Grindcore Bracketology 3: The 4-5 Matchups

Despite Jon Chang's laughably desperate attempt to stuff the ballot box by voting twice, some of his favorite records just got torched. I call that justice. Everyone savor the tears of his failure. Which sons of bitches met their mortality? Read on.

THE GEEZERS

More Metal
S.O.B.'s Gate of Doom met its World Downfall at the hands of Terrorizer, falling by 16-2 (and I only counted one of Jon's votes).

More Punk
Disrupt disrupted S.O.B.'s second entry in the contest when Unrest stomped all over Don't Be Swindle by 13-5.


THE UPSTARTS

More Arty
No matter who goes down, Takafumi Matsubara won this round, and you guys decided GridLink's Amber Gray was superior to Mortalized's Absolute Mortality 2 by 14-4.

More Farty
Kill the Client's Cleptocracy stole the show, outlasting Agoraphobic Nosebleed's PCP Torpedo by 9-6.

As always, the updated brackets are available for your perusal here.
So that brings us to the last batch for the first round. Here are the 4-5 matchups. As always, you have until Sunday to vote either here or at the Facebook page, whichever suits you. Just a friendly reminder, you only get to vote once (*cough*Chang*cough).

THE GEEZERS

More Metal
4. Brutal Truth-Need to Control v. 5. Carcass-Reek of Putrefaction

More Punk
4. Siege-Drop Dead v. 5. Assuck-Anticapital


THE UPSTARTS

More Arty
4. Dephosphorus-Night Sky Transform v. 5. Agoraphobic Nosebleed-Altered States of America

More Farty
4. Suffering Mind-Suffering Mind v. 5. 324-Boutoku no Taiyo

Grindcore Bracketology 3: The 2-7 Matchups

Round one is in the books, folks. I don't think there were any surprises with this one, but here's who will be hitting the showers early.

I don't  think any serious grind fan will discount just how awesome and quietly underrated Enemy Soil's Casualties of Progress is, but Horrified is a grindcore cornerstone. Repulsion trounced them 20-4.

In a matchup of early punky grind, Napalm Death's Scum ran all over Extreme Noise Terror's A Holocaust in Your Head by 19-5.

We all appreciate what Matt Widener did with Liberteer, but cmon, Discordance Axis' The Inalienable Dreamless is The Inalienable Fucking Dreamless. (I'm kinda a fan of this record). This one wasn't even close at 22-3.

Finally, I was curious how this one would go down since I juiced the rankings to force proteges Cellgraft to square off against masters Insect Warfare. I thought this might be the best chance for a spoiler, but I underestimated your love of World Extermination, which stomped all over External Habitation by 22-2.

So that was round one. You can keep tabs on how the brackets are shaking out here. Meanwhile, here are your 2-7 matchups. Once again, you have until Sunday. You can vote here or at the Facebook page. Have at it.

THE GEEZERS

More Metal
2. Napalm Death-From Enslavement to Obliteration v. 7. Assuck-Misery Index

More Punk
2. Brutal Truth-Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses v. 7. Unseen Terror-Human Error


THE UPSTARTS

More Arty
2. Pig Destroyer-Prowler in the Yard v. 7. Nasum-Helvete

More Farty
2. Womrot-Abuse v. 7. Sakatat-Bir Devrin Sonu

A Leaden Stride to Nowhere: A (Not So) Brief History of Ending on a Slow Song

Grindcore is hit and run music. Its strength comes from an unrelenting campaign of musical shock and awe, dispensing with songwriting conventions like verses, choruses and all that other assorted folderol to boil tunes down to their atavistic core. And then it pummels you with a dozen songs in a row, often with no pause between to catch your breath. It's that synergistic adrenaline rush that gives the style its power.
So why do so many bands muck it all up by ending albums with drawn out slow songs? What is this inexplicable compulsion to tack on an unnecessary slow song at the end? It doesn't have to be this way. Discordance Axis made "A Leaden Stride to Nowhere" the penultimate song on masterpiece The Inalienable Dreamless, stabbing you in the earholes with the brutalizing "Drowned" as you limp off spent and bloody. Nasum probably wrote the single greatest slow song ever penned by a grind band with the poignant "The Final Sleep" on Helvete, but they recognized the power of what they had in the tune and stuck it in the middle rather than relegating it to the end.
I've mentioned bands throwing unexpected bits of musical failure at the end of albums before, but this ending on a doom song thing is so pervasive to have become a cliche. How did we get to this place, you ask? Here's a quick jog down memory lane.

Don't Fear the Reaper

Probably the first instance of the phenomenon can be traced to arguably the first ever grind album, Siege's 1984 demo Drop Dead. The length and contents have Drop Dead have shifted and grown over the years as bonus tracks have been added and deleted, but one constant remains: it always ends on the seven minute sax-laden freakout that is "Grim Reaper." The band took the training wheels of fast hardcore and set it on the path of the one true grind, but they also inadvertently established the ending on a doom song cliche as well.



Cursed to Crawl

As with any good grindcore cliche, of course Napalm Death has to factor into the script. Though they set into stone what Siege had pressed into clay, Napalm Death took their time to leave their mark on this one. In fact, the Side A Scum lineup went to the opposite extreme, closing out their half of the album with the two second bliss of "You Suffer." No, it wasn't until 1988's From Enslavement to Obliteration that Napalm Death caught the slow song bug, capping off the album with three minutes of fake Swans plod in the form of "The Curse," which served to bookend the album with slow motion starter "Evolved as One."



Another dozen albums and a whole new lineup later, Napalm Death are still pulling this trick out on occasion. In fact, for The Code is Red...Long Live the Code in 2005 Napalm Death pulled the double whammy, closing out with a pair of slow songs (and again shamelessly stealing from Swans) in the shape of "Morale" and "Our Pain is Their Power."





Semper Grind Fidelis

The stylistic tick didn't take long to embed itself in the second wave of grindcore royalty either. Brutal Truth have never had a problem mixing and matching styles and tempos, but they never really fell under the spell of the last song doom phenomenon until 2009's comeback album Evolution Through Revolution and its end piece, the decidedly non-grinding "Grind Fidelity."



Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

While I keep saying Phobia's 1998 album Means of Existence is my favorite album of their extensive catalog, the longer I keep writing about it, the more I keep picking up on irritating little quirks. Like the seven minutes of stumbling doom slumber that are album finisher "Ruined." Obviously, I need to stop thinking critically about this record before I ruin it for myself. However, this does help put drummer John Haddad's later jump to doomsters Eyes of Fire into perspective.



In fact, Phobia pulled the exact same stunt three years later on follow up full length Serenity Through Pain. This time they kept last song "Sovereign" to a more concise four minutes of ambient drone and spoken word mumbling.



Go, Go Gadget

If there's a formula to Gadget albums, it would be this: slam listeners in the face with a crazy intense song off the bat and then chill it all out at the end with a slow song. It's a remarkably potent formula that's apparently served them very well because they've done it twice now. Starting with 2004's Remote, Gadget said fare thee well with the rolling bit of ambient unease that was "Tema: Skit."



They clearly thought the formula worked because they did it again at the end of 2006's The Funeral March. Once again the plodding dirge of " Tingens Föbannelse" calmed everyone out on their way out the door. Unfortunately, this one's not available on YouTube and SoundCloud won't let me upload it. So you'll just have to take my word for it on this one.

Mess With Texas

Kill the Client have a well deserved reputation as unrelenting grind maniacs, but they've also succumbed to the seductive allure of getting all down in the dumps at the end of an album. For 2005's Escalation of Hostility, the Texas chainsaw massacre crew departed from their frothing mouthed style to slow everything down like a sizzling, lethargic Texas panhandle summer on "Negative One." Interestingly, they've not gone back to that move since their first full length. The subsequent two long players have been all grind all the time instead and are probably the better for it.



Rotten to the Core

Rotten Sound are fond of shoving the longest song on the album to the end, but they usually kept it grinding. They never went for the full slow song closer until 2008's Cycles. Five albums in, that's when the Finns decided to mix the formula up a tad and get their doom and gloom on with the four minute plod that is "Trust." This is not what Rotten Sound are known for or what they really do best, but if they keep it to one album out of every five, I'll let it slide.



You Suffer...But Why?

I'm going to say it. It needs to be said. If you're in a grind band, your strength is probably in writing great grind songs. Doom is not your thing because otherwise you'd be in a doom band. Case in point, Suffering Mind's "Ostateczny Pogrzeb," which puts paid to At War With Mankind. Now Suffering Mind are an excellent grind band and you won't catch me disparaging their way with a blastbeat, but "Ostateczny Pogrzeb" finds one slow motion riff, rides it to death and then takes it out back and pokes with a stick for a couple extra minutes just to be sure. In a shorter, tighter incarnation, I wouldn't have a problem with it. However, I think as is it ultimately deflates the end of At War With Mankind a tad.



Blasphemy Made Flesh

Baltimore's Triac actually pulled off one the better slow song finales on short album Blue Room. The band's signature brew of blasting grind and scrungy power violence came to a nicely fermented hardcore head on last song "My First Blasphemy." Unlike a lot of other grind bands, Triac actually have a way with a slow song that doesn't completely negate the preceding album experience. Ending on a slow song may be a tired cliche, but I wouldn't be as irritated by it if more songs were this good.



Bloody Hell

The slow final song shows no signs of fading into grindcore history, either. Bloody Phoenix got into the act in 2010. The title track of album Death to Everyone, which opened with a rip on Neurosis, closed out with three minutes of slow rolling drums and jabbering about god being dead. Band mainstay Jerry Flores has been kicking around grindcore for 20 years, but as far as I know, this is the first time he's resorted to this particular genre trope.




The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

So after all that bitching, I don't want to leave you with the impression that I'm opposed to ending on a slow song entirely. In fact, quite the opposite. Done well, a good slow song at the end lets an album's ideas simmer in the brain, slowly seeping through your cortex to embed themselves in the stuff of your nightmares. Tusk very effectively pulled off that move at the end of 2004 masterwork The Tree of No Return with not one but two slow doom songs at the end. It works largely because the band's cross breeding of Pig Destroyer and Neurosis give them the musical palette to explore wider vistas and the EP's central narrative -- a man gets lost in the wilderness, goes crazy from hunger and thirst and is subsequently eaten by bears -- demands a musical arc that bends from initial grindcore panic to doom metal delirium. So Tusk left us with the twin desolation that was "Starvation Dementia" and "Ursus Arctos -- Walk the Valley." This is how you do ending on a slow song properly.

The Namesake Series: "Iron Lung"

The negative pressure ventilator, aka the iron lung, was a technological marvel that kept thousands of polio patients alive during the 1930s and '40s. The technology has been superseded and the gadget is little more than a historic curiosity since vaccines have essentially eliminated polio. However, the image of the iron lung still has enough resonance to inspire a trifecta of excellent noise.



First up is Brutal Truth whose anomalously conjoined "Ironlung" was a mid-album noise pastiche to break up all the grinding on breakout album Need to Control.




The breathing apparatus also inspired British psycho punks Rudimentary Peni to get all noise collagey, closing out the (allegedly) semi-autobiographical freakazoid album Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatic. Turn on, tune in, freak the fuck out.





Obviously the band Iron Lung took their name from the, duh, iron lung, but it also inspired their song "Iron Lung," another power violent tiptoe through the band's back catalog.

Grindcore Bracketology 2: The Fantastic Four

Things got worrisome there for a minute. We looked to be heading for another tie, but a last minute vote (seriously, eight minutes before midnight) broke the deadlock, forcing me to rewrite this whole post. But at least we can move on to Round 4. We started with 32, but only four guitarists are still standing. Here's how it broke down.

The Old Guard
The brutal truth? Pintado went down in a squeaker. A last minute vote broke the tie as Gurn ground it out 11-10.
Gurn is the best of The Old Guard.

The Innovators
Not even close. Hull trounced Papirmollen by 19-1.
Hull is the best of The Innovators.

The Punks
The forces of past vs. present were pretty evenly arrayed, but Heritage triumphed by 12-8.
Heritage is the best of The Punks.
The Technicians
Even the people who voted for Burke admitted it was a futile protest. Matsubara winds handily 15-5.
Matsubara is the best of The Technicians.

As we winnow the field further, Round 4 will be Old Guard vs. Innovators and Punks vs. Technicians. You can check out the updated brackets here. As always, the door slams shut on comments on Sunday. Let the best man win.

The Old Guard v. The Innovators
Gurn (Brutal Truth) v. Hull (ANb/Pig Destroyer/Anal Cunt)
Extreme grindcore demanded an extreme guitarist. The other altered the state of grindcore. Who has contributed more?

The Punks v. The Technicians
Heritage (Assuck) v. Matsubara (GridLink/Mortalized/Hayaino Daisuki)
Do you prefer your grind stripped down and bare to the bone or intricately layered with endless fractal depths to explore?

Grindcore Bracketology 2: Round 3

Round two creaks to a close, but this batch of matchups hardly seemed to phase you. This was one of the more lopsided lots of the whole shebang. Hopefully the choices get harder as we whittle away the chaff.

The Old Guard
The closest of the lot, but Gurn's extreme riffing demanded an extreme showdown as he snuck past Steer by 7-6.

The Innovators
You guys sent the Grindfather to the leaky, moldy retirement home with nary a look a back as you advanced Hull by a commanding 12-1 edge.

The Punks
You didn't look back in anger. You looked back in love, paying tribute to grindcore's past while telling grindcore's present to patiently bide its time. Heritage advances past Rasyid by 8-4.

The Technicians
No contest Burke ran the table with a perfect 11-0.


Shit is about to get serious now. Check out these brackets. These are the kinds of debates that ruin friendships and end marriages. This next round will determine who is king of each category. The clock stops on Sunday.

The Old Guard
3. Gurn (Brutal Truth) v. 4. Pintado (Terrorizer/Napalm Death/Resistant Culture)
Gurn and Pintado both picked up the thread from the first two Napalm Death records and pushed the grindcore formula forward to keep it from going stale at birth. Who gets to be king of them all?

The Innovators
2. Hull (ANb/Pig Destroyer/A.C.) v. 6. Papirmollen (Parlamentarisk Sodomi/PSUDOKU)
Two guys who relentlessly push themselves beyond grindcore convention with every project they undertake. Who does it better?

The Punks
2. Heritage (Assuck) v. 6. Beau (Insect Warfare)
This is a fascinating matchup. You'd arguably probably not have an Insect Warfare without an Assuck. But who best embodies that punk spirit that animates grind?

The Technicians
1. Matsubara (Mortalized/GridLink/Hayaino Daisuki) v. 3. Burke (Lethargy/Sulaco/Brutal Truth)
Two consummate musicians who never let technique get in the way of writing a good song. Which fretboard magician will rise above them all?

Grindcore Bracketology 2: Round 2 Week 2

Round two kicked off with the rise of the underdogs...to a certain extent. Here's who you say will be moving on.

The Old Guard
Repulsion have been riding one damn good album for decades now, and apparently that isn't enough to compete with Jesse Pintado's plethora of outfits over the years. The J-man squeaked out the grave robbers by 9-5.

The Innovators
Human Remains were grindcore prophets of the new flesh, but we live in a transhuman era and Papirmollen is the acolyte of extraterrestrial grind. The Norwegian prodigy advances by a vote of 8-6.

The Punks
Phobia are a grindcore institution who seem to be on the upswing after a pretty fallow middle frame, but they still got scorched by Insect Warfare's Beau by 12-2.

The Technicians
And here's where the underdogs' momentum came slamming to a halt. Rob Marton's untimely demise at the hands of Rainwater is avenged as the Noisear noodler got served by the tentacle rape tuneage of Mastsubara by a commanding 9-5.

The brackets have been updated and the visually minded them can peruse them here. Meanwhile, it's time to get down to the second half of Round Two. Arguments close on Sunday.

The Old Guard
2. Steer (Carcass/Napalm Death) v. 3. Gurn (Brutal Truth)
Can Steer drive Gurn from enslavement to obliteration or is he about to face a brutal truth?

The Innovators
2. Hull (ANb/Pig Destroyer/Anal Cunt) v. 4. Johnson (Enemy Soil/Drugs of Faith)
Two drum machine innovators who have plenty of other tricks in their tool boxes. Only one gets to move forward.

The Punks
2. Heritage (Assuck) v. 5. Rasyid (Wormrot)
I don't envy you here. Assuck represent the best of grind's past, but Wormrot are the future. Who's more important?

The Technicians
3. Burke (Lethargy/Sulaco/Brutal Truth) v. 5. Arp. (Psyopus)
Arp may be the most technically adroit of all these fretboard wizards, but does his work stand up against one of the great grind innovators in Burke?

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.

G&P Review: Brutal Truth

Brutal Truth
End Time
Relapse
The Official Brutal Truth Album Reviewers' Guide (TM), a cheat sheet for lazy fucks like me, lists plenty of adjectives I can mindlessly bleat out for any new Brutal Truth album: innovative, unconventional, challenging, idiosyncratic, unorthodox. One you're not likely to see too often is formulaic, but that may be the most apt for End Time.
Formulaic is not inherently a bad thing, but we should at least acknowledge when the template is being followed and End Time certainly feels very familiar. Like Evolution Through Revolution before it, it's an amalgam of everything that made Need to Control and Sounds of the Animal Kingdom click, just distilled and smooshed together. You start with your lead-soled album opener "Malice" (see also: "Collapse"), blast a bit before you get a midpoint noisefucker in "Warm Embrace of Poverty" (recommended for fans of the first half of "Blue World," "Iron Lung" and "Semi Automatic Carnation"), grind a bit more and close it out with not one but two more doomed out farewells "Drink Up" and the superfluous, overly long "Control Room" (familiar to connoisseurs of "Prey," "Crawlspace" and "Grind Fidelity").
While that may sound negative initially, Brutal Truth rise above their self-imposed constraints to deliver what is easily the best sounding album of their career, regardless of era and lineup. End Time is all gnarled whorls and canines cracking gristle, powered by Erik Burke's dynamic Lethargian riffing style, which may be more engaging than Gurn's (there, I said it). He brings all new dynamics and shadings to Brutal Truth, fractal pools rather than jagged edges. And when the band does blast their way through comfort food grinders "All Work and No Play," "20 Bag" or "Addicted" it's with the assurance of veterans who don't have time to fuck around with half assed efforts.
Overall, I think I really enjoy End Time, but it would be nice to bust out those familiar adjectives again. Maybe next album if we all survive the end times.

Thirty Minutes or Less

GridLink can keep banging out 12 minute albums until the sun flames out as long as it means they keep things tight and ruthlessly eviscerate any fat. Perhaps the greatest thing I could say for the death of physical music is that artists are no longer chained to the limitations or expectations of the format. Albums are now free to be as long or as short as the music demands without being beholden to a delivery system.
Anybody who grew up during the great CD boom of the '80s and '90s will remember every artist suddenly felt pressured to make full use of a format that would allow them to inflict up to an hour of music on their fans. So we got Metallica songs that clocked in at a bloated eight minutes on average. Now, I have a huge doom collection, and I can appreciate excruciatingly long songs if done well, but you have to earn the right to put out 75 minute albums. It's not something just anybody should be doing. You are probably not Neurosis. Especially grindcore bands. However, some of my favorite artists and even my favorite albums, if I'm honest, are absolutely way too fricken long. With very few exceptions, no grindcore album should top half an hour.
Here are five good reasons why.

Anal Cunt
Everyone Should be Killed
Earache
1993
If no grindcore band should write more than 30 minute albums, that goes doubly for Anal Cunt. I'm gonna go ahead and establish a new iron clad grindcore rule: Seth Putnam should never have been allowed to record anything longer than the infamous 88 Song EP. Morbid Florist, tops. But in 1993 Putnam et al dropped the hefty 58-song, 58:40 behemoth Everyone Should Be Killed. Many of the songs were recycled from Morbid Florist and easily could have been axed in the name of economy. Nearly an hour of blurcore insanity that...ummm...blurs together is too much to ask of even the band's most dedicated fans.

Napalm Death
Time Waits for No Slave
Century Media
2009
Time Waits for No Slave was a respectable Barney-era Napalm Death album, but in no rational world should it have clocked 50:22. Especially for only 14 songs. (By comparison, predecessor Smear Campaign was a punchier album over all but still a gratuitous 45 minutes for 16 songs). Lopping a good 15 minutes off of Time Waits for No Slave could have made it a ferocious beast of an LP. The From Enslavement to Obliteration days are never coming back, but a pitiless editor could have checked the band's bloat and turned in a record that would have done the Napalm Death legacy proud, regardless of lineup and era.

Nasum
Inhale/Exhale
Relapse
1998
Before the flaming starts, I abso-fricken-lutely love this album. Inhale/Exhale was my first exposure to Nasum back in college and it holds fond memories for me. But it's just too damn long at 45:11. Shortly after Mieszko Talarczyk died, Decibel asked drummer Anders Jakobson to look back over the band's catalogue and something he said about Inhale/Exhale really struck me. After years of struggling, scrimping and saving up to record 7-inches that forced the band to keep things tight, he said Inhale/Exhale was Nasum's first chance to leave a little fat on a record. While Jakobson admitted the record is overly long, anyone who watches Food Network as much as I do will tell you fat=flavor. However, fat is also not always healthy. Judicious pruning would have made an excellent album doubly explosive.

Brutal Truth
Sounds of the Animal Kingdom
Relapse
1997
Shitty production aside, Songs of the Animal Kingdom remains my favorite Brutal Truth record because it's so weird and unexpected, even 15 years later. However, at a whopping 74:16, it's a hell of a slog to get through in one sitting. Yes, the infamous "Prey," which may be one of the most skipped tracks in metal history, comes in at just a skootch under 22 minutes, but even without it, that still leaves more than 50 minutes of grindcore to absorb. Serial long album offenders Brutal Truth packed up a whole Noah's Ark of animal insanity on their then-swansong record. Now, it just feels like a tad like the Marx Brothers' crowded stateroom.

Noisear
Subvert the Dominant Paradigm
Relapse
2011
Noisear turned in album that will surely dominate many top 10 lists in a couple of months with Subvert the Dominant Paradigm. But then they had to go fuck up a tidy 25 minute album by tacking on the 20 minute annoyance that is "Noisearuption" (for comparison, the whole of Pyroclastic Annhialation was less than 22 minutes despite a half dozen Discordance Axis covers). "Noisearuption" is an absolutely awful, grating noise kissoff that nearly obliterates any good will the band had accrued up to that point. It should serve as an object lesson on screwing up a perfectly good album with an uncharacteristic and unnecessary assault on listeners' expectations that doesn't really have any payoff other than pissing people off and making a great album too damn long.

Funny how so many of them are from Relapse, innit?

Industrial Espionage

The early '90s, apparently, was the heyday of the "let's start our album with a bunch of sampled industrial noise" phenomenon. I guess I had kinda picked up on that before, but it recently gobsmacked me between the peepers when I sat down to blaze through a stack of classic Earache records. It's like sort of the Opposite Day equivalent of ending your album with a really slow song that probably doesn't need to be there.
Case in point, Napalm Death indulge in "Discordance," kicking off my favorite Barney-era album, Utopia Banished.



Dragging it out for 85 seconds is probably uncalled for when slamming straight into "I Abstain" would have been far more effective, but I'm not here to review 20 year old album choices but a British institution content to take a few more victory laps around former glories.
No, I'm here to pick on Carcass and Brutal Truth. Because what really struck me during my Earache binge is that Carcass and Brutal Truth kicked off Necroticism - Descanting the Insalubrious and Need to Control, respectively, with industrialized samples that sound like close enough kin that a wedding license for the two would be unlawful anywhere other than Alabama.
First off, I'll admit they're not perfectly identical, but they have the same crushing kind of vibe to them.
Let's start with Carcass ' "Inpropagation," which tees up 1991's Necroticism with a sound like a small hill giant in soccer cleats stomping over a blabbing bit about forensics.



Three years later Brutal Truth would go to the same well for 1994's Need to Control. Opener "Collapse" was a sludgy trudge that gets going with booming industrial sounds similar to Necroticism. Boom. Boom. Chsssk. Chsssk. Boom. Boom. Chsssk. Chsssk. It's the grindcore equivalent of Jason Voorhees' stalking noises.



As I said, it's not identical, but when I had the two albums teed up back to back, it was close enough to give me pause. I find this fascinating because, as you may recall, I noticed Brutal Truth may have been stealing Carcass' mail when they wrote the song "Regression/Progression." That opening drum and bass bit sounds, at least to my ears, an awful lot like the intro to Carcass' "Ruptured in Purulence." So to find Brutal Truth trailing a second Carcass-ism was especially intriguing.
As Pablo Picasso (and possibly T.S. Elliot and Oscar Wilde) is alleged to have observed, good artists borrow; great artists steal.

Smoke, Grind, Sleep: Why Blastbeats and Bongs Are Best Buds

Wait…
…*pfffft*…
…what, man?
Admittedly, I am probably the worst person to even be asking this question because I know where Dave is, I don’t collect indigenous art and I’ve never seen my fingers go fing. What I’m trying to say is marijuana just holds no appeal for me, but I get its utility, especially if you’re jamming out super slooooooooow doooooooooooooom sooooooooooooooooongs. But I’ve always been fascinated by grind bands who have associated themselves with copious weed consumption. Given the drug’s effects include loss of focus and lack of coordination, it just always seemed an odd fit for a musical genre that demands speed and precision.
But maybe, given my limited experience, I’ve just been thinking about this all wrong.
“You have to relax to play. If I have too much coffee sometimes I can’t play,” drug crazed grindfreak Rich Hoak of Brutal Truth/Total Fucking Destruction said (half joking about the coffee thing).

Hash Smoking Grind Freaks

For all my misconceptions, grinders whose bands lay the weed imagery on thick as high grade resin, say marijuana definitely has a place in the creative process and when performing – especially drummers.“Drinking alcohol severely affects my drumming ability and makes my playing turn to absolute slop, even after only one beer or so,” Justin “Dr. X” Green, drummer for Population Reduction, said. “Ben [aka guitarist Peter Svoboda] and I have found that before a show, it's best if he doesn't smoke and I don't drink. If I drink, I can't physically play the songs. If Ben smokes, he can play but can't remember how the songs go. Weed doesn't affect my ability to play fast, but it increases the chances of forgetting where in the song I am if I get too ‘into’ a certain part or section. So I've found that moderation is really pretty key in using weed for its beneficial effects. If I get too stoned, then I'll play like shit, but light or moderate use can really help focus me and actually gives me energy before we play.”
Hoak and Green both said just the right application of THC allows them to relax, hitting what Hoak describes as a zen zone where muscle memory takes hold and he’s not so much consciously thinking about what he’s playing as flowing with the music.
“Things go by really fast,” Hoak said. To the point where he has to keep a set list at hand to mark his place in the music on occasion.
Beyond limbering up his performances, Green also said a good smoke helps him appreciate the music more, heightening his sensory perceptions.
“Another thing that weed has over alcohol for me is that it really makes the ‘texture’ and layers of music more apparent,” he said. “Certain riffs or distortion can sound or ‘feel’ like slabs of concrete, complete with microscopic grit. Maybe I just have a slight form of synesthesia, I don't know.”

Kill For Weed

Heeding Denis Leary’s admonition that “marijuana leads to fucking carpentry,” I can’t help but notice that plenty of bands that associate heavily with weed – Brutal Truth, Exit-13, Total Fucking Destruction and Cephalic Carnage – tend to take a more expansive view of grind’s potential. Not content with 90 seconds of blastbeaten fury, they sprinkle in free jazz and world music like seeds in a dime bag.
“Depends on what strain of weed you smoke! If you smoke some cherry lemon skunk you will be dooming out like Catheter, if you smoke pineapple or cheese you might be playing in a free form jazzy mood, if you smoke some piece maker you'll be grinding like Noiseear, smoke the new strain in Colorado called Cephalic’s Carnage you will not only be a little country you will also be rock n roll,” Cephalic Carnage’s Lenzig Leal said.
And Leal should know his shit. This is a band who had a dancing marijuana bush join them on stage at Maryland Death Fest for a rendition of “Kill for Weed.”“Brutal Truth party but we don’t have the connections to drug lords with truckloads of drugs like [the guys in Cephalic Carnage] do,” Hoak said.
As to the musical vistas sparked by blazing up, Hoak essentially invokes the scientific adage that correlation does not equal causation. He said the kind of people who are attracted to the weed lifestyle may already be self-selecting for more experimental strains of music.
“All the same sort of people have this same sort of attitude,” he said. “These are the people most attracted to smoking up and these would be the same people who would be more open to counterintuitive to the norm kind of music.”
Even for those who prefer their grindcore to adhere to more traditional conventions, marijuana can open up the doors of perception.
“Outside of playing live, I pretty much always write new material after smoking,” Green said. “Usually when I first smoke, within a couple minutes, grind riffs just start playing in my head, complete with drums and everything and there's all these new ideas to work with. For me though, the ‘instant creativity’ effect only works if it's the first smoke of the day, and only if I don't over-do it. If I've been smoking weed all day with friends and I come back to the house to write music, another bowl is just going to make me tired. So for me, taking one nice big hit in the afternoon gives me a bunch of energy and a lot of musical ideas (if I can remember them) but the more you smoke, the more tired and burnt-out you get throughout the day.”

Don’t Spare the Green Love

And maybe I’m just overthinking this because at the end of the day, a few bong rips can just be a bit of social lubricant.
“My drug use … had just been social use, what with it being such a good time getting together with the rest of the band and doing vocals, on those rare occasions when I'm in the same room with everybody,” Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s Richard Johnson said.
Hoak said weed became the lingua franca for Brutal Truth and New York institution Disassociate (who had a logo called Splifford ferfuckssake) back when the young bands split a rehearsal space.
“We would cross paths with them and smoke out as one band came in and one band came out,” he said.
“It varies from band to band, some cats like to smoke a few bowls before they play so they can all be on the same mental wavelength, some folk for extreme concentration and relaxation, some to block out the crowd, others for writers block or inspiration, but for Cephalic it’s just to be recreationally stoned, just for the fun of it,” Leal said.

Dopesmoker

Can’t get enough hash smoking grind freaks? Proceed the following weedians to grindcore Nazareth.
Enjoy.

1. Bastards – “Bong Rips”
2. Population Reduction – “Hash Smoking Grind Freaks”
3. Mindflair – “Green Bakery”
4. Total Fucking Destruction – “Grindfreak Railroad”
5. Cephalic Carnage – “Kill For Weed”
6. Brutal Truth – “Jemenez Cricket (Drug Crazed Grind Freaks version)
7. Exit-13 – “Legalize Hemp Now”
8. Disassociate – “Ice Bong”
9. Agoraphobic Nosebleed – “Bong Hit Wonder”

Grindcore Bracketology: Quarterfinals 1

Some of you may have jumped the gun on voting, but that just shows you’re eager to get with it, which is a good thing. I happen to know that one of the more prominent musicians featured here happens to be lurking and enjoying the conversations (include your guess as to who in the comments for bonus awesome points), so bring your A game as things start getting serious. Here’s your next round of matchups. Have at it. You’ve got until Saturday.

North America
Pig Destroyer (1) v. Brutal Truth (4)
From a pure songwriting perspective, these two bands pretty much embody the pinnacle of contemporary grind songsmithery. But who does it better? Do you give the nod to Pig Destroyer’s acid art nightmares or Brutal Truth’s resurrection of one of the strongest legacies in grind (keeping in mind we’re only talking the current incarnation here).

Asia and Australia
Wormrot (1) v. The Kill (5)
Two explosive, violent bands with their sound set to (*ahem*) kill that both exploded out of the East. I had to build a special brace to hold up my jaw last year after Wormrot dropped it to the floor. Can The Kill’s likewise likeminded assault stave off Singapore’s finest?

Scandinavia
Rotten Sound (1) v. Gadget (4)
I have no clue who will win this matchup, but I do know the winner will be a master blaster. Both Rotten Sound and Gadget have a need for speed (though Gadget are also that exceptional grind band that can also master down tempo dirges). I’m pretty sure William Blackmun is at least partially robot. And Rotten Sound seem to be genetically engineering inhuman drummers on a secret farm somewhere in Lapland.

Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Napalm Death (1) v. Attack of the Mad Axeman (6)
Napalm Death’s post-Earache era has been a revelation and reinvigoration of the band’s sound and legacy, reaching backwards to embrace many of the aspects that made the earlier incarnations legendary progenitors of grind while keeping them forward looking and modern. Will that revitalization stand up against a bunch of Germans in fuzzy animal costumes who grind like motherfuckers?

Grindcore Bracketology: The 2-7 Winners/The 4-5 Matchups

I know I’ve done my job properly when I see you sobbing in the comments. The matches are getting more even and the choices are only getting harder from here on out. No upsets yet, so here’s your 2-7 champions. I didn’t pick em so don’t blame me.

North America
Despite some spirited defense of Noisear, GridLink’s 12 minutes of grind perfection (don’t forget the track from Our Last Day, folks) ruled the day by a vote of 11-3.

Asia and Australia
Absence (absinthe?) makes the heart grow fonder and despite not gracing our turn tables with new noise in four years, crust busters 324 narrowly out blasted left field loonies Swarrrm 9-6.

Scandinavia
What Splitter will be mourning will not be unknown because everyone should have seen Sayyadina’s victory coming. They outlasted their countrymen by a vote of 13-3 with the most robust defense of the round.

Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Bleed for me, bitches. Holland’s Blood I Bleed talked shit and spit blood all over Cyness by 8-3. While I agree with Shantera that Massgrav won the split with the Dutch band, anyone who’s basked in the glory of Gods Out of Monsters knows what I’ve been raving about.

As always, the full updated brackets can be perused here. Meanwhile, your toughest task yet is before you with the 4-5 faceoffs. You've got until Tuesday. Now if you'll excuse me, the Blues-Sharks game is on.

North America
Brutal Truth (4) vs. Total Fucking Destruction (5)
Brutal Truth shook off the munchies long enough to drop a trio of the most essential grind albums of the ’90s. But that’s ancient history. After a decade hiatus, it’s time to ask the New Yorkers what they’ve done for you lately. Reupped and rearmed with ex-Lethargy/Sulaco guitarist Erik Burke in tow, Brutal Truth gave us a handful of songs on the first This Comp Kills Fascists and Evolution Through Revolution, a 21st Century blend of Need to Control ferocity and Sounds of the Animal Kingdom experimentalism. However, does the new batch stand up to the glory days or are they just milking the nostalgia circuit?
Rich Hoak certainly didn’t sit idle after Brutal Truth went the way of the dodo. Left with a load of free time, a love of jazz and a yoga driven rejuvenation, Total Fucking Destruction has been pushing grind into ever weirder corners with each release. Blast jazz, acoustic grind and stand up poetry screeds all get hotboxed by his coterie of likeminded cohorts. The only rule: nothing is off limits.

Asia and Australia
Agents of Abhorrence (4) vs. The Kill (5)
Any band that comes with Zmaj’s imprimatur is one to take seriously; the Blogfather knows his shit. Agents of Abhorrence earned the Cephalochromoscope seal of approval for their brew of Discordance Axis acceleration and strains of power violence with Iron Lung and Neanderthal getting namechecked. Taken together, their influences brew up an exemplary example of modern grind’s potential.
Featuring members of Super Happy Fun Slide and Fuck…I’m Dead, you wouldn’t expect The Kill to suddenly start spouting tea time niceties. Instead they set the intentionally stupid to the deliberately thrashy. It’s the point/counterpoint of lethal precision musically and the frat boy humor sentiments of “Tracksuit Pants are Thrash,” the abortion-riffic “Dead Babies” and unambiguous sentiments of “Fuck Emo” that set them apart. Agents of Abhorrence list the Kill as an influence. Who does it better?

Scandinavia
Gadget (4) vs. Crowpath (5)
Go, go Gadget grindcore. Gadget ringleader William Blackmon’s sci-fi steeped grind has only gotten more focused over two full lengths even as he’s broadened his vistas with expertly deployed downbeat interludes. Sleek, composed and poised, Gadget distill Ridley Scott’s interpretation of a Phillip K. Dick dystopia into its audio essence, alternately embracing its potential and pitfalls in ways that are consistently thought provoking and electrifying.
Crowpath’s dystopias strike closer to our temporal home – their last album was a Swedish serial killer concept that crawled out of a miasma of grindcore and power violent sludge. Maruta may have taken the sound in grungier directions, but Crowpath’s music is marked by a sociopathic sense of control that's eerie. They’re the frightening musical secrets lurking behind Jeffrey Dahmer’s everyday guy normalcy.

Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Looking for an Answer (4) vs. Nashgul (5)
The pain from Spain will sear into your brain. It’s just a question of who does it better.
Denak descendants Looking for an Answer brew up a savage beating that harks back to grindcore greats all in the name of animal rights and crushing noise. Their raucous rage consists of to the point songs strung together into an interlocking chain of blast driven noise. The master craftsmen have increasingly refined their sound paradoxically by shedding the modern sheen, connecting with something more primal and atavistic with time.
Nashgul have blinkered themselves to the last 20 years of grind evolution. Instead they blew the dust off their copy of Horrified and took that as their template, banging out tunes derived low budget movies and zombie lore. Their musical inspirations are drawn from the same era as the films they pillage for inspiration – Mad Max, Toxic Avenger and the finer slices of the Fulci cannon all get musical nods. For all the talk of rotting corpses, unsightly horrors and other monstrosities, Nashgul keep everything appropriately light hearted and limber.

Corporal Copycat Quandary

I feel as though Carcass has been getting short shrift around here lately. Since I ran out of Carcass Word of the Day Calendar material more than a year ago the band’s name just hasn’t been popping up with any kind of regularity, which is a damn shame and a serious oversight on my part. I can’t seem to go a week without referencing Napalm Death or Nasum, but Carcass have been falling by the wayside as far as grindcore reference points go. And despite their later forays into questionable death metal and questionabler death ’n’ roll, Carcass remain a grindcore touchstone despite single handedly afflicting us with the plague of shitty copycats who labor under the misapprehension that tired porno samples and casual misogyny stack up against the moldering gods of jet black humor. But we cannot hold the fathers responsible for the sins of their sons.
Ponder, if you will, this grindcore impression under which I have been laboring pretty much my entire adult life: no matter who was behind the kit, Napalm Death always had superior drumming (sorry, Ken), but Carcass could be counted on to bring the superior riffs, particularly after Justin Broadrick jumped Napalm’s ship to get his gloom on. Carcass’ riffs were so awesome (even if not the most popular riff of all time) they’re still being rehashed and rewritten to this day.

Case in chronological point: the introduction to "Ruptured in Purulence"

Carcass
“Ruptured in Purulence”
Symphonies of Sickness
1989
Jeff Walker and Ken Owen perfected the grindcore equivalent of the Vulcan mindmeld during the first 22 seconds “Ruptured in Purulence” as the steady state drumming and festering bass line slime across each other like banana slugs fucking before Bill Steer crashes the party with his bone saw guitar and the song ruptured into a purulent death-grind maelstrom. But it’s that opening half minute that has always stuck out in my mind: the patient Jason Voorhees-stalking-errant-camp-counselors drum pace being beaten by Walker’s rotten sack of meat bass tone.

Brutal Truth
“Regression/Progression”
Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses
1992
Well that sure didn’t take long. Just a scant three years later New York weedians Brutal Truth were generously lifting from the Carcass template on “Regression/Progression.” Oh sure, Scott Lewis added a few extra double bass kicks to the layout, but tell me that doesn’t sound like the same slow build drum ’n’ bass between Lewis and Danny Lilker. Extreme conditions demand lifting material from the masters of extremity and on occasion originality will just have to be, ahem, collateral damage.

Carcass
“No Love Lost”
Wake Up and Smell the Carcass
1996
Consummate pranksters that they were, Carcass weren’t above dipping back into their own well either. Witness the fake out opener to “No Love Lost” during a BBC Radio 1 Rock Show appearance in 1994. Just before they figured out corporate rock really does suck, Carcass shed the gore and got all major labely, but as a buttress against the inevitable accusations of falsity the then-quartet reduced, reused and recycled their signature riff with Mike Amott adding additional guitar squiddilies to the proceedings.

Expose Your Hate
“Appreciate the Dying Planet”
Hatecult
2005
Here it is again, set to this slab of Brazilian wax. If thieving from Carcass was good enough for Brutal Truth’s debut, who’s to begrudge Expose Your Hate from five fingering old faithful for their own first album. Perhaps recognizing that lifting this hoary bit of grind lore is not the most original move left to an aspiring band, Expose Your Hate keep their homage to a respectable 11 seconds. I guess some people appreciate the dying art of writing memorable riffs.

Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation
“Studeny Kilh”
Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation
2009
Now at the time I reviewed their self-titled mouthful of an album, I complemented bassist Kanako for her brass-bound ovaries for having the gall (if you will) to ape the Limey masters. Of all those collected here Kanako’s ping pong bouncing bass tone is perhaps the best modern updating and interpretation of Walker’s classic suppurating wound sound. Along with drummer Tomoko, she’s also not afraid to ride that sucker for all it’s worth. The pair of them clock a respectable 75 seconds of collective grooving before being interrupted by the guitars and being told to get on with the song.

Don’t believe me? Judge for yourself, and maybe some of you with sharper musical acumen and a better grasp of notes, scales and all that claptrap can explain the subtle differences that will stay Earache’s army of winged monkey lawyers from suing the the polyps out of the copycats' colons. However, I think there’s enough similarity there to help a couple of copyright attorneys pay off that second mortgage.
Zipped for your pleasure.

300th Post Crap-taca-ganza!

In the last 2.5 years I’ve pooped out 300 posts now. At an average of 300 words per album post, give or take, and with a bunch of longer think pieces and interviews that means I’ve probably sent about 100,000 words skittering off in the digital ether. That’s the size of a fairly respectable paperback. Take a moment to ponder the absurdity of a novel length discussion of grindcore. So in honor of all this ridiculous persiflage, there seemed to be only one sensible way to reflect: with the world’s most retardedly short grindcore compilation.
Enjoy.
*Link has been corrected to appropriate zip file*

1. Brutal Truth – “Collateral Damage”
2. Discordance Axis – “Dystopia Pt. 2”
3. Body Hammer – “The Principles and Practices of Nihilism”
4. S.O.B. - "S.O.B."
5. Agoraphobic Nosebleed – “Fuck Your Soccer Jesus”
6. Nasum – “Disforest”
7. Napalm Death – “You Suffer”
8. Rehumanize – “Rough”
9. Retaliation – “Distrust”
10. My Minds Mine – “Why Don’t You Just Fuck Off?”
11. Anal Cunt – “Newest HC Song #2”
12. Gore Beyond Necropsy – “Shitgobbling Hate Generation”

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.