Abigail Williams - In The Shadow Of A Thousand Suns

This is one of those albums that I ended up checking out purely because of the cover art. I've been avoiding Abigail Williams for the best part of a decade, purely because I thought they were some sort of shitty scene metalcore band or something, and whilst they do bring that kinda "edge" to the table, In The Shadow Of A Thousand Suns is a complex piece of a work and a decent contribution to modern black metal. Imagine Dimmu Borgir meets Suicide Silence, or something along those lines.

Speaking of Dimmu, I could swear this band picked up Mustis after the Norwegian titans shuffled their staff; the keyboard playing is fucking on point. The metal is solid, especially the guitar work, but I keep waiting for the onslaught to end so I can get a earful of that sweet, sweet piano. Anyway, an incredibly solid record, although not something that I would usually pick.

Sordo - Tactical Precision Violence

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!

Landfill - Landfill

Landfill are a grindcore / powerviolence band from Lima, Ohio and asides from a three minute demo in 2016 and a 30-second track on a compilation, this self-titled EP is the world's first proper taste of the filth that they have to offer. The longest song (by far) is the opening track "Zen And The Art Of Shitting Teeth", with its sludgy beginning and descent into grinding chaos. The majority of the remaining tracks are microblasts of violence that are reminiscent of stuff like Insect Warfare, earlier Flesh Parade or even UxDxS. 

Rounding the whole thing off is four minutes of harsh noise (technically this is the longest track, actually haha) that does, if I'm honest, seem to be tacked on for no reason. That is not to say however, that its not a decent slab of noise in its own right. Any form of sonic annihilation sits well with me. Having a smattering of grind followed by harsh noise is like eating habenero sauce for dinner and then having Blair's 6am on your ice cream. 

Couple Skate - Ice Skate Lobotomy

Man, this shit is dank - it sounds just like Paucities smashed into early Regurgitate; dirgy, muddy, demo-quality grinding mush with bottomfeeder sludgy shifted vokills. I love all this "new" American-wave goregrind shit that has all this mincecore edge to it - it's fucking class, and Couple Skate is easily one of the best of the bunch (gotta give props to Haggus and Hyperemesis for coming joint first too).

The demo / EP is only six tracks long (one of which, perhaps expectedly, is a Regurgitate cover) but who gives a shit when the stuff is this tasty? Time to hunt down some more Couple Skate stuff, I think...

Intestinal Disgorge - Sociopath

Jesus, where to begin? Ha ha! Sociopath is probably one of the most difficult albums to write about, simply because it's a 40 track long mess of hilarious grinding terror. Intestinal Disgorge might have a name that is typical of the grindcore genre but their sound is entirely unique. I promise you that you've never heard anything quite like this before. Intestinal Disgorge play some of the most hateful, blast-happy, mysogynistic grindcore that I have ever come across. They smash this approach head on with all the silliness in the universe. The results can only be absolutely catastrophic, and that my friends is a bloody good thing.

Each Intestinal Disgorge blast of grind is laced with a whole mental asylum worth of unusual vocal styles - most noticeably their trademark "bitch squeals", which cut through the music at any given time and without any apparent pattern or prior warning. One second you're ripping through some shit-hot awesome grindcore without a care in the world and the next there is this horrendous screaming cutting through that is equal parts worrying and hilarious. Couple that with endless death metal style growls, rabid pitchshifter lows, sung and shouted cleans and the odd King Diamond impression and you should have some idea of what Intestinal Disgorge sound like, that is if you can arrange all of that in your head with going insane.

Opening track "I'm Wearing Your Panties" is an absolute gem of a grind tune, as is "Stupid Fucking Whore Bitch", which channels so much fury and hate for women. I tried to post it on my girlfriend's Facebook wall but I couldn't find a YouTube link, to my endless disappointment. My favourite track on this album though is "Pedofile", which is alarmingly funny as fuck, considering it's subject matter. The "King Diamond" tracks (as I like to call them) that open, close and intermit the album are also great.

I've already got an Intestinal Disgorge split 7" in my collection but finally getting my hands on this Rotten Roll Rex released CD (thanks to Bones Brigade) has rekindled my worrying interest in this spectacularly funny grindcore project.