Resistant CultureWelcome to Reality
SOS Records
Trust me and go ahead and skip to track two; you’re literally missing nothing. I don’t know what marketing genius decided to bury 30 minutes of tribal-inflected grind this good behind a half hour track of silence, but it is a real dick move.
Resistant Culture, ne Resistant Militia, has been kicking around the greater Los Angeles grind/punk underworld for the better part of two decades, but the band’s profile got a boost in 2005 when they enlisted the guitar talents of Jesse Pintado, who had recently vacated Napalm Death
And Welcome to Reality (not be confused with the EP of the same name), reissued by SOS Records almost a year after Pintado’s death, is everything the last Terrorizer record should have been.
Not to be dismissed as Terrorizer Mk. II, Resistant Culture guitarist Katina clearly has a copy of World Downfall in her collection. But the band spikes its punked out grind with squalls of guitar skronk (“Misery”), interlaced tribal chants (“The Struggle Continues” and “Silent Predator”), dollops of thrash (“Sticks and Stones” ) and the all too rare grindcore guitar solo (“Forced Conformity”).
Vocalist Anthony aka Tony Militia aka Tony Rezhawk, replace Oscar Garcia’s replacement on Darker Days Ahead and one of that album’s scant bright spots, has been a growling voice for American Indian tribal causes and that focus infuses Welcome to Reality. If your ancestors might have had something to do with selling small pox-infected blankets to Native Americans 200 years ago, he’d like to have a word with you.
Welcome to Reality may not be able to compete with Napalm Death’s hooky grind, but the guitars bite with a hunger that rival’s Pintado’s previous crew’s most recent output. Katina intertwines her buzzing, scraping riffs with Pintado’s punk blasts, topping the snappy sounding drums and distorted bass crust.
While Pintado’s presence looms large over the band, Resistant Culture carved out their own space between grind’s stultifying strictures to hammer out a distinct sound that also stands as a fitting epitaph for a grindcore stalwart.
Resistant Culture, ne Resistant Militia, has been kicking around the greater Los Angeles grind/punk underworld for the better part of two decades, but the band’s profile got a boost in 2005 when they enlisted the guitar talents of Jesse Pintado, who had recently vacated Napalm Death
And Welcome to Reality (not be confused with the EP of the same name), reissued by SOS Records almost a year after Pintado’s death, is everything the last Terrorizer record should have been.
Not to be dismissed as Terrorizer Mk. II, Resistant Culture guitarist Katina clearly has a copy of World Downfall in her collection. But the band spikes its punked out grind with squalls of guitar skronk (“Misery”), interlaced tribal chants (“The Struggle Continues” and “Silent Predator”), dollops of thrash (“Sticks and Stones” ) and the all too rare grindcore guitar solo (“Forced Conformity”).
Vocalist Anthony aka Tony Militia aka Tony Rezhawk, replace Oscar Garcia’s replacement on Darker Days Ahead and one of that album’s scant bright spots, has been a growling voice for American Indian tribal causes and that focus infuses Welcome to Reality. If your ancestors might have had something to do with selling small pox-infected blankets to Native Americans 200 years ago, he’d like to have a word with you.
Welcome to Reality may not be able to compete with Napalm Death’s hooky grind, but the guitars bite with a hunger that rival’s Pintado’s previous crew’s most recent output. Katina intertwines her buzzing, scraping riffs with Pintado’s punk blasts, topping the snappy sounding drums and distorted bass crust.
While Pintado’s presence looms large over the band, Resistant Culture carved out their own space between grind’s stultifying strictures to hammer out a distinct sound that also stands as a fitting epitaph for a grindcore stalwart.
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