Demo-lition Derby: Multinational Corporations

Multinational Corporations
Equality
Pakistan’s Multinational Corporations may hail from one of the genocided starving nations that so concerned Napalm Death, but that’s where the similarities end. This quintet – featuring two dedicated vocalists – flail away at three tracks of grindcore on their demo Equality, but nothing ever coalesces into anything captivating.
While I give demos a lot of latitude, Equality is severely lacking on the sonics: the reedy guitars sound like an afterthought in the tinny mix and the drumming is monotonous. The tempos may occasionally change but don’t go looking for a fill to break the stasis or an interesting pattern to hook your attention.
The biggest problem with Equality is that of the three tracks, only one is a traditional song. Opener “Presidential Castration” is five minutes of intrusive samples and spoken word bits that war with the overly reverbed pig grunt vocals. The competition between the song’s various elements really hinder its cohesion. Likewise, kissoff track “Pakistan Zindabad” is a plaintive ballad – all acoustic guitars and news samples about fatal flooding in Pakistan. It sounds like the kind of filler Acursed would throw between songs. However, the Swede punks always made sure they had plenty of crusty crushers to keep it company. That leaves “Immolating the Parliament” sandwiched between them. While its downtempo riffs are much more engaging than its cohorts, it's swamped under a buzzing guitar that sounds like Unseen Terror on a bad day.
Multinational Corporation’s broadminded approach to grind would stand them in good company if they were able to harness and train those impulses toward some unified goal. As it is, their demo sounds like a bunch of competing ideas in desperate need of an editor and a better studio. Multinational Corporation's web presence is pretty much nil, but you can check out Equality for yourself here.