The Namesake Series: “Cleptocracy”

I’ve been re-reading Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli’s brilliant and prescient DMZ comics lately. It makes me think a lot about the conditions that could lead to a second American civil war. A war-weary public feel like they’re about to be railroaded into yet another military intervention in the Middle East without any clear understanding of the goal or strategic necessity. Whackaloons are talking about secession because they lost a democratic election. Congress is so broke that it can’t even come together to accomplish the most basic requirements of governing. There’s something in the air that Brian Wood could see coming nearly a decade ago. People left, right and center have this vague, undefined feeling that forces just out of sight and beyond their control have taken over the levers of power, a quiet coup by the kleptocracy.
Astute grinders sensed it coming as well. Texas libertarians Kill the Client dedicated a whole album to the concept way back in 2008.



Freedom-loving Ron Paul aficionado Champ Morgan launches a revolutionary diatribe, exhorting people to rise up against the plutocrats who have used their wealth and influence to tilt the economic playing field against Joe Sixpack who’s just trying to cover a mortgage and keep the kids in school. It’s the frustrated cry of the bewildered workaday office drone who never got a fair shake. Kill the Client aren’t calling for a huge societal upheaval. They just want the rules to be square for everyone.



Hailing from the opposite end of the political spectrum, Jan Frederickx and crew appropriated the language of Karl Marx when they called out the kleptocrats on Agathocles’ 2010 effort This is Not a Threat, It’s a Promise. Frederickx exhorts “Comrades of all nations [to] kick back capitalist domination.”
Two bands with almost diametrically opposed political ideologies keyed in on the same sense of frustration with the way the modern economy is unforgivably gamed to the benefit of the already rich. Same diagnosis but different prescriptions. However, it gives you the sense that maybe something is brewing among the disaffected masses of wage slaves who lack the clout to force their elected representatives to act in their constituents’ interest. So maybe next time somebody warns you about a redneck uprising in Helena, Montana, you better pay attention.

Panic! At the Discography: Agathocles

Agathocles
Mincecore History 1985-1990
Mincecore History 1989-1993
Mincecore History 1993-1996
Selfmadegod
2001
The fact that I enjoy Agathcoles as much as I do – which is more than is probably healthy – comes despite – not because – of the fact that I own three of band’s four discography collections courtesy of Selfmadegod. When I said the discography is probably worst blight inflicted upon grindcore, these are exactly the albums I had in mind.
The Belgians are the king of the split, which is great because a little Agathocles can often go a really long way. So being hit upside the head with 40 or 50 poorly produced tracks from the band’s various splits and comp appearances is exhausting, wearying and aggravating. In their original format as one off 7-inches, these songs would pass without comment and quite a few would rule hard. But being bludgeoned relentlessly by – let’s be honest here – interminably identical songs of often questionable quality does not do the band proud.
Packaging-wise, the normally awesome Selfmadegod simply collects the material onto a single disc. There’s no liner notes from band mainstay Jan Frederickx illuminating the band’s various travails, revolving membership or at least highlighting bits and pieces of the songs and spoken word bits. Instead each album treats us to the same career discography that was probably woefully out of date by the time it was sent to the printer. For a band whose back catalog is as deep and varied as Agathocles', context is not a luxury for these kinds of collections; it's a necessity.
This is exactly what bothers me about a lot of discographies. Collecting 75 minutes of material (in triplicate) is enough to test the most ardent grind fan’s patience, so I expect discographies, especially if I’m shelling out for a physical copy, to go the extra step and offer me something that places the music in some sort of perspective. Discographies should be more than a collection of disparate music; they should illuminate either the band or their moment in history. To simply shovel songs onto an album just doesn’t cut it. Discographies done right can often serve as an excellent gateway into a band that maybe you haven’t explored before. But if you are new to Agathocles and interested in the legendary Belgians, I can’t imagine a worse introduction. Go grab pretty much any split or full length at random. These are for the hardcore record collector nerds only.

Reggae-core: Agathocles

Agathocles
This is Not a Threat, It’s a Promise
Selfmadegod
Agathocles not only groove out to reggae’s lackadaisical lope, but the mincecore institution manages to do it while paying homage to Belgian fastcore unit Ronald Ruck’s anti-Lacoste jam “God Save the Real Green Crocodile” as they slouch along like the Bad Brains on simmer. Jan Frederickx’s accent even sounds vaguely Jamaican as the song drifts from punk romp to reggae slide.

Agathocles – “God Save the Real Green Crocodile”

Unforgiveably comma spliced though it may be, This is Not a Threat, It’s a Promise finds the Flemish institution stretching the proverbial legs a little, limbering up the hamstrings and working out the old anterior cruciate ligament in the name of grind, punk, hardcore, reggae and even some noisy Neurosis clash on the abrading “Motherfucker (Swing That Axe).” It’s all tied together by mainstay Jan Frederickx’s distinctive snarl. For those who prefer their Agathocles more traditional, “Aside” rides a dive bombing whine while “Bits and Chips” could easily be the twin of Grind is Protest’s “Ministry of Arms.” Hey, let’s see you write a bazillion songs without recycling an idea or two.
At this point do you really need another Agathocles record? Probably not, but if you’re in the mood, This is Not a Threat, It’s a Promise is one of the band’s more well rounded collections of music. A quarter century on, the band can still surprise.

Grindcore Bracketology: The 1-8 Matchups

Let round one of the great grindcore faceoff begin. Bring on your best arguments. Winners will be announced next week. You can view the full bracket here. Have at it.

North America
Pig Destroyer (1) vs. Phobia (8)
Though my enjoyment of Pig Destroyer has decreased slightly with every album after Prowler in the Yard, I can’t deny they’re still the most beastly and brutal band working in grind. Scott Hull’s riffs and production are consistently huge, a looming mugger crowding you in a dark alley on the wrong side of town at the worst possible time. And that’s before J.R. Hayes’ emotional violence seethes through lyrics about murder, suicide, emotional abuse and love gone horribly wrong. Fantastic drumming and the recent addition of full time electronics artist Blake Harrison only add to the exquisite torture.
Phobia are grindcore lifers. Part of that second wave that took what Napalm Death and Terrorizer had inspired, the tandem of Shane McLachlan and Steve Burda, regardless of supporting cast, have bashed out a consistent brew of no frills punk-inspired grind. Phobia have always given off the vibe of a band that doesn’t give a fuck whether it's playing in front of a club full of a 800 or a basement show with 12 people in the audience. More of a crust punk band in their infancy, Phobia have evolved into more of a traditional grind as they’ve aged, but their spit and fury have remained unchanged.

Asia and Australia
Wormrot (1) vs. Captain Cleanoff (8)
By now you should be fairly familiar with my thoughts on Wormrot: They kick your favorite band’s ass. The Singapore trio doesn’t waste time trying to reinvent the grindcore wheel so much as reinvigorate it with a streamlined, savage take on the sound that crosses straight ahead aggression with thrashtastic riffing and an unhinged energy. If they had never recorded another note beyond Abuse, that would easily stand as the post-millennial equivalent of Horrified, but the band has Earache’s backing now and their next album won’t find them positioned as upstart outsiders but rather as leaders of a new generation of grinders.
Wormrot square off with Captain Cleanoff, the clear people’s choice for this matchup. The long running Aussies dropped their Carcass-mocking first album in 2008 and people are still talking about it today. Mixing up groove with their grind and adding Bill Steer-ish soloing, Captain Cleanoff are staunchly planted in the past. Like Wormrot (but paying homage to different influences) the band doesn’t advance grindcore so much as hit all the right notes very hard and very quickly.

Scandinavia
Rotten Sound (1) vs. Infanticide (8)
The Scandinavian bracket could just as easily been the Sweden bracket because that country seems to have a grindcore factory tucked away among its fjords. Except across the eastern border Rotten Sound have planted the flag for Finn-core, a rampaging romp of Nasum-quality blasting that centers around that rarest of avi: actual grindcore songs. Armed with a batch of songs mostly titled with a single word, Rotten Sound are a grinding machine, mechanistically beating out high quality noise with a frequency and quality that’s outright stunning 17 years on.
Paired with Rotten Sound quintessence of grind is Sweden’s Infanticide who lard their blasts with a layer of death metal. Just as comfortable working at lower RPMs as they are with blastbeats, Infanticide are part of a new crop of bands that challenge our notions of what grindcore should be. Infanticide’s music is just as likely to reference Entombed and Bolt Thrower as it is Unseen Terror and Brutal Truth. Grind thrives on self-imposed limitations, but Infanticide don’t so much think outside of the box as pop the lid on it and take a look at what the rest of the world is up to.

Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Napalm Death (1) vs. Agathocles (8)
You can’t have a conversation about grindcore without Napalm Death’s name popping up. The band, through its various incarnations, has pooped out some of the most essential noise the scene has seen. However, for this discussion, you’re limited to the current Greenway/Embury/Harris/Herrera lineup (discussions of Pintado’s contribution will be allowed). Argumentum ad Scum-um is verboten. With an entirely new cast from their glory days and playing a style that eschews straight noisy punk for a casserole of punk, grind, death, crust and thrash, Napalm Death are still innovators and are at once instantly recognizable.
Just as geriatric, if not always as widely lauded, as Napalm Death, Belgium’s Agathocles are probably better known for their colossal back catalogue than they are for the music that comprises it. Led by pivot Jan Frederickx, since 1985 the band has been banging out a punked out brew of anarchistic grind that’s grown even more jaundiced with age. Like Phobia on the left side of the Atlantic, Agathocles are the kind of band that will play a show or split a 7-inch with anybody, anytime anywhere. And it’s a measure of the band’s esteem that sharing wax with them is still considered a rite of passage for many a young grind band a quarter century later.

Grind in Rewind 2009: The Legacy League

Is it just me or has then been a fairly crappy year for punk and hardcore? Given that the pickings are so slim (and that I’ve yet to pick up the new BBTS, Weekend Nachos or Converge), I’m going to crown Wolfbrigade as this year’s prom queen and move on with a special jury prize going to Infernal Stronghold for their frost encrusted... umm ... crust. So in lieu of a d-beat retrospective and before we get to the real countdown, I decided to take a moment out to recognize the geezers of grind: those legacy bands that have been kicking around with greater and lesser degrees of success and decided to either reunite or just drop a new album in 2009.

5. Agathocles
Grind is Protest
Dis-Order
In a vain attempt to give the jingoistic hysteria and reflexive racism that characterized post-war American conservatism a patina of intellectual sheen, William F. Buckley wrote in the mission statement to his magazine National Review that the conservative was the person who “stands athwart history, yelling Stop.” Agathocles are the very kind of unrepentant liberal agitators that drove Buckley up the wall, but their music is the living embodiment of Buckley’s sentiments. The Belgians stand athwart musical history somewhere around 1989 yelling “Stop!” Grind is Protest is is largely indistinguishable from prior output from the band, and that’s just how they intend it. Mainstay Jan Frederickx has switched from bass to guitar and while some of his riffs may not flow as smoothly as past six stringers, the sincerity of conviction is the same. This may not be Frederickx’s Jericho moment, but it sure sounds like the thinks he can “tear down the walls of the ministries of arms” through grindcore alone.

4. Agoraphobic Nosebleed
Agorapocalypse
Relapse
Sure, ANb is not quite as legacy as some of those on this list, but with Anal Cunt, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Pig Destroyer, Japanese Torture Comedy Hour and solo work, it seems like Scott Hull has been a vital grind force since time immemorial. And dude is not done pitching curve balls to the slavering masses. Ditto ex-Enemy Soil/current Drugs of Faith mainman Richard Johnson. The lightbulb moment for Agorapocalypse came not when I was listening to the album itself. Rather I was spinning ANb’s cover of C.O.C.’s “Hungry Child” from the Bestial Machinery collection when it struck me: with the longer songs and slower tempos, ANb had just made an electro-crossover record. It was a clever move from cagey veterans who have pretty much defined extremity for grindcore for the last decade. The only thing that really held Agorapocalypse back from ruling my year was the staggering decline in the humor (though I missed the best joke on the album the first go-round). While the split with The Endless Blockade shows J. Randall’s id can be just as twistedly illuminating as ever, it seems like the band took advantage of new singer Katherine Katz and her spare X chromosome to wallow in misogynistic humor with the convenient “hey but we have a woman singer” excuse (close cousin of the “I have black friends” defense). It was an annoying step backwards from a normally stellar band, but one that feels temporary.

3. Extreme Noise Terror
Law of Retaliation
Deepsix/Osmose
Extreme Noise Terror’s latest slab o’ grindy goodness is a lot like reuniting with a beloved old friend you haven’t seen in ages. While your relationship may have warped during the years of absence and a lot of those stories are starting to blur and sound the same, there’s a convivial familiarity that glosses over those lapses. That’s what frontman Phil Vane brought to the British bastards with his return to the fold. After about a decade of wandering through the metal wilderness (what is it with British grind bands and the need to expand their horizons halfway through their careers?) Extreme Noise Terror locked and loaded more than half an hour of tooth chipping grindcore that may not quite reach their teen angst inception but recalls all those good times you used to have. Sure, your long lost college friend may crash through your coffee table and maybe he’ll miss the can when pukes in your bathroom, but it’s all cool. You’ve got history.

2. Napalm Death
Time Waits for No Slave
Century Media
Napalm Death jettisoned the annoying cameos and noodling experiments that slowly creeped back into their repertoire since signing with Century Media on 13th studio album Time Waits for No Slave, but for all that the album still felt a tad slower less vital than predecessor Smear Campaign. But that’s a relative measure because these Birmingham bastards could write a grind album that slays most comers on their way to breakfast. While Time Waits for No Slave may have dragged in spots, it still feels momentous and even transitional for a band that’s worn many masks through its various incarnations. The flashes of Amebix and even Voivod that have peeked around corners on previous albums have been given free rein on Time Waits for No Slave, the band’s most successful experiment since Fear, Emptiness, Despair. That the lineup of Greenway/Harris/Embury/Herrera, which has been together for nearly two decades, can still find ways to innovate and experiment in a field as self-restricting as grindcore is a welcome cementing of their hard earned pride of place.

1. Brutal Truth
Evolution Through Revolution
Relapse
There’s a manic, anarchic energy to Brutal Truth’s triumphant victory lap Evolution Through Revolution. It’s as though the Marx Brothers decided to record a grindcore album. It’s a sense of chaos I’ve never really associated with the New York band. For all their far flung experimenting and gallivants to musical extremes, their performance as tightly focused as though they had a need to control (see what I did there?) their surroundings. But Evolution Through Revolution brings the same anarchic body bomb assault that drummer Rich Hoax has been exorcising with Total Fucking Destruction. Don’t discount the introduction of Rochester fixture Erik Burke either. Not too many guitarists could fill Gurn’s pick hand but Burke has been bringing the weird for more than a decade first with Lethargy and then with Sulaco (with a detour to drum for Kalibas between). A pioneering press past what we previously thought was grindcore’s frontier, Evolution Through Revolution is pretty much a masterpiece from a band that’s got an album or two already worthy of the title.

My Name is Legion, For We are Many

As if defining grindcore weren’t a confounding enough task, there’s a subset of practitioners such as Spoonful of Vicodin that seem determined to set themselves apart from their peers and colleagues by inventing a micro-genre they can solely inhabit. Is being a humble grind band that bad? Join me on a trip through grind’s far-flung and constantly evolving nomenclature.

Grindcore
Napalm Death
Scum
Earache
1987

Rotcore
Spoonful of Vicodin
Rotcore
Bones Brigade
2009

Mincecore
Agathocles
Grind is Protest
Dis-Order
2009

Darkness Grind
324
Rebelgrind
HG:Fact
2006

Northern Hyperblast
Kataklysm
The Mystical Gate of Reincarnation
Nuclear Blast
1993

Panzergrind
F.A.M.
Bullet(in)
Scrotum Jus
2007

G&P review: Agathocles

Agathocles
Grind is Protest
Dis-Order
There are plenty of grind bands who have reached the pantheon of metal’s elite sans bass player, but it’s refreshing to hear an album like Grind is Protest that not only appreciates what four strings can bring to the fold but actively shoves them to the forefront of the mix, bludgeoning the listener with a cacophonous barrage of low end punishment.
I hope Phobia is taking copious notes because Grind is Protest is everything 22 Random Acts of Violence should have been: a gasping, relentless, bass-heavy assault on the senses with all of the subtlety of a ball peen hammer to the back of the skull in a blind alley after a night of ill advised boozing.
The mincecore is mincing and the blastbeats snap along with that same tinny snare tone I’ve come to associate with Agathocles and St. Anger. But cutting through the mix is the bass: every single strum and thrum is clearly audible. Bassist Tony’s (RIP) four string assaults really drive Grind is Protest. On their eleventy-billionth release, Agathocles once again lay into all the usual suspects, fuming and raging against militarism, fascisms and a whole host of other bad –isms with the single-mindedness that’s prerequisite to spending 20 years trying to make a career out of dozens of splits with no name bands on fly by night labels and poorly attended basement shows while giving the finger to niceties like health insurance, rent money and retirement funds. I wish Tony were still here to enjoy it.

G&P review: Agathocles/Torture Incident

Agathocles/Torture Incident
Split
Blastworks Records
A-ha! So this is where the empty Folgers can Lars Ulrich abused in lieu of a snare drum on St. Anger ended up. What sounds like absolute shit on an album that sucked millions of dollars out of the national GDP is perfectly at home anchoring the wonderfully awful production values of this grind twosome’s split.
I decide to snag this album, released way back in January, after learning Agathocles bass player Tony killed himself only to be further depressed to learn the underrated Torture Incident has likely called it a day as well (their MySpace page lists them as R.I.P. and they didn’t respond to my messages looking to confirm that). So there’s a real pall hanging over this meeting of Belgium’s leading blast squad and Malaysia’s fiercest grind dissidents that has nothing to do with the music contained herein.
If you love Agathocles, here’s more of the same. The Belgians have been banging out a delightful racket of straight ahead, crusty as fuck grind for the better part of a quarter century and band fixture Jan Frederickx is not about to tinker with his blue ribbon recipe. Drums blast, guitars scrape incoherently through the demo-quality mix and the modern world’s ills get a stern talking to, Cookie Monster style.
Aside from the slightly better production values (and slight being a relative measure, here), you’d be forgiven if you failed to catch the transition from Agathocles’ 14 lead off tunes to Torture Incident’s closing 12 tracks, which were actually recorded in 2006.
Sounding like Agathocles, Assuck, Anal Cunt and a whole slew of other prime grind bands that don’t start with the letter A, Dick Cheney’s house musicians unleash more of the ripping old school blast beat barrage that characterized their too brief existence, railing against the political and religious oppression of Malaysia, where Islamic rule is the law of the land.
While the songs’ production sounds a tad bit worse than their mini-album The Deadly Efficiency of Napalm, the songwriting and performance are just as tight, hitting and running in under 90 seconds and never overstaying its welcome.
It’s grind at its basic with no surprises lurking, but if you thought Phobia went off the rails with Cruel’s cleaner production, if you have a lo-fi jones that must be fed or if you just want to memorialize a band and a bass player that stayed true to grindcore’s original promise and premise through two decades of upheaval and stylistic changes, then Agathocles and Torture Incident will not disappoint.

Agathocles Addendum: Condolences

So as I do with everyone who was gracious enough to submit themselves to my scattershot interviewing style, I let Agathocles mainstay Jan Frederickx know the story was out, only to get this response a few hours later:

"Last thursday, Tony, our bassplayer, got cremated. He committed suicide last weekend."

If you've got a second, head over to the AG web site and drop those guys a note of support.

Mincing Words: Grind Lifers Agathocles Rule Splitsville

It’s an article of faith in the underground community that if you play in a crusty, punked out grind band, sooner or later you gotta do a split 7” with Agathocles. It’s in the friggen bylaws between black shirts (and the wearing thereof) and smiling (thou shalt not). I’ll wait while you go look it up.
For more than 20 years now the Belgian death squad has relentlessly beat out their own brand of lo-fi, stripped down grind, boasting more than 90 (!!!) split EPs and albums over their seemingly endless career with five more planned this month, according to band honcho Jan Frederickx, the sole fixed point in the ever shifting AG constellation.
Somewhere between King Leopold II’s depredation of the Congo (The horror! The horror!) and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s inexplicably ongoing career, Belgium chose to mitigate those crimes against humanity by birthing and nurturing Frederickx and his rotating band of merry men who have been kicking out killer grind (mince core in the band’s private nomenclature) for two decades.
“Doing split releases is a typical DIY punk thing. Split EP’s exists since the 70’s and some great split vinyl were made in the beginning of the 80’s such as Warfare/Upset Noise split 7”, Declino/Negazione split LP,” Frederickx said. “We like to keep that flame of cooperation alive. We like to share releases with everyone, except with those who promote macho-ism, sexism, snuff and bullshit like that. We shared vinyl with bands from all sorts of music like black metal, grind, ska punk, raw punk, anarcho folk, doom metal.”

Named for a Greek tyrant whose name became a byword for bloody conquest, AG have been banging out a bloody racket for 23 fricken years without the major label cash that has helped contemporaries such as Napalm Death pay the rent.. Instead, Agathocles have hopped from one miniscule label to another, sharing wax with a seemingly endless parade of punk, grind, metal and whatever else bands.
Despite my love of all things blast-beaty, I’ll go ahead and admit I was way late in getting to the Agathocles party simply because I was so overwhelmed by the sheer number of releases these lifers have under their belt. So big thanks to Self Made God for finally having the good sense to collect this band’s innumerable output on a series of Mincecore History discogs a few years ago.
At a time when metal seems to be determined to repeat the worst aspects of the hairspray/thrash bust of the early ’90s when big money flowed easy and bands got lazy, it’s impressive to someone steadfastly stick to a DIY ethic despite the pitfalls.
The term lifer often gets thrown out to describe someone like Lemmy Kilmister who never seems to age and has no intentions of retiring. But it’s pretty easy to be a lifer on a label’s dime.
“Grind is not about being on a big label! It’s totally the opposite,” Frederickx said. “Grind is punk and punk in its true form is DIY, autonomy, creating another way, opposing mainstream. And that’s the way we will always work. I don’t give a shit about big labels and the puppets that are signed to them. GRIND IS PROTEST!”
Which just happens to be the name of AG’s upcoming full length. When will it be out, I ask. “When it’s done,” Frederickx responds. This has been yet another instalment of obvious answers to stupid questions.
Given Agathocles’ fiercely DIY shtick, I ask Frederickx how the intertubes help or hinder a go-it-alone grind band’s attempts to connect with fans in a highly commercialized environment. In response, he sent me back the lyrics to “New (De)Generation” with its shades of Carcass circa “Polarized:”

“I don’t wanna see your face
I don’t wanna know your ‘MySpace’
I don’t wanna get your shirts
Just put all where it hurts”

Dude doesn’t mince words. But just to be safe, nobody show him this.