Blast(beat) from the Past: Defecation

Defecation
Purity Dilution
Nuclear Blast
1989
Defecation is Mitch Harris’ personal Tiktaalik. It’s a transitional fossil that unites the malformed punk of his earliest efforts in Righteous Pigs and the death-grind hybridization of Napalm Death. Harris closed out the ’80s by roping in his brother by another mother, drummer Mick Harris, and the duo churned out Purity Dilution, a tidy little half hour from an era when two and three minute blast fests were not unheard of.
Purity Dilution was a huge step forward for guitar Harris’ songwriting after Righteous Pigs and he has a palpable chemistry with drum Harris (amazing what a drummer who can actually keep the beat will do for you). Given their simpatico and the way Defecation blended their two prior bands, it must have been a real shock for music fans the next year when Napalm Death went full on death metal on Harmony Corruption.
That anomaly aside, Purity Dilution was a distilled dose of Harris’ songwriting sensibilities. There are the familiar riffs that would populate Napalm Death’s third wave albums once Harris and Jesse Pintado settled into the riff duties. “Scrutiny” is one Barney growl away from slotting without notice on Utopia Banished. Even the pastiche  artwork evokes Napalm Death’s sensibilities. Produced by Danny Lilker, Purity Dilution’s warm, low slung chug sounds like a Napalm Death album put through a Bolt Thrower filter.
Mitch Harris played all of the instruments on a second Defecation album in 2003, but part of Purity Dilution’s charm is hearing two Napalm Death conspirators rip out a fun album that has a strong core without the baggage of their bigger band’s name hovering over the project. There’s a looseness and a freedom to the first Defecation record that makes it a charming artifact of a bygone era.

Blast(beat) From the Past: Kalibas

Kalibas
Eyes Forever Red
Howling Bull
2000
One of the themes I tried to develop in Lifetime of Gray Skies is that Anodyne, based on the sheer awesomeness of the bands that were birthed from it, should be regarded as a retroactive supergroup. I think you could slap the same made up monicker on one of Anodyne's contemporaries as well, Kalibas. Grok a lineup that includes Jody Roberts (Kill the Client) and Erik Burke (Lethargy, Nuclear Assault, Sulaco, Brutal Truth) who made the jump to drums. The star power would only get amped up on subsequent albums after they jumped to Willowtip, establishing the lablel's technically proficient death metal aesthetic in the process, and added Aaron Nichols (Defeatist) to the kill crew. How's that for one of the finest bands of musical miscreants you're ever likely to come across?
And Kalibas, for my money, were never tighter or grindier than on their four song debut 7-inch Eyes Forever Red.  With only four songs in the offing, Kalibas nevertheless flashed a wide array of attacks that teased what would be  coming on subsequent albums. They dropped probably my favorite Kalibas song right at the start with "Masticate." It buzzes and swarms, swirling and stinging from every direction at once in unrelenting waves of pointed guitars and strangled screams. The false respite of its stick in the mud middle passage just sets you up for another savage beating. Kalibas just layer on the torture from there with the thistle-shaped pinched harmonics of "Semantic Insanity" and the intergalactic goofballery of "All of Japa's" tech death opening, which serves as Silver Surfer to PSUDOKU's world eating Galactus insanity.
Kalibas were one of those bands loaded for grizzly from the outset and they only upgraded their armory with every subsequent release. A lot of these songs would get another working over on their debut full length Product of Hard Living, but I think I prefer these earlier versions. Nobody ever accused Kalibas of succumbing to the allure of sheeny shiny production, but there's a wonderful low budget grit to this four-pack of songs that introduced a very cool band that flew under too many radars.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Backslider

Backslider
Backslider
To Live a Lie
2010
By now you've probably heard me mention Backslider a few times as an up and comer you need to watch closely, but I've belatedly realized I've never given them their proper due with a post of their own. Please allow me to rectify that egregious oversight.
This Philly duo staked their claim to incipient grindcore mastery right out the gate with their 2010 eponymous 7-inch. It's 13 songs of crustified, hardcore-inflected grind that puts them in good stead with contemporaries Amputee and Cellgraft at the crest of the recent wave of no bullshit, no frills, head down grind. It's like Insect Warfare's all too brief run was a system shock to young grindcore bands who picked up the torch and started blasting away at their own breed of devastating material. Where some of their peers owe deep and obvious debts to the glory of the Assuck back catalog, Backslider bring in just enough of a hardcore vibe--especially the barking vocals and micro-breakdowns that litter their songs--to give them a unique voice in their particular microgenre. When Backslider do cool things out, like on "Encroachment," the stillness is like that ominous moment when that normally chill dude you know who never really bothers anyone finally stirs himself and delivers a richly deserved ass-beating.
But there's really no point in getting too wrapped up in taxonomy and critical analysis because it's best to kick back and let Backslider's confrontational aggression get up in your face. I dare you to talk back.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Cyborg

Cyborg
Cyborg
Deep Six
2011
If you are a hardworking, blue collar member of Weekend Nachos and you just got home after punching out from your double shift at the local power violence factory pressing out jam after killer jam, just how do you work out the day's frustrations? Why, you crack the frosty beverage of your choice, start up a kickass side project and bless with world with even more power violence. That's the Cyborg story in a nutshell.
While there is nothing here that will shock fans of the members' day job, Cyborg's nine songs nudge away from Weekend Nacho's junior Man in the Bastard glower to copiously pilfer from all velocities of the Siege canon (particularly "Grim Reaper's" slow motion misery--no saxophone, though). What makes Cyborg especially interesting is the way the flip the script on the hoary punk and grind trope of starting a song all slow and blasting away to the finish. Instead, these more machine than men power mongers love to kick your teeth in from the handshake and then double foot the brakes to slowly loom over your bleeding body to gloat over the damage at the end. When they crank things down, the elephantine heaviness of the bass just rumbles over the scene like a breaking thunderstorm on a windswept plain. It's a small stylistic tic, but it's enough to jolt some freshness into a 20 year old style.
And Cyborg have certainly drunk deep of hardcore's storied history because they spend most of the EP's runtime pissing all over its treasured conventions. They rant about being that guy with no interest in drinking or drugs but who really hates those preachy straight edge assholes ("Pointless Rant" -- and boy can I relate to that one), obnoxious vegans who lord their imaginary superiority over you ("90's Song") and tatted up dickbags who like to pose and preen and bully others at shows ("Tough Love"). All of that and the definitive word on limeade's superiority to lemonade.
Cyborg is that rare side project I think I actually like more than the regular band.

Blast(beat) From the Past: Exit Strategy

Exit Strategy
United State of Amnesia
Self Released
2008
Now I don't need some smug-ass Canuckle-head talking shit about the United States' backasswards invasion of Iraq just because their government had the good sense to politely decline their invitation to the Coalition of the Willing. If they lack the sack, then they can just go back to their socialized death panel health care system, their polite neighbors and a homicide rate only a third of America's. USA! USA! USA!
But I'll let my patriotic fervor pass when America's 51st state is handing out death-grind as good as Alberta's Exit Strategy. The quartet cluster bomb what's left of the United States' Bush-era dignity with nine death-grind cruise missiles in 37 minutes. Exit Strategy stitch together the best parts of Circle of Dead Children's glower and the doodlee-deedlee riffsplosions of Decapitated. Every so often they dredge up a smidgen of Burnt by the Sun playfulness or the occasional nod to Dying Fetus just to keep things interesting. Though their songs inherited their girth from the death metal side of the family (they're consistently in the three to four minute range, for all you ADHD types), they never seem to drag or lose pace. Instead, Exit Strategy constantly introduce a twisted bit of riffery or a kamikaze scream to keep your attention focused. They're not without the occasional misstep ("The Hand of Victory Holds the Pen of History" veers dangerously close to br00tal slamz territory before the blastbeats slash back in), but on the balance Exit Strategy keep the ship upright even if they're sticking pretty close to their forefathers' playbooks.
Now the snarky asshole American in me might want to know why a quartet of Canadians is so obsessed with the United States' international malfeasance (I'd suggest taking a look at your country's odious hate speech laws one day), but I also can't deny that many of their critiques are also spot on. "Just?" appropriates the pledge of allegiance, holding it up like a perverse funhouse mirror that throws into sharp relief the gulf between America's lofty rhetoric on freedom and human rights and its often compromised implementation.  While large chunks of United State of Amnesia seem to be frozen in the amber of a bygone era of hubristic mission accomplished banners and unknown unknowns, when you remember the current Hoper and Changer in Chief has arrogated the power to kill American citizens with virtually no judicial oversight, then suddenly Exit Strategy's criticisms don't seem so dated. Or so funny.

Blast(beat) From the Past: Attack of the Mad Axeman

"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. Our labour tills the soil, our dung fertilizes it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin."

George Orwell
Animal Farm
1956

Attack of the Mad Axeman
Systematic Death Slaughter
RSR Records
2011
We could probably argue ad infinitum about the desirability, artistic merit, cultural implications and ironic intentions behind a grindcore cover of "Who Let the Dogs Out" (yes, that "Who Let the Dogs Out"), but, accepting as a baseline the infinite monkeys model of the multiverse, it was bound to happen. Inevitable even. So with that as a precondition, who better to tackle that questionable bit of grindcore infamy than Germany's Attack of the Mad Axeman. So yes, a grindcore version of "Who Let the Dogs Out" does exist, Attack of the Mad Axeman did include it on latest album Systematic Death Slaughter and it took me a good half dozen listens before I even realized what those while blastbeat furries had done. So all in all, it's about the best outcome that we could all hope for from the situation.
I must be slipping because Attack of the Mad Axeman managed to slip their third album past me late last year and I'm pissed because it's another corker. Like an old fashioned spring-driven clock wound too tight, Systematic Death Slaughter is permanently poised on that cusp where the tension becomes too much and various gears and clockworks go exploding into temporal shrapnel. But they deny you that combustible release. Instead, they keep you on your tiptoes the entire 20 minute runtime.
Otherwise Axeman's lyrical preoccupations remain unchanged, launching with the mauled by bears tale of Timothy Treadwell (he of Grizzly Man ... fame [is that really the right word?]) with "Don't Mess with Mr. Chocolate." From there Systematic Death Slaughter is all anti-Disneyfied tales of animal uprisings, Knut the bear, survivalist revolutionaries and other stories of chattering beasts. Sonically, Systematic Death Slaughter represents a further refinement from Scumdogs of the Forest, but Attack of the Mad Axeman still err on the side of the grim and grisly. Two legs bad; four legs grind.

Blast(beat) From the Past: Orthrelm

And bit by bit I add to this photo the new scenery I keep seeing, and finally in the photo I have people talking and singing and moving around, right? You know, I have them moving around. And then every time, you know, every time, it gets like this huge sort of palace, there’s this thing like a palace in my head, with lots of people getting together and doing lots of things.
Then it’s really fun to finish this palace and look inside, just like looking down at earth from above the clouds, because there’s everything there, everything in the world. All kinds of people talking different languages, and the pillars in the palace are made in lots of different styles, and food from everywhere in the world is all laid out.
It’s so much bigger and more detailed than something like a movie set. There’s all kinds of people, really all kinds of people. Blind men and beggars and cripples and clowns and dwarfs, cannibals and blacks in drag and prima donnas and matadors and body-builders, and nomads praying in the desert – they’re all there and doing something. And I watch them.
The palace is always by the sea and it’s just beautiful, my palace is.

Ryu Murakami
Almost Transparent Blue
1976

Orthrelm
OV
Ipecac
2005
Notions of being good, bad or merely intelligible as a musical experience become increasingly quaint and irrelevant as Orthrelm shred their way through all 45 minutes of OV, a single-song album that is less an expression of artistic invention than it is an instrumental decathlon that tests the limits of both performers' abilities and listeners' patience. And that comes from a band whose prior EP, Asristir Vieldriox, is a 13 minute, 99 song affair that makes Agoraphobic Nosebleed Hulk green with jealously.
Tech metal whatsis duo guitarist Mick Barr and drummer Josh Blair capture the space debris left orbiting the event horizon after Voivod slid into the greedy maw of the black hole. This is the nightmare lullaby that rocks blind idiot god Azazathoth to sleep as he gnaws on your sanity in the blasted gulfs between time and space.
Barr's bloody fingers shred out an endless parade of short, shrill riffs. He just finds a spot on the upper part of his fretboard and picks and prods at it, playing with riffs like a cat with cockroach until he's bored. Then he bounds off to another riff shape, mutating the music into strange new effigies. Behind him, Blair doesn't blast. Instead the iron-thewed percussionist keeps up nearly 45 minutes of continuous surf rock drum rolls that swell and crest underneath the maelstrom riffing, punctuating the mayhem. While Barr's performance is rightly the insane highlight of the whole affair, don't overlook Blair's contribution either.
Constructing OV must have been a studio nightmare, a logistic perdition, but the end result is the kind of album that puts smiles on the faces of people who think GridLink shreds too goddamned slow. OV is not an album I'm sure I enjoy as music (or if such a thing is even possible). However, it's something that, if you fancy extremity, must be experienced. The album's interior art features an insanely intricate hand-drawn maze. I couldn't think of a better metaphor for Orthrelm's music.
OV is available in its entirety on YouTube if you're up to the challenge.

Blast(beat) from the Past: SMG/Carcass Grinder

SMG/Carcass Grinder
Split Tape
Revulsion
2010
Mieszko Talarczyk was not only Nasum's soul and principle songwriter, but he was also a studio wizard whose work drastically advanced the sonic form of grindcore, introducing bigger, punchier sounds. Talarczyk's studio work bolstered not only his band's sound, but gave full life to albums by Rotten Sound, Disfear and Expose Your Hate.
That's all well and good, but sometimes the shitty, tinny, punky sounding albums scratch that grinding itch better than the most pristine, big budget record. That's where albums like this 2010 split between Japan's Carcass Grinder and SMG from Malaysia come in. Each side of this cassette sounds like the bands skipped fineries like tuning and checking sound levels. Instead they set up in a big room in a cut rate studio, plugged in and just banged their shit the fuck out.
Carcass Grinder's side is so raw you can hear the amp humming in the background when the instruments cut out. It's a great trick because the guitar, itself, is completely buried under an avalanche of blown out, pounding snare and face first screaming. But it really works against the head-nodding thrash attack of "NFCB" or the Napalm Death-snarking "CG of Power," which may be the best song of the lot, is a staggering cheap shot straight to the jaw that leaves loose teeth and pooling blood in its too brief wake.
SMG are still raw as skinned knees after a skateboard wipeout, but their attack is more balanced. Each instrument stakes out its own space in the tornadic swirl of noise. When I start up a new blog in my next life, I'm totally stealing "Speed Shit Sayonara" for the name. It's just a bonus that it's actually a pretty kickass little song that entropically collapses in on itself in a wash of yowling guitar feedback, slamming shut the door on the album.
There are big name metal bands who probably spent more on catering than these two spend recording the whole album, but I doubt they achieved half the spontaneity and energy to be had here.

[Full disclosure: Revulsion sent me a review copy.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: Bufo

Bufo
Moderni Ja Maailman Tuho
Addiction to War
2008
Form follows function, modern architects will tell you. That means a building's shape should be linked to its purpose. Finnish crustcore hooligans Bufo invert that axiom with their 2008 album Moderni Ja Maailman Tuho (Modernity and the End of the World) because its unique double-7-inch format dictates much of your listening experience. Dividing nine songs over four sides means you'll be flipping wax about every five minutes. That leaves you very little time to do anything else other than concentrate on their Rotten Sound meets Anti Cimex shenanigans and stare at the beautiful, Jesu-style cover art. This is one of those instances where I think any other format would take away from the presentation.
And these princes among grind and crust toads deserve your undivided attention because the trilling punk riff of album opener "Suden Hetki" is a clarion call to arms. By the time the band does that brief pause gag right before erupting into a blastbeat rager you're already thrashing around the room. It's that touch of crust to Bufo's brew that gives the songs time to breathe and flow and circle back about themselves (that awesome riff from "Suden Hekti" makes more than one appearance). It really gives the impression these guys have put some serious thought into their tuneage, and Moderni Ja Maailman Tuho is packed with those little touch moments like the bass isolation on "Silpouteneita Raajoja," the filigree flair of "!Reclama!," or the fact that the mics catch the sound of the drummer setting down his drum sticks at the end of close out anthem "Tama Vie Helvettiin." That close out song, a case of longest song of the album goes last (mitigated somewhat by getting its own side of a record) is a great exclamation point on the package as it lassos an implacably moving mid-paced riff, suddenly explodes into fretboard gymnastics and then chases the exuberance with a chill out coda that eases your way out of the album.
Not everything goes so smoothly (the two songs on side C are completely forgettable), but Bufo do enough right to warrant a listen. The cocksure swagger and cock rock solos are a helpful reminder that Anti Cimex's gutter glam posing wasn't too far removed from the same Sunset Strip style they so disdained.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Bloody Phoenix

Bloody Phoenix
Death to Everyone
625 Thrash
2010
A spunky epigeneticist looking for an inside track on next year's Nobel Prize could throw the competition a curveball by sequencing drummer Michael Rarubin's DNA. Cuz I'm pretty sure dude is toting an extra arm tucked somewhere on his body or some other drumming-related mutation. That's the only reasonable explanation I can see for a guy who can roll a snare drum and smash a cymbal at the same time.
And Death to Everyone, Bloody Phoenix's second album (which eluded me all through 2010) is Rarubin's time to shine as he dominates songs like "No Conscience," which makes the case that maybe the dude's name should pop up in casual conversation more often when you're bandying around the best drummers in grindcore.
Not that the rest of the quartet is phoning it in. Two decades into a career that started with Excruciating Terror, I was floored to see Jerry Flores mix up the deck by stirring in bits of Neurosis, d-beat, Today is the Day and even some Killing Joke to his repertoire. The confluence makes this probably the strongest album in his unfuckwithable career. "Mast of Deception" is practically uplifting for all of its violence as it twines its way up an escalator guitar riff akin to Napalm Death's "When All is Said and Done."
Quivering vocal cord delivery system Aaron Ramos gets his Steve Austin on with the closing, eponymous song as he rants about the death of god with a single-mindedness you'd expect from one of Today is the Day's more violent revenge tracks.
This may have slipped through my fingers last year, but it's never too late to pay Bloody Phoenix their proper respect.

Blast(beat) from the Past: AmTerrorXp

AmTerrorXP
Audible Animism
Self Released
2008
A psychedelic Godzilla on the cover and music awash in hip-hop accoutrements may unearth long-repressed memories of Denver the Last Dinosaur for many of you in the right demographic. Somehow Cephalochromoscope's very own Orfee and his comrade in grind pile all that and a shitload of other pop culture detritus in a Cuisinart and punch liquefy under the guise of AmTerrorXP (aka American Terrorism Experience, as if a couple of overly polite snowbacks can tell good old Americans about terror. What do they know about American Exceptionalism, hmmm? USA! USA! USA!). The insane smoothie they pour out is a blend of Asterisk* introspection and early Agoraphobic Nosebleed insanity (Zmaj went with 324, Discordance Axis and Swarrrm, if that helps). The guitars bite and snarl with a lovely mid-range crunch, forming the foundation for the attendant blasting and screaming.
The Canuckleheads' audio chop shop rips parts from disparate bits of Godzilla, Dracula, hip hop and '60s pop. With all that going on, the songs themselves can occasionally get lost in a mish-mash. However, when the seconds-long bursts of audio shrapnel do hit, they snap and snarl with impressive dexterity and focus. They're good enough that I wish the duo would have left off all the heaps of frosting so I can enjoy the spongey cakey goodness inside. A straight up album of their spastic flechette grind would kick you a new ice hole.
If I've piqued your interest, you can get your own hot little hands on this one over at Cephalochromoscope.

[Full disclosure: Orfee sent me a copy.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: Nuclear Winter

Nuclear Winter
Abomination Virginborn
Blastbeat Mailmurder
2003
Greek duo Nuclear Winter sound like they’ve been slinking up the same left hand path and chanting the same ultimate incantations that have long driven Entombed and Vader on this 7-inch of old style death murkiness. Another shoot growing off the StraightHate/Dephosphorus family tree, Nuclear Winter paid tribute to the past masters of dismal death over the course of three songs.
Unlike a lot of death metal, which insists on unremitting brutality and technical acumen, Nuclear Winter recognized that atmosphere was often a more important component. The band is perfectly comfortable cranking along at cruising speeds with the top down, enjoying the feel of the wind in their hair. They up the tempo to an organic blastbeat only as an accent rather than the spine of the song. That means they rely on the authentically charnel old school guitar tones to carry the songs. However, there’s a thinness that make the lack of a second guitar or bass palpable. With the added texture additional instrumentation would have provided, these three songs would really crush. But Nuclear Winter make do with what they have available. There are no drum triggers, the blastbeats sound human, the riffs chainsaw, the art is suitably Hellhammered and the guitars are full of those pinched squealy sounds. This is death metal the way I remember it.

[Full disclosure: Blastbeat Mailmurder sent me a review copy.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: Insane Assholes

Insane Assholes
Grindzilla
Subordinate
2005
If Fallout: New Vegas has taught me nothing else, and I have no cause to doubt the veracity of its prophecy, I know the post-apocalyptic West will be overrun by gangs whose dedication to a costume theme would do The Warriors proud. Among the uniformed thugs will be a bunch of Elvis-worshipping hoodlums running around dressed as Jailhouse Rock extras, and I’m guessing they may trace their genesis to Insane Asshole’s Grindzilla.
I have the anonymous commenter on the Letter G mixtape to thank for turning me on to Italy’s not-Cripple-Bastards grindcore exports Insane Assholes, a playful amalgam of expected grind and unexpected straight up old timey rock.
The lip curling Elvis attitude and pelvic gyrations bring a welcome flair, but don’t let that fool you into thinking Insane Assholes wander too far off the grindcore nature preserve. This is an album that manages to violate both the Grindcore for Dummies and Sound the Alarm rules before you crack the introduction, but when they hit that sweet spot, Insane Assholes are a joking blending of bad Evil Dead references and other B movie detritus that justifies their retarded name. “You Make Me a Monster” and “L’Infero Di Ash” rock a delicious burr to their guitars, liked a six stringed Scottish brogue run through a screaming tube amp, divebombing around Dino with rabies screeching.
Insane Assholes are not afraid to allot two or three minutes to a song, letting it expand and stretch out like my lazy ass cat on the white velvet couch I just spent an hour de-furring. But sometimes that indulgence conspires against Grindzilla. In fact, at 29 songs and 42 minutes, a little Insane Assholes goes a really, really long way. Especially the six minute plod of “La Fine,” which fakes a bad Black Sabbath groove and rides it to death.
While the rock 'n' roll swing is a surprise treat, there is not going to be much else that will catch a cagey grind aficionado unawares. However, taken in small doses, Grindzilla can be a thrill.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Mumakil

Mumakil
The Stop Whining EP
Blastbeat Mailmurder
2006
Ponder the following analogy, if you will:

The Stop Whining EP: Customized Warfare :: Obscured By Clouds: Dark Side of the Moon.

Not only is Mumakil’s awesomely titled debut slab o’wax, The Stop Whining EP, one of the best named releases ever conceived, it is a near-perfect dry run of the subsequent grindcore smartbomb, Customized Warfare. Plus song titles (for the most part)! Early on it bears all the hallmarks of the band’s later development into a Euro-grind powerhouse.
This artifact from the Swiss Misters’ Neolithic past is carved from 12 giant blocks of super-dense granite grind that lacks the rounded edges of niceties of some of their later efforts. In fact, it sounds a tad like Circle of Dead Children’s pigsquealed death/grind brawl in spots. From the very first, Mumakil were compositionally gifted. “Tavernik Growl” bucks a groove like a pony that’s never been broken to the saddle. It paces and lopes with a rush of exhilaration and combative attitude.
However, Mumakil were still a young band and there was the occasional misstep. “Breu Breu,” which kicks off the second side is a thudding dud that threatens to bring the whole EP to a dead stop. It’s a poorly thought out doorstop of a tune that mopes in place without going anywhere in particular. But those are exactly the kind of growing pains to be expected before a band hits it stride. They got all of that out of their system before hitting the studio for Customized Warfare. So, if Behold the Failure wasn’t your thing, stop yer damn whining and give Mumakil’s earliest efforts a spin.

[Full disclosure: Blastbeat Mailmurder sent me a review copy.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: Forgardur Helvitis

There was a man by the name of Thorvarld who was the son of Asvald Ulfsson. Thorvald’s son was called Eirik the Red, and both father and son left Jadri in Norway for Iceland because of some killings.

The Saga of Eirik the Red
Circa 1300

Forgardur Helvetis
Gerningavedur
Blastbeat Mailmurder
2002 [Re-released in 2007]
Of the all the things you, the faithful listener, have come to expect from card carrying members of the grindcore musicians’ union, stopping an album for nearly two minutes of gravely chanted poetry is probably not one of them. But there it is on Icelanders Forgardur Helvetis’s 2002 album Gerningavedur: penultimate track “Heljarslod” is deliberately-paced poetry, read in the lilting accents and stern cadences I’ve come to associate with Ingmar Bergman’s stoic black and white meditations on human alienation and the absence of God.
While my Icelandic may not be sufficient to decipher what the tiny Atlantic isle’s sole grindcore ambassadors are raving about on their 21 other songs, I’ve spent enough time studying the sagas and Eddas to have a small glimpse of the importance of poetry in Norse culture. Egil Skallagrimsson retained his head thanks to the felicity of his words. While “Heljarslod” felt awkward at first, its place and importance grew on me with subsequent listens. Now I think it needs to be there, an emotional anchor to the blood eagle brutality of the music.
Musically, Forgardur Helvetis hit all the expected notes: the blastbeats are on point, the riffs have a distinctive Scandinavian air as though the earliest At the Gates material were being reinterpreted by Creation is Crucifixion and the vocals are impassioned. But there’s also a breasting dragon ship bravado to their song construction that suggests they have Viking-era Bathory albums lurking in their plundered record collection (They also cover Dark Throne’s “Undir Utfarartungli” aka "Under A Funeral Moon"). The songs won’t win many awards for memorability, but they serve their purpose. However, though it’s only 31 minutes long, Gerningavedur just feels longer. There’s definitely about 10 minutes worth of fluff that could have been given a Viking funeral before release. Despite that, it’s entertaining to get an album from a rarely heard from corner of the Scandi-grind community.

[Full disclosure: Blastbeat Mailmurder sent me a review copy.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: Subcut

Subcut
Contra Fatos Nao Ha Argumentos
Terrorotten
2008
Brazil is a country I’ve wanted to do a regional roundup on for a couple of years now, and bands like Subcut are a large part of why. Unfortunately, I’ve just never been able to assemble the pieces I felt necessary to pay thorough tribute to the country’s prowess, but the country boasts an impressive grindcore culture from the legendary Rot through today’s practitioners. So I've been piecemealing the country's finer points.
Subcut’s debut full length Contra Fatos Nao Ha Argumentos is a grimy, sweaty snapshot of urban angst and barely concealed outrage. This is the Amores Perros of grindcore: from the urban pastiche graffiti-style art through the ghetto desperation of the individual songs, it’s got a street-level outlook on a corrupt, crumbling culture. Even if you don’t speak Portugese, songs about “Fascistas” and between song samples lambasting the “policia” eloquently convey their frustration.
Musically, Contra Fatos Nao Ha Argumentos is a more concise, Brazilian equivalent of Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses. Many of the songs have a real “Denial of Existence” vibe, in particular. The Sao Paulo trio, who all take a turn at the mic, have crafted a tight, fun album that knows its strengths and plays to them, channeling that awesome early ’90s vibe before grindcore became overproduced and stale.
If you haven't gotten down with Brazil's wax, now is a great time to start. And this is a great place to start.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Unsane Crisis/Hashassin

Unsane Crisis/Hashassin
Split
Throne Records
2003
With a new Looking for an Answer album making me do the Snoopy dance, I wanted to pay tribute to another transitional fossil in the Spanish band’s evolutionary development: Unsane Crisis. I’ve already gushed my warm manlove for Denak, where Looking for an Answer vocalist Inaki and drummer Moya got their start, but bassist Ramon traces his roots back to Unsane Crisis.
That band, whose discography consists only of this split with fellow Spaniards Hashassin and then another shared album with Ekkaia, actually leans more to the burly, grisly grind of another slice of Spanish awesome, Nashgul. Their opening 16 selections sound like a tribute to classic grind: all blower bass rumble and power drill riffing done in a tidy 30 seconds or less for the most part. Though they keep it short, Unsane Crisis manage to ensure each song has an identity and a movement of its own without giving way to faceless blasting. Ramon also makes his mark on the song “Anti-Emo” where he busts out a pitch perfect parody of self indulgent Red Hot Chili Peppers bass noodling. You can see why Looking for an Answer had to snag him a few years later.
Flipside, less info is available about Hashassin (so if anybody knows more, feel free to share) whose 13 songs are burdened under the weight of overly long, intrusive samples and a featureless wall of fuzz and screaming. While the band occasionally channels Total Fucking Destruction style vocal wipeouts, their songs are mostly a forgettable blur that don’t demand close listens. As far as I can tell, this is the sum total of the band’s existence.
Neither band was destined for the grindcore hall of fame, but for those curious about the emerging supremacy of Spanish grind, this is an interesting footnote in that development.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Into the Gore

“Finally, there are the idols of the market place.”
This was the easiest of all to imagine: an alabaster idol towering over the swarming crowd in a market place.
“The idols of the market place are the errors which result from the communication and association of men with each other. They are the errors a man commits because it has become customary to use certain phrases and formulas which do violence to reason. For example, ‘Enemy of the people!’ ‘Not one of us!’ ‘Traitor!’ Call a man one of these and everyone will renounce him.”
Shulubin emphasized each of these with exclamations by throwing up first one hand, then the other. Again he looked like a bird with clipped wings making crooked, awkward attempts to fly.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Cancer Ward
1974

Into the Gore
Bureau of Disgust
Blastbeat Mailmurder
2006
I’m sure you’ve all heard the hoary bromide about legislation being a lot like sausage – nobody wants to see either being made. While I have yet to secure my dream job running the stun line at the local slaughterhouse, I have been exposed to the legislative meat grinder at the municipal, county, state and federal levels (occupational hazard). Yeah, you’re probably better off not knowing the full depth of the venality, petty grudges and craven horse trading involved.
While Greek gross-out artists Into the Gore’s monicker and aesthetics may suggest they’re preoccupied with squishy innards, it’s actually sleazy politicians that get teed up for their death-inflected grind lashings on second and final album Bureau of Disgust (the band split up shortly after the album when vocalist/guitarist Michael-Alexander Xidas died in an accident).
Musically congruent with someone like Sweden’s Sewn Shut, Into the Gore is a band that knows how to punctuate a song with little moments that jar you out of complacency: a double kick drum fill, a pick slide scratch or a shifty riff switchup. Opening bid “The Sculptured Disparity” is an excellent howdy do, showcasing Into the Gore’s M.O. and nifty bag of songsmithing tricks. It interweaves grind rashness with death metal physicality. Those death metal flecks may be the secret spice in their sauce that gives them their own verve and flair from a crowded grind field. There’s a double bass drive (think Keitzer) to Into the Gore that gives them a restless propulsion not typical of grind. The call and response quality to the vocal switcheroos gives both the screechy screams and very Vader death rattles their own distinctive quality, deploying them with purpose and precision.
And since we accept music as a physical article is swirling the toilet bowl, I also have to single out the impressive digipack packaging for particular praise. The puking man logo on the cover has been cut out, given the packaging a unique pop and visual depth and intrigue that reminds me (sadly) of what digital musical lacks.
Altogether, Into the Gore were practitioners of a sturdy, admirable death grind grumble with packaging that justifies the purchase.

[Full disclosure: Blastbeat Mailmurder sent me a review copy.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: StraightHate

StraightHate
Indigenous
Blastbeat Mailmurder
2007
Nicking a name from a great song from the last album Sepultura ever recorded before breaking up forever is a great way to weasel your way into my good graces. If one of you so much as whispers the name “Derrick Green” I will gut you and feast on your raw spleen. Go ahead. I dare you.
Anyway.
Prior to their involvement in Greek grindonauts Dephosphorus, vocalist Panos Agoros and guitarist Thanos Mantas were the backbone of the more traditionally grinding StraightHate. (On a somewhat related tangent, Dephosphorus have hooked up with 7 Degrees records [run by Keitzer bassist Simon] for a vinyl pressing of the incredible Axiom EP. Get that shit.)
Indigenous is not nearly as unmoored from terrestrial concerns as Axiom. In fact, its mundane grievances about church and state are certainly familiar (but bonus points for “You’ll Never See Heaven,” which purports to relate a private conversation with “that motherfucker Jesus”), and the music slots comfortably within the mainstream of contemporary Euro-grind with flashes of the Scandi-sound (the thorny prickle of the Nasum-ish “Isolator”) and more continental fare. The screeches border on black metal’s demesne and tag out to guttural grunts.
It’s all very comfortable and very enjoyable, a warm, rough-edged production cradles the songs, but then there’s the nearly 12 minute, half acoustic closer “Which One of Us Dies First.” That’s where things get interesting. Closing an album with the longest, slowest song of the album, typically a half assed attempted at dirgey doom, seems to be an irresistible compulsion for grinders (seriously, what's the deal with that?), but StraightHate’s indulgence hints at the unhinged majesty that would follow four years later. At its heart, yes, it’s another grind band playing a slow song, but “Which One of Us Dies First” smashes together Amebix crust and Neurosis atmosphere in a crust punk super collider before giving with to an acoustic halflife
Indigenous is a cool enough album on its own, but StraightHate is far more interesting for its hints of what was to come with Panos and Thanos’ next endeavor.

[Full disclosure: Panos, who runs Blastbeat Mailmurder, sent me a review copy.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: Uphill Battle

Uphill Battle
Uphill Battle
Relapse
2002
If we were to sit down and hash out who should be crowned the best drummer in grind – perhaps through some sort of tournament system – a cagey bettor may place a wager on Danny Walker to walk away with it all, counting on partisans for both Dave Witte and Bryan Fajardo to cancel each other out.
The guy’s been everywhere; Walker’s probably the best drummer working whose name you may not know despite anchoring Intronaut, Exhumed, Phobia (granted, on the disappointing albums) and even getting an invite to play with Jesu. Most recently you’ll find him backstopping Murder Construct.
You don’t get that many high profile phone numbers in your Rolodex by being a slouch at what you do. And Walker, who is a master of the timely fill and screw tight blast, honed his chops in California’s hardcore/grind/thrash with a glaze of black metal frostiness amalgamators Uphill Battle (nee Crawlspace) where ringleader Adi Tejada’s twisted riffing provided a platform for his drum workouts on songs like “The Stench is Spreading” and “Ripped off Face.”

Uphill Battle – Ripped Off Face

Like contemporaries Burnt by the Sun, Uphill Battle specialized in metallicized hardcore sans sappy choruses, focusing instead on short rabbit punches of jacked up noise. While second album Wreck of Nerves would get a little too thrashy for my tastes, their eponymous debut is a nice little time capsule of a great drummer’s entrée to the scene. Now please do him the courtesy of remembering his name.