When I started this blog six or so months ago, I assumed a real quick countdown list would help me pad out the posts for the five of six weeks, giving me a ready stock of copy to pull from when I couldn’t write something fresh. Here we are half a year later and it’s finally come to an end after I revised, revisited and rethought the countdown I had hastily assembled in advance. Essentially, I thought this list would help me explain to people (if anyone gives a rosy red rat’s posterior) where I was coming from musically, give you some insight into why I’m likely to praise some albums and pan others. But what I didn’t expect was how much I would learn from this process. (I’m about to get selfish and introspective, so deal with it or just skip ahead.) I’ve spent half of my life obsessively following the purveyors of blast beats, greedily hunting down any album with a completely sick song-to-length ratio to add to my collection, and the reflection this last has forced me to over the last few months has not only reaffirmed my love of grind, but forced me to really listen to some of my favorite albums with fresh ears. Try to think back to the first time you threw on your first Napalm Death album (1992—Utopia Banished on the b-side of a friend’s bootleg copy of Suicidal Tendencies’ debut). Or getting your grindcore cherry handed to you courtesy of the medicinal madmen in Carcass. Now that I’m in my 30s, going back and listening to these albums has allowed me to recapture that youthful sense of rage and abandon that made them so vital and so fresh originally. Hopefully you feel the same. If you’re still reading. If you care.
So first, a quick recap:
13. Anal CuntMorbid FloristRelapse1992
Grind’s clown princes.
12. AssuckMisery IndexSound Pollution1996Crucial, punk as fuck metal. [OK, in retrospect Anticapital probably deserves this spot. Fuck it. Buy both. They’re equally awesome.]
11. Agoraphobic NosebleedAltered States of AmericaRelapse2002
Technogrind misanthropes, tune in, turn up (the bpms) and drop kick your ass.
10. S.O.B.Gate of DoomToy’s Factory1993Grindcore ninja commando team from the land of the rising sun.
9. Siege Drop Deadself released1984A classic Boston beatdown that laid the cornerstone for the genre.
8. Pig DestroyerProwler in the YardRelapse2001House band to the stalker convention.
7. Terrorizer World DownfallEarache1989
Toca rapido o muerte.
6. Brutal Truth Sounds of the Animal KingdomRelapse1997
A graduate degree in grind but plenty of time to smoke up with friends.
5. NasumHelveteRelapse2003Hellaciously tight Swedish grind saviors and one of metal’s most revered martyrs.
4. RepulsionHorrifiedNecrosis1989Soundtrack to the greatest zombie flick Romero never made.
3. CarcassReek of PutrefactionEarache 1988These medical malpractitioners are more cloned than Dolly the sheep.
2. Napalm Death ScumEarache1987And the machine they built still rolls on 20 years later.
13. Anal Cunt
12. Assuck
11. Agoraphobic Nosebleed
10. S.O.B.
9. Siege 
8. Pig Destroyer
7. Terrorizer 
6. Brutal Truth 
5. Nasum
4. Repulsion
3. Carcass
2. Napalm Death 
1 comment:
You write like someone concealing a dubious punk and metal pedigree. Nevertheless I applaud your efforts, if not your credibility.
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