd expect (or even particularly want) is a curve ball thrown at you in the shape of a drifting soundscape that goes absolutely nowhere. Bizarre choice, saved by the plethora of amazing tracks that follow it.
Haggus are easily one of my favourite bands right now, simply for having the perfect blend of dank mincegore nailed down to a fucking tee. I love goregrind that you can dance to that also doesn't have songs about penises and bondage. Each to their own, and I do like a lot of groovy goregrind stuff, but it is currently over-saturated to fuck with a legion of shit bands. Haggus is brutal, yet with that mince/crust approach that brings with it the reality of death; the stench of gore! Fucking hanging!
Archagathus are now at the forefront of their particular niche of mincecore/goregrind, pushing that slightly restrictive variant of grind forward with a whole farmyard of bizarre vocals, not to mention perplexing and deeply, satisfyingly weird grind.
Out on cassette, and thanks to Grindfather for throwing a copy in when I bought a shirt a few months ago.
This is one of the chunkiest metal productions I have heard in quite some time. Nothing Violates This Nature is an amazing performance from start to finish; mixing the blistering ferocity of grindcore with the, dare I say it, artsy hardcore edge of stuff like Converge, even Dillenger et al. (2017 edit: I have since discovered that not only is Converge drummer Ben Koller in the fucking band, but this record was produced by Kurt Ballou! Ha!)
I've caught the band live on a few occasions, and I can confirm that this record is an accurate depiction of the violence and carnage that comes with the band. The guitar work of Adam Wentworth and Brian Izzie expertly walks the line between hardcore and the downtuned hell of death metal. One is reminded subtly of Entombed, but stripped of the trademark (and often imitated) guitar tone, instead plunged headfirst into a more jarred, mathematics frenzy. Great stuff!
I mean, this is brilliant, it truly is (favourite tracks: "Of Suffering" and "Articles Of Human Weakness"). It's just... I keep expecting Kurt Ballou to screech out a tortured roar over everything. I'm having trouble dealing with that expectation at every turn, but then again I'm an idiot. Check it out below.
Yesss here we fucking go; the long-awaited third album from gore/death metal maniacs Basement Torture Killings has finally dropped on Grindscene Records, and fuck me it's a corker! I can honestly say, this has to be my favourite BTK album so far, I'm just sorry that the LIW downtime got in the way of me telling you all, not that my opinion really matters or anything. The production here is on point, literally. Everything is balanced perfectly, and those fucking drums sound absolutely amazing.
This is the first record with new(ish) vocalist Beryl. She brings a nightmarish dynamic to the razor-sharp death metal sound; her lows are incredibly punishing, and act as the perfect foil to Tarquin's Walker-esque growls.
Check out the video for "Rat Catcher" below. Any death metal band that sings about Wensleydale is 10/10 in my books.
Can we at least get a round of applause in for that album title? And then a standing ovation for the album sleeve? Haha! Anyways, RazorRape play a bludgeoning, thick'n'creamy variety of goregrind that is more akin to shades of death metal than the primordial ooze of say, Last Days Of Humanity. This particular "cross-over" style is very popular at the moment, as it blends the lines with pornogrind, which all the metal kids seem to dig in lieu of shit like Haggus or Hyperemesis etc. etc., but irregardless of that fact, Revenge Of The Hermaphrodite Whores (it was surreal typing that out, even after 7 years of doing this shit) is a solid record in this style.
the density of the drum production reminds me of the most recent Grunt album, whereas the rest of the music is very similar in the vein to 5 Stabbed 4 Corpses - which shares members with RazorRape - give or take the odd jazzy passage, of course. All in all, this is a solid metal album, one which I'm sure you are probably already familiar with if you wallow in these decrepit circles of the underground.
10/10 split 7" from Olso fastcore/PV maniacs Higgs Boson (who perhaps have one of the sickest bass tones ever), going head to head with British kings of start/stop savagery, Nothing Clean. Both bands churn out rapid-fire bursts of aggression, as, of course, you would expect, but with Higgs Boson not being afraid to slow things to a crawl pace for a few seconds to highlight the speed of the quick bits even more, or to add little - dare I say it - melodic passages to proceedings. Also, is it a coincidence that HB's side of the split is 4:20 in duration?
Nothing Clean are a little more direct with their approach; there is a hardcore punk edge to their powerviolence mentality. The way the chaos just fucking cuts with the dead stops literally drives me mad in the best possible way (I've seen 'em live too, and that shit is fucking mint).
Released as a collaboration between SuperFi Records, Samizdat Records, Glass To The Face Records and Cardiff's own F.H.E.D.
This has to be the benchmark to which all drum machine grindcore is judged. ANb's first full length record is far cry from anything that has followed it (even the lightening fast pharmaceutical headfuck of Frozen Corpse... is a million miles away from this); the production is bassy, fat and bludgeoning, the guitars almost sludgy, and the shrieked, yelped vocals are almost drowned out by the cacophony of the strings and machine. And that harsh noise at the end... Jesus fuck, that's some moody shit which truly encompasses the meaning of the words "power electronics".
Can't really say much more other than just point out a few of my favourite tracks, "Die And Get The Fuck Out Of The Way", "Vexed", "Hat Full Of Shit".... the list, she goes on! Essential!
Urine Junkies is a Relapse compilation CD featuring three of Abscess' earliest releases and demos. It was put out in 1995 under the label's Underground Series, and brought Abscess to a whole new level of exposure. One of the downsides of listening to a compilation is that the sound is all over place, but it is a small price to pay when you get to check out a cross-section of stuff that a band has to offer. Hey, this shit is nowhere near as fucking terrible as that Nunslaughter compilation I got last year. Abscess, thankfully, seem to lack in the nauseatingly bad live recordings department.
My favourite thing about Abscess though has got to be the vocals; incredibly nasty gargles, shouts or even lows. Also, I get the feeling that a lot of this older stuff just got tarred with the grindcore brush at the time because it was, for some surreal and brief moment in history, the "in" thing to do; Abscess' cheeky lullabies of filth are more akin to some bizarre world of punk mixed with death metal (I get a Pungent Stench vibe, if that is applicable?) than anything grinding. Regardless, this is fucking excellent.
(I implore you to forgive me the ridiculously low quality of today's upload. This is literally impossible to track down online, and I unfortunately do not own a copy of the super-limited lathe cut 7". That being said, if anyone has any hi-res scans of the cover art that would do this post more justice, then please, by all means, feel free to get in contact with me, and of course upload the pictures to Discogs too).
Almost matching the lo fi sleeve is the nasty lo fi goodness from everyone's favourite obscure gore/porngrind couple. The bass tone on this thing is unreal; it's like, I can't decide if it is fucking abysmal or absolutely amazing - it is hovering in between in an endless duality. I'd be lying if I said there was anything new here for Necrocannibalistic Vomitorium fans, but if you are into this shit then you are gonna love this EP (or just this YouTube link, because finding one is probably gonna be a fuckin' task). There is just a certain charm to this band; it almost sounds like everything is recorded using analogue equipment. It sounds old, and nasty as fuck, and that's absolutely fine by me.
Phyllomedusa has been sneaking doom metal tracks into his (?) gory repertoire for quite some time now, but Fijian Holiday marks the point where the stark lines of contrast have blurred so much that the multitude of perplexing styles this project perpetuates have finally come crashing together into one big sticky disgusting bog of beautiful, nauseating mess. Almost sounding like slam in parts; this record crawls and grooves with absolute menace. Phyllomedusa can do no wrong in my eyes. Strongly recommended!
Oblivionized are a grindcore / tech death answer to the distillation of sounds purveyed by those such as early Dillenger Escape Plan, Fuck The Facts, and even to a degree, Antigama. The shredding guitar / intense drum work is reminiscent of fellow British grinders Evisorax, but Oblivionized have a much more - how should I put it - "progressive" edge that sees a lot of interesting elements brought into the firing line (like the singing bowl on "I Pity You").
The only downside here is that the band is missing a bass player. This doesn't usually matter in circles such as these, but unfortunately, in some of the more adventurous or experimental parts of Life Is A Struggle... (i.e. - when it isn't just blasting or shredding to fuck) the missing dimension of the low end can really be felt.
This is an absolutely mental little EP featuring members of Water Torture and Thedowngoing (who I am currently not too familiar with, I'll be honest). It only clocks in at around 5 minutes, but with this kinda hyper-intense level of energy I'll forgive the tiny run time. Bordering somewhere between a rehearsal room recording and a decent recording sesh for like, a split 7" or something, Sects meld different corners of the grind world together in frenetic, chaotic harmony. Imagine Benumb meets The Locust.
Holy fuck! This is fucking amazing! Bass-driven, hardcore-tinged powerviolence madness from the Americas! If I keep using exclaimation marks does it look like I'm shouting!? I hope so! Easy comparisons out of the way first: Man Is The Bastard, Water Torture, Prisoner 639 (or anything that grinds like a fucking beast at a low rumbling frequency). To quote a YouTube commentator: "Non stop harsh grinding savagery from start to finish". I could not have put it better myself!
So, so, so stoked for the return (yet again lol) of Last Days Of Humanity, and the return to the gurgling madness we all know and love. This return is somewhat low key, but I guess it fits with dropping new shit on a split. I believe the music on here was recorded some time ago, and that the vokills have been provided recently. It is good shit though, glad to have 'em back!
FUBAR (or is that F.U.B.A.R.) have been around for yonks but I am useless with this shit so I haven't had a proper listen to these guys since I heard the split with Catheter many moons ago. Their material here seems to have a lot more of a hardcore punk kinda influence than I remember, but this is solid stuff that I need to check out more of!
Planet Of The Pigs is the final (?) album from long-running Czech grindcore band, Pigsty. I think to still call Pigsty a grindcore band by this point is pushing it a bit; Planet Of The Pigs has a whole world of other influences building on the grinding template, from thrash to death metal, to the kooky ongoing concept ("Inspection Report" kicks this thing off with GWAR-grade sci-fi storytelling) and even the insane djent moments that randomly crop up through the chaos.
The band have had an almost exclusive relationship with Bizarre Leprous productions, and I sincerely hope that one day they shall return from the Planet Of The Pigs to blast us with more perplexing space grind.
Wadge is a long-running grindcore project from Canada, which has fallen into its very own self-styled "surf" grind. It sounds like a ridiculous gimmick, and I guess, to be honest, it probably is. What separates this however, from "bands" like Caninus or the fucking Grindmother is that this shit is actually fucking decent, and not just a stupid fucking meme set up to make money from people who don't actually listen to grindcore anyway (okay, that might be a bit harsh, but you get my drift).
This is nothing short of pure grinding genius; the song titles alone are worth heaps of praise. The drum programming is spot on and when everything else piles on like extra rings of pineapple on an Hawaiian burger, this is one serious wall of grinding noise. This was also the first release on Jay Randall's Grindcore Karaoke net label.
