Grindcore Bracketology 3: The 3-6 Matchups

Round two brought us the first upset and it kinda surprises me. (In retrospect, maybe not so much.) Who got unceremoniously dumped? Let's get to the results.

THE GEEZERS

More Metal
Napalm Death's From Enslavement just got obliterated by Assuck's Misery Index. What many consider to the be the most influential grind albums in history got smoked 14-9.

More Punk
This one wasn't even close. Unseen Terror's Human Error mustered a single protest vote, losing to Brutal Truth's Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses by 21-1.

THE UPSTARTS

More Arty
Even the mighty Nasum couldn't stand against Pig Destroyer as Prowler in the Yard trounced Helvete by 15-7.

More Farty
Sakatat gave us eight blissful minutes of grind perfection with farewell album Bir Devrin Sonu, but that wasn't enough to come close to Singaporean masters Wormrot and their totally out of left field debut Abuse, which triumphed 19-2.

So that was round two. As always, you can view the updated brackets here. Just keep in mind I'll be reseeding when the first batch is done, so the matchups it shows right now might not be the final faceoffs.

Anyway, on to the 3-6 matchups.

THE GEEZERS

More Metal
3. Terrorizer-World Downfall v. 6. S.O.B.-Gate of Doom

More Punk
3. S.O.B.-Don't Be Swindle v. 6. Disrupt-Unrest


THE UPSTARTS

More Arty
3. Mortalized-Absolute Mortality 2 v. 6. GridLink-Amber Gray (ya think I did that deliberately?)

More Farty
3. Agoraphobic Nosebleed-PCP Torpedo v. 6. Kill the Client-Cleptocracy

Have at it. Once again, you have until Sunday. You can vote here or at the Facebook page, whichever is most convenient.

Grindcore Bracketology 2: Week 2 Results/The 3-6 Matchups

I'm just gonna go ahead and say up front that I hate all of you. Every last one of you ingrate bastards. I know I deliberately rigged this round to have some of the most interesting head to heads. But damn, people. Seriously? Let's see if you can figure out why I'm so speechless.

Here's the 2-7 results:

The Old Guard
Though the anti-Carcass crowd came on strong early, Bill Steer ultimately triumphed over Mick Harris 10-5.

The Innovators
No surprise that Scott Hull got the first shut out of the competition, blowing out Pingdum with a perfect 15-0.

The Punks
324's Shinji now rates a 12-3 on the Misery Index after getting stomped by Heritage.

The Technicians
Rainwater by 8-7 over Marton.



Anyway, the updated brackets can be viewed here.
So, on to the 3-6 matchups. Not that you deserve them. As always, you've got until Sunday.

The Old Guard
3. Gurn (Brutal Truth) v. 6. Toshimi (S.O.B.)
Drug crazed grind freak v. sabotaged organized barbarian.

The Innovators
3. Talarczyk (Nasum) v. 6. Papirmollen (Parlamentarisk Sodomi/PSUDOKU)
A Scandinavian smackdown between the patron saint of modern grind and Norway's master of both cornholes and wormholes.

The Punks
3. Richardson (Kill the Client) v. 6. Beau (Insect Warfare)
Who is king of all Texas? This may be more divisive than the outcome of the Alamo.

The Technicians
3. Burke (Lethargy/Sulaco/Brutal Truth) v. 6. Unks/Nowoczynski (Creation is Crucifixion)
Burke has been tearing shit with little fanfare for 20 years. Creation is Crucifixion were 20 years ahead of their time.

The Dirty (Baker’s) Dozen: Look Back in Anger

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 Cunt
Morbid Florist
Relapse
1992
Grind’s clown princes.




12. Assuck
Misery Index
Sound Pollution
1996
Crucial, punk as fuck metal. [OK, in retrospect Anticapital probably deserves this spot. Fuck it. Buy both. They’re equally awesome.]



11. Agoraphobic Nosebleed
Altered States of America
Relapse
2002
Technogrind misanthropes, tune in, turn up (the bpms) and drop kick your ass.



10. S.O.B.
Gate of Doom
Toy’s Factory
1993
Grindcore ninja commando team from the land of the rising sun.




9. Siege
Drop Dead
self released
1984
A classic Boston beatdown that laid the cornerstone for the genre.




8. Pig Destroyer
Prowler in the Yard
Relapse
2001
House band to the stalker convention.




7. Terrorizer
World Downfall
Earache
1989
Toca rapido o muerte.




6. Brutal Truth
Sounds of the Animal Kingdom
Relapse
1997
A graduate degree in grind but plenty of time to smoke up with friends.



5. Nasum
Helvete
Relapse
2003
Hellaciously tight Swedish grind saviors and one of metal’s most revered martyrs.



4. Repulsion
Horrified
Necrosis
1989
Soundtrack to the greatest zombie flick Romero never made.



3. Carcass
Reek of Putrefaction
Earache
1988
These medical malpractitioners are more cloned than Dolly the sheep.




2. Napalm Death

Scum
Earache
1987
And the machine they built still rolls on 20 years later.

The Dirty (Baker's) Dozen Number 10: S.O.B.

S.O.B.
Gate of Doom
Toy’s Factory
1993
In our anglo-centric world we sometimes forget grind is not just a transatlantic affair. These rising stars from the land of the rising sun have been name checked by Napalm Death (who covered a trio of their early tunes for a BBC session) and Discordance Axis.
These sons of bitches (who actually named themselves Sabotage Organized Barbarian) baked up a musical Twinkie with a fluffy, golden grind cake on the outside with sweet dollops of crossover-style thrashcore on the inside.
Their earlier albums, Where’s the Truth and the Engrish-titled Don’t Be Swindle, remain impossible to find, but Gate of Doom, with classic Ed Repka art, and its follow up are back in print courtesy of Toy’s Factory, securing at least a portion of the band’s immense legacy.
No less a luminary than Lee Dorian has said Napalm Death even swiped some of that band’s early riffs while writing for the immortal From Enslavement to Obliteration. Discordance Axis vocalist Jon Chang has also listed Gate of Doom as one of the bands that inspired the New Jersey grindsters’ writing.
Frontman Yoshitomo “Tottsuan” Suzuki recorded one more album with the band, Vicious World in 1994, but the next year he killed himself by jumping in front of a train.
The band soldiered on, recruiting grindcore royalty Dorian, Kevin Sharp and Shane Embury to plug lineup holes from time to time. However, later albums increasingly shed the grind aspects in favor of experimental hardcore.
Despite the loss of Suzuki and the band’s stylistic pilgrimage, S.O.B. already marked their spots as the gatekeepers of grindcore.