Grindcore Bracketology 3: The 1-8 Matchups

There must be something about news of a new Squash Bowels album that does it to me because I have the flu yet again. But I won't let a little thing like leaking from orifices I never knew existed stop me from kicking off this year's bracketology. You'll just have to forgive me if I keep it short and sweet.
Here are the 1-8 matchups. You have until Sunday to vote here or at the Facebook page. Have at it.

THE GEEZERS

More Metal
1. Repulsion-Horrified v. 8. Enemy Soil-Casualties of Progress


More Punk
1. Napalm Death-Scum v. 8. Extreme Noise Terror-A Holocaust in Your Head

THE UPSTARTS

More Arty
1. Discordance Axis-The Inalienable Dreamless v. 8. Liberteer-Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees

More Farty
1. Insect Warfare-World Extermination v. 8. Cellgraft-External Habitation

First!

Your mom or your local shampoo purveyor probably told you at some point during your impressionable youth that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. While your mom probably meant you shouldn't scratch your balls and spit on the floor during your job interview, it's also applicable to our own little grindcore realm.
As I become older and more crotchety (you damn kids stay off my blog's lawn!), I'm starting to lose patience with albums that take for-fuckin'-ever to really get ramped up. It seems like two out of three records these days start off with an overly long movie sample, a squall of feedback or a slow motion riff that explodes into blastbeats after a few seconds. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but unless you've dreamed up something as cool as Pig Destroyer's "Jennifer," it's probably best to just get straight to the blasting. That's why we're all here.
While I've tackled the ongoing blight of grind bands ending albums on slow songs, I want to be more positive with a tribute to those who know how to put their foot in the door straight away.

G&P Review: Cellgraft

Cellgraft
Cellgraft
Bandcamp
Cellgraft put paid to their all too brief career, amusingly, with the song "Genesis," rasping the band to a close with a pretty awesome scream. There's probably some profound philosophical notion to be extracted from that metaphysical tangle somehow, but right now I'm too bummed that Florida's finest band have flamed out already.
For such a short run, the trio leaves behind a pretty impressive catalogue of material and their eponymous final album does the band proud, seamlessly building off of the awesome Deception Schematic. Cellgraft doesn't deviate far from the band's accustomed influences from Discordance Axis, Assuck and maybe a splash of Insect Warfare. The only real, and surprisingly welcome, difference this outing is the most robust bottom end we've ever heard from them. It adds an incredible new dimension to their twitchy grind. Otherwise, Cellgraft do not jumble a winning formula on this record, playing again to their strengths.
There wasn't any grand artistic growth with Cellgraft. They burst on us seemingly fully formed. Their debts to Discordance Axis and Assuck were obvious but without resorting to outright cloning or riff appropriation. However, their influences do burble up, like the vocal patterns to "Amelioration Lapse," which are cribbed straight from the Jon Chang playbook. That title even has more than a whiff of Discordance Axis about it. That said, Cellgraft's biological, metaphysical and philosophical musings attacked the human condition from angles previously denied to grindcore.
Cellgraft blossomed for too brief a season, but they've left an indelible mark. Hopefully their influence will slowly transform grindcore convention the way their idols did before them as the musical cognoscenti absorb their unique perspective. I had barely processed my grief at Cellgraft's untimely demise when the good people at No Reprieve records informed me that two-thirds of Cellgraft have already moved on to Faith Addiction and have record a new EP's worth of material. All is right with the world again.

Grind in Rewind 2011: The 20 of '11

Where 2010 was a disappointing wasteland of blandness, 2011 overfloweth with awesome grind. Unfortunately, the attrition rate was also high as we lost Maruta, Defeatist, Ablach and The Endless Blockade. But let's focus on the positive: there was a hell of a lot to smile about in the last 12 months. And that was before my copy of the new Brutal Truth album finally showed up this month after a lengthy detour through the limbo known as "back order."

So let the arguments begin!

20. Total Fucking Destruction
Hater
Translation Loss
Take another trip on Rich Hoak et al's grindfreak railroad. Hater's crazy train isn't so much going off the rails as it is forcing everyone to reroute their travel plans. Total Fucking Destruction's bullet train battery meanders further afield than even Brutal Truth. Though Hater is the most straightforward of TFD's experiments, it still tap dances its way through musical minefields most other bands choose to circumnavigate. It's an approach that either means they're going to accomplish the unthinkable or somebody's going home short a leg. Possibly both.

19.
Ablach
Dha
Grindcore Karaoke
Scottish grindcore archeologists Ablach were inextricably tied to their country's storied history. Putting on Dha was like cracking a textbook on warring clans, witch panics and getting blitzed on whiskey. Good wholesome fun, all. Dha, which will be the band's epitaph, was a perfect step forward from flawed first album, Aon. Dha just did everything right, demonstrating the consummate skill that I knew was lurking behind their debut's craptacular production. With the kind of growth they've shown it's a shame they won't get to Tri.

18. Hip Cops
In the Shadow of a Grinding Death
Bullshit Propaganda
There's no one less hip than a cop. Unless your cop revels in classic first wave-style grind that
smooshes together the earliest output of S.O.B. and Napalm Death. Hip Cops are not progressive. They do not have technical chops. Their songs do not advance the grindcore cause or culture a single iota. All they do is thrash the joint any time their 7-inch hits the turntable. This is the kind of unpretentious, perfectly performed grindcore record that keeps the style rooted in its history and constantly vital.

17. Noisear
Subvert the Dominant Paradigm
Relapse
More so even than GridLink or Wormrot, I'd say Noisear may be the most controversial and debated album of 2011. Some of you instantly latched on to their mixture of Discordance Axis and Human Remains, and it's hard not to be enthralled by their circus grind antics. And then there's "Noiseruption." Some of you can shrug off a 22 minute noise track that sucks up half the album's run time and has zero connection the preceding music. I had a harder time with that, but when Noisear were clicking, Subvert the Dominant Paradigm was still a grisly beast of a bitch.

16. Cloud Rat
Cloud Rat
IFB Records/Grindcore Karaoke
There's something brewing up in Michigan. Cloud Rat and The Oily Menace are picking up and carrying on the fastcore legacy left by xBrainiax and Threatener and turning it into something that straddles the current with the historic in a way the seamlessly blends the twin impulses. Cloud Rat just did everything right on their self-titled record, which boasts 11 songs of adrenaline pressed to wax (or bytes if you go with the download version). Cloud Rat chased their full length with a killer threeway with The Oily Menace and Wolbachia, proving the record was no fluke.

15. Trap Them
Darker Handcraft
Prosthetic
Trap Them have pretty firmly established their M.O. at this point: grab bits of every wave of speedy hardcore and metal and chainsaw their way through them all. Not much has changed album to album but Trap Them keep refining their sound each outing, jettisoning what little detritus remains. That impeccable riff to "Evictionaries" remains one of the single best guitar moments of 2011. Darker Handcraft is worth the entry fee for that song alone.

14. Drugs of Faith
Corroded
Selfemadegod
Richard Johnson added rock 'n' roll swagger to his grindcore grimace with Drugs of Faith's first full length album, Corroded. It was a moody, personal album that seethes through various shades of gray and washed out brown. Johnson has always been ahead of his peers as the cornerstone of Enemy Soil or Agoraphobic Nosebleed, but with Drugs of Faith he's blazing an even more provocative trail through his own mental landscape. Corroded bravely speaks to the personal and uncomfortable in us all.

13. Keitzer
Descend into Heresy
FDA Rekotz
Descend into Heresy is the sound of your concussed ears ringing as you stagger forth dazed and bloodied from the bomb crater in the aftermath of an unexpected rocket attack. Keitzer only have one gear: implacable. The Germans take the direct route, obstacles be damned, and plow over any bystanders in their wake. Bolstered by heaping helpings of death with their grind, Keitzer are brutal and none too specific about their targets.

12. Defeatist
Tyranny of Decay
Self Released
Facing the extinction they've so long prophesied, Defeatist left it all on the table for final album Tyranny of Decay. Self-described "apocalypse kook" Aaron Nichols howled his way to near-perfection, finally bringing some much needed variety to his throat work. Everything else, Defeatist simply turned up their already impeccable assault, led by the concussive battery of drummer Joel Stallings. Perhaps a touch slower than their past efforts, Tyranny of Decay allowed Defeatist more room to explore and expand. It's the band's most varied and expressive record. It makes for a quality tombstone to a trio of lifers' bloody career.

11. Rotten Sound
Cursed
Relapse
Rotten Sound churn out quality albums just about as often as the San Jose Sharks choke in the playoffs. It's such a regular occurrence that sometimes it's easy to take the Finns for granted. Cursed continues their career-long streak of great records, emphasizing their crust punk roots more this outing. Songs get more space to breathe without the compulsion to snap every neck in Helsinki. Instead, plenty of Cursed's best offerings are nod-along headbangers that build to a slow burn climax.

10. Wake
Leeches
7 Degrees
In their wake: That's where these young Canadians are leaving many of their contemporaries. Following up an EP that was a clear 2010 standout, Wake make their second trip to the year end countdown with their first full length, Leeches. Second time out, Wake are sounding more comfortable in the hobnail boots they use to stomp craniums. Leeches is a wonderfully huge sounding album curated by Scott Hull and he lets the boys root around in his cabinet of grind, death and power violence oddities. There's plenty they seem to have picked up from the foot of the master.

9. Robocop
II
Grindcore Karaoke
Robocop cooked up the clear winner of the hometown shout out race with power violence piss take "Maine is the Bastard." But the band's cleverness is not limited to lyrical snark. A postmodern, postindustrial, post-power violence romp through a world where the membranes between man and machine are becoming dangerously (intriguingly?) permeable, Robocop are the high priests of J.G. Ballard-core. "Aftermathematics" felt a little clunky and disjointed for my taste, but that's really nitpicking at this point. This is a band that's more on the ball, intelligent and articulate than many of the their better acclaimed predecessors.

8. Cellgraft
Deception Schematic
No Reprieve
Cellgraft are the epitome of the internet band. Their success among the grindcore masses has largely been attributable to glowing blog praise and good old fashioned word of email. Florida's premiere grindcore trio slapped us upside the collective noggin with Deception Schematic, a knotty, snarling 7-inch worth of bile, broken resisters and collapsed civilization debris into songs that (all but on one of which) never crack a minute. I prefer Deception Schematic's grisly guitar tone (some of you were more partial to External Habitation's tinny table saw buzz), but regardless of your preferences, Cellgraft never disappoint.

7. thedowngoing
Untitled EP
Grindcore Karaoke
Not only do those sneaky fucks in Australia claim Christmas and the New Year are mid-summer holidays (seriously?) but they've been plotting grindcore domination while we've been distracted by Foster's beer commercials and old Paul Hogan movies. We were convinced the Aussies are a bunch of smiling, benevolently sloshed blokes right up until the point thedowngoing decided to extrude our souls through our nostrils on the harrowing Untitled EP (recently snagged by Grindcore Karaoke). Mathias Huxley gives the vocal performance of a lifetime, fully committing himself to his finest Linda Blair impersonation. I'll never look at the land of kangaroos and koalas the same way again.

6. Wormrot
Dirge
Earache
By Wormrot standards, Dirge was a safe, slightly flawed record. By every other band's standards, Dirge would have been a career-making album. Hewing a bit too closely to the mold established by 2009 champion Abuse, Dirge found the Singaporean trio reveling in the same cross pollination of Repulsion and Insect Warfare they've claimed as their own patch of grindcore terra. Rasyid and Fitri have reached a level of musical simpatico you'd expect only from performers who have been playing together for decades and the shared joy of their performance elevates Dirge from its humble ambitions. I fully expect Wormrot to take another run at the top spot with their next album.

5. Dephosphorus
Axiom
7 Degrees
Nothing prepared for me for the journey Greek grindonauts Dephosphorus had planned with debut mini-album Axiom. Nothing excites me more than to stumble across a never before heard of band that totally kicks my ass, and I'm still walking around with a bruised rump courtesy of Dephosphorus several months later. Easily the biggest surprise of the year, Axiom is also one of the best albums. It stitches together grind, crust, atmosphere and bits of black metal's obsession with things unworldly; Axiom is one of the most compelling records I heard in 2011. The 12-inch gatefold put out by 7 Degrees is also ABSOLUTELY STUNNING and the best packaging to be found this year. Dephosphorus started the year as unknowns but they close it out with upcoming full length Night Sky Transform lodged at the top of my most anticipated list.

4. PSUDOKU
Space Grind
Revulsion
Parlamentarisk Sodomi was one of my favorite bands to emerge in the last several years, churning out ass kicking albums almost effortlessly year after year. Then solo, misanthropic grindmonger Papirmollen crossed up Parlamentarisk with Parliament-Funkadelic and blasted off into the cosmos to sodomize Uranus. Piloting a neon-pink Super Star Destroyer named PSUDOKU, Mollen added weird keyboards, odd noises and space special effects to his already prodigious grind arsenal. This was the only album released all year that can compete with Orphan on a purely adrenaline basis. This atomic dog has learned some new tricks.

3. Maruta
Forward Into Regression
Willowtip
Forward into Regression was the most grisly sounding album afflicted upon the grindily minded in 2011. Maruta's (sadly/frustratingly/disappointingly) final album gnawed at your femur and sucked out the marrow inside. Hopscotching between grind and power violence is a pretty standard trick in most bands' bags these days, but nobody mixed them with the flair of Maruta. That snarling, nasty guitar tone is instantly recognizable as a serial killer's trademark flourish. It's a shame to see a band as promising as Maruta, still on the upward swing of their young careers, implode, but they left behind two excellent albums, especially Forward into Regression.

2. Looking for an Answer
Eterno Treblinka
Relapse
There is nothing flashy about Eterno Treblinka, but Looking for an Answer very quietly and skillfully turned in a flawless grindcore record. Every song is catchy and perfectly crafted. Every riff, fill and Sylvester the Cat gone grind scream serves to advance the whole. There is not a superfluous second to be found. Looking for an Answer's ideology is just as uncompromising as their music; religion, politics and carnivores all go under their knife over the course of 17 bright line political statements. Spanish grind is one of the most exciting European scenes going right now and Looking for an Answer just proved they're at the head of that pack.

1. GridLink
Orphan
Hydra Head
Helen Keller could see this coming. I think I've made my feelings about Orphan fairly clear. We all know where we are on this album, so rather than rehash past debates, I'm simply going to shamelessly quote something fellow Chang fanboi Da5e of Cepahalochromoscope fame once told me:

I'd go so far as to say it's grindcore 3.0... Napalm Death's early stuff was the initial release (their Crass soundalike demos being an alpha), TID was grindcore 2.0, Amber Gray was a beta release and Orphan is a new beast, fully HTML5 compliant, demonstrating that the genre has stagnated and needs to evolve and move forward. I'd stick my neck out and say Matsubara is the greatest songwriter working in extreme music.

I find it hard to disagree with any of that. How many other grind bands can claim their music was used to violate the UN Convention Against Torture in an episode of Homeland?

Multi-Cellular Organism: Cellgraft’s Grind is the Product of Natural Selection

Grindcore is no stranger to some really, wretchedly horrid band names, particularly from those who take their unabashed love for Carcass a step too far. Names so bad you almost assume they’re some sort of bizarre, meta parody-of-bad-grind performance art. Cases in point: Belching Beet, Toxic Bonkers, Urophagia. So I think we can all agree vocalist Matt McKamey and drummer Chris Wotring traded up when they ditched the name Piles Sufferers, swapped in a new guitarist, Ryan Zell, and rechristened themselves Cellgraft.
“I think that was in a Carcass insert or something,” Wotring offers in half-hearted defense of the rejected nomenclature.
While the Floridian trio seems to have exploded out of nowhere to wow the Internet cognoscenti with their Discordance Axis meets Assuck brand of awesomeness, their musical evolution has been a slow progression to grindcore perfection. Wotring said he and McKamey, who was a bassist at the time, were playing in “in a really terrible band” together when McKamey foisted Napalm Death on the unsuspecting drummer in a bid to lure him toward heavier pastures.
“He was trying to get me into heavier music, and a band he was insistent on was Napalm Death so I went out and bought Scum,” Wotring said. “A few weeks later we quit the band to find something better; I was hooked. He knew someone who was also into grind and played guitar so Matt sang and we called it 'Piles Sufferers’.”
Not the most auspicious beginning, but a few more practices and a guitarist infusion later and Cellgraft began to gel. What they would eventually become is one of the more intriguing, intelligent grind bands working. They’re all the more exciting because they have garnered so much praise and attention merely by word of mouth or tweet or text or email or whatever. Without a powerhouse label bringing PR support, Cellgraft has posted its music for free download on its website to survive or perish out in the Darwinian wilds of the internet.
“It seems most people in the hardcore/grindcore scene tend to identify with the ‘we will never sell out’ state of mind,” McKamey said. “Coming from my view point, we love to play, and having very little time and money to do it doesn't help when you want to get something out of it. We don't expect to ever get famous. We just like to let the community and anybody else who gives a fuck a chance to experience Cellgraft.”
Though Cellgraft has persevered through a largely DIY approach to date (friends at No Reprieve Records did issue the excellent Deception Schematic on 7-inch for the band), Wotring said they’re not adverse to garnering label support.
“I wouldn't say that we're 'successful' really but as far as being DIY goes, nobody knew us at fist so we had to do it all on our own,” he said. “If a label came at us and offered to release stuff for us then I think it would be a mistake to pass that up.”
What really differentiates Cellgraft from their “politics and religion really suck” peers is the intelligence hiding behind their songs. While the Revenge EP still showed off their earliest gore-soaked Carcass Jr. infatuation, subsequent songs have hinted at ideas rooted in biology and technology, digging at that nexus between our bodies and the external world. McKamey, who has written the bulk of the band’s lyrics, said he likes to approach his lyrical conceits “from different alchemical, technological, philosophical, and metaphysical angles.”
“We seem to cram all of our perceptions into blocks of noise that last but a few seconds,” he said.
McKamey won’t go into more detail than that, however, preferring to let listeners come to their own conclusions. That deliberate abstraction may be a byproduct of “listening to way too much Discordance Axis,” he suggests.
And about that.
It seems the band can’t make a move without the trio’s concision or distinctive black and white artwork being likened to Assuck or Discordance Axis. While I know a lot of young bands who have sweat blood in garages and basements to craft something that they can call their own chafe at glib internet assholes tossing out easy comparisons to their predecessors, Cellgraft embrace their influences with pride.
“Even being remotely compared to either of those bands is beyond a huge compliment. I couldn't tell you why someone would hate the comparison,” Wotring said. “Both bands are huge influences, so much so we even cover a song from each. We each had our own influences in the beginning but as we exposed ourselves to more grind it was all about finding the fastest noisiest shit out there.”

G&P Review: Cellgraft

Cellgraft
Deception Schematic
No Reprieve
After I’d carefully re-applied the socks that Florida’s Cellgraft had knocked off with last year’s top-10 worthy External Habitation, the band comes roaring back into 2011 with a new 7-inch’s worth of music that’s even better. Deception Schematic is more ferocious, more densely knotted, more aggressively abrasive than before. Cellgraft hasn’t deviated a micron from their Assuck-by-way-of-Discordance Axis frenzy. Rather, they’ve turned in an album that verily bleeds adrenaline. It’s hard to sit still listening to Deception Schematic.
Cellgraft have clearly grown in the last year both in the rehearsal room and in the recording studio. The guitar tone that had been a tad thin and trebly on External Habitation — the only weak point to the whole outing — is now a scooped out, refined weapon of skull destruction that roars at the forefront of the songs, jockeying with the full-throated growls and wipe out wails for dominance. Songwise, Cellgraft also continue to stun whether it’s the ominously building funnel cloud that is “To Achieve the Lesser Stone” – the only of the 11 songs to crack a minute – or the sucker punch seven seconds of “Gestalt Paroxysm.” The closing blastbeat from “Civilization Comes, Civilization Goes” is a candidate for one of the seven wonders of the grindcore world.
You can snap up the physical copy from the good people at No Reprieve records, but both the band and label are just as content for you to head straight to Mediafire for a nice, high quality download. Either way, this one’s a must. Look for Cellgraft to crack the top 10 again this year and a take a run at the upper echelon.
[Full disclosure: No Reprieve sent me a download.]

Grind in Rewind in 2010: The Top 10 of 2010

Looking back on another year of grind, I’ve got to share Flesh Monolith’s general sense of disappointment. This was a year that lacked a clear, breakout star. Instead, we were treated to a lot of good albums and a whole lotta meh. Keep in mind, though, my discretionary music buying budget took a brutal hit so things like the new Suffering Mind, Bloody Phoenix and even the fucking Wormrot/I Abhor split have eluded me. So I feel a little funny even doing a list since I don’t really feel like I can pull together a list as authoritative as I would prefer. But fuck it. Up front, I’m also gonna cop to padding the list so bring it to a nice round 10 to fulfill some bizarre numerological compulsion I can’t quite explain.

Before we get down to it, though, I want to briefly ruminate on a couple of positive trends I saw this year: the rise of the tidy EP (if you don’t have the material for a full length, don’t waste people’s time with filler) and bands eschewing the traditional label structure to throw their music out to survive on the Darwinian internet.

As always, feel free to call me an idiot, point out gems I may have missed, hash out the order and berate me for bands I foolishly left off.

10. Selfhate

Debasement

Self Released

The veteran Poles’ return to the grind scene after a lengthy hiatus was a welcome surprise in 2010. Nearly a decade older and consequently a step or two slower, Selfhate still bring quality riffs and perfectly poised dynamics in place of setting new land speed records. The band also stand out in an area where grind is usually deficient: emotional weight. The song “Dajesz Zycle/You Give Life,” which tells the true story of a murdered child, is chillingly grounded without giving way to typical metal posturing. Selfhate were a landmark band in the 1990s and they still have a lot to share with a new generation.

9. Unholy Grave

Grind Killers

Selfmadegod

Grind Killers was not one of the best albums of the year from a song writing standpoint and it could definitely stand to lose three or four songs to make it a tighter experience, but Unholy Grave’s live in the studio romp had a sense of spontaneity and just plain old fashioned fun that’s missing all too often. Fun? You guys remember that? Amid all the bitchnig and screaming and howling about powers that should be seiged and our extreme response to extreme conditions, it’s nice to occasionally see a band bust out a Ramones cover and just have a good fucking time.

8. Jesus Crost

010

Bones Brigade

Given the art on pseudonymous Dutch power violence/grind twosome Jesus Crost’s second album, soccer hooliganism is the easy, go-to metaphor for their boisterous brand of blast beaten noise. But I prefer to reference a far more refined, dignified and ultimately understandable sports moment: the 1994 Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver. That’s pretty much what 010 sounds like: rioting punters caught on tape as they blast, huff, puff and chuff their way through blasty-violency tunes that know just when to throw in a tempo change up or an unexpected vocal flourish like the occasional pig squeals. It makes you want to smash a window front and shit talk some cops after your hometown team blows the championship round.

7. Rotten Sound

Napalm

Relapse

I almost feel bad for including the six song EP, half of which is Napalm Death covers, but if Napalm is any kind of precursor to Rotten Sound’s impending full length, the Finns have found their footing again. Napalm was a gnarly, snarling, underproduced bit of racket that reminded me of the kind of noise Rotten Sound used to bring back during their Murderworks prime. Though it may be more gimmick than honest expression of Rotten Sound’s own ouvre, Napalm is still a fun listen that sees them reconnecting with what made grind great originally.

6. Circle of Dead Children

Psalm of the Grand Destroyer

Willowtip

That Circle of Dead Children frontman Jon Hovarth is still alive to make albums after contracting a near-fatal infection is enough to make me smile. That Circle of Dead Children recovered from the false step that was Zero Comfort Margin and barged back with the crushing, multifaceted Psalm of the Grand Destroyer is almost more than we all deserve. But there it was, that perfectly pitched blend of blasting snarl, deathly crush and sludgy misanthropy that was just as bleak and hopeless as Hovarth’s lyrical outlook. Given a light production touch courtesy of Scott Hull (thank you for dumping Steve Austin, guys), studio trickery took a back seat to a pack of guys with a handful of crushing songs that were perfectly performed.

5. Cellgraft

External Habitation

Self Released

Cellgraft got all up in your guts in 2010 with their self released, biologically tinged 11 track album External Habitation. The Floridians channel Assuck attack and visual tropes by way of Jouhou acceleration and refinement for a 21^st century brand of science-minded aggression. Intelligent, articulate, fiercely DIY, and most importantly, armed to the bicuspids with a passel of quality songs, Cellgraft are a young band with brilliant future ahead.

4. Gigantic Brain

They Did this to Me

Self Released

To call the final Gigantic Brain album “grindcore” would not only be woefully inaccurate but would also trivialize the one man band’s affecting space opera of twisted electronica and drum machine stuttering. Yes, there are still grind elements, but Gigantic Brain has evolved so far beyond ordinary grind since the Mars Attacks/Nintendo-core days of The Invasion Discography. Now the grind elements serve as a substrata to emotionally churning layers of affecting keyboard swaths and plaintive yowling. The paranoia is palpable and the moments of transcendence and even joy are fleeting, making They Did This to Me an emotionally suffocating workout and the perfect capstone to an adventurous outfit.

3. Wake

Surrounded by Human Filth

Hearing Aids

Canadian crushers Wake got their Carl Sagan worship on with a nail studded grindcore bat on the Surrounded by Human Filth EP. Think of it as the musical equivalent of Nietzsche’s philosophizing with a hammer. Taking all the best, ugliest components from grindcore, death metal and power violence, Wake set their sonic phasers to stun (they could probably lecture on why phasers wouldn’t work according to phsyics). Not overstaying their welcome at a tidy 11 minutes, it’s the perfect grind amuse-bouche (to radically change metaphors) that leaves me craving a full course of their sonic smorgasbord.

2. Kill the Client

Set for Extinction

Relapse

That client has done been killed good and dead by the Texans on third full length and Relapse debut Set for Extinction. Though it’s not much of an advancement over Cleptocracy, don’t underestimate a band like Kill the Client that does all the small things relentlessly well. Grind is not about singles or standout tracks and Set for Extinction is a ferocious blur of madman howling backed by the tightest – and probably most overlooked – rhythm section working in grind. Everything just clicks into psychotic place like an Ed Gein jigsaw puzzle carved from human flesh.

1. “The reason that people sing songs for other people is because they want to have the power to arouse empathy, to break free of the narrow shell of the self and share their pain and joy with others. This is not an easy thing to do, of course. And so tonight, as a kind of experiment, I want you to experience a simpler, more physical kind of empathy.”

Everyone in the place was hushed now, all eyes fixed on the stage. Amid the silence, the man stared off into space, as if to insert a pause or to reach a state of mental concentration. Then, without a word, he held his left hand over the lighted candle. Little by little, he brought the palm closer and closer to the flame. Someone in the audience made a sound like a sigh or moan. You could see the tip of the flame burning the man’s palm. You could almost hear the sizzle of the flesh. A woman released a hard little scream. Everyone else just watched in frozen horror. The man endured the pain, his face distorted in agony. What the hell was this? Why did he have to do such a stupid, senseless thing? I felt my mouth going dry. After five or six seconds of this, he slowly removed his hand from the flame and set the dish with the candle in it on the floor. Then he clapped his hands together, the right and left palms pressed against each other.

Haruki Murakami

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

1997

Grind is the ultimate expression of emotion played with every fiber of the player's being straining until it literally tears the people apart who make it. I think this is one of the reason true grind bands can never last. You are literally tearing yourself down and rebuilding yourself everytime you play those songs - practice or live. There's only so much of that you can endure as a creator, challenging yourself to raise the bar every day. Believe me it takes a toll...

Jon Chang in a comment here

Hayaino Daisuki

Invincible Gate Mind of the Infernal Fire Hell… Or Did You Mean Hawaii Daisuki

Hydra Head

Invincible Gate Mind of the Infernal Fire Hell… Or Did You Mean Hawaii Daisuki may be a rounding error short of actual grindcore BPMs, but the thrashtastic alter ego of the almighty GridLink is not some side project goof. The band brought every bit of the passion and urgency you would expect from the grind collective on their second EP. Packing four times the energy of Reign in Blood in half the time, Invincible Gate Mind is an exhausting, exhaustive expression of pure sonic abandon. I said it then and I’ll repeat it here: when Jon fucking Chang is the most improved aspect of an album, you know you’re performing in front of a world-beating collection of musical bad asses. Hayaino Daisuki pretty much shamed everyone else who set a blastbeat to tape or byte in 2010 with four body-rending songs of screaming catharsis.

Now about Orphan…

…and my sexroids…

G&P Review: Cellgraft

Cellgraft
External Habitation
Self Released
I learned my lesson from the great Crowpath uprising of 2008: give the people what they want. So, with that instructive experience firmly in mind, I present you with Cellgraft, with whom, if comments are to be believed, most of you are already intimately familiar. I mean, I did put them on my Napalm Death covers comp.
If that were not enough to start your salivary glands flowing with Pavlovian delight, External Habitation is a biologically-themed blast of 10 quick jabs and the aforementioned Napalm Death cover that just are good enough to erase the Florida tag on Fark. Florida and the Cellgraft’s black and white art should also prod your thoughts toward Assuck, whose meaty punk bleats get crossed up with Jouhou-era Discordance Axis caffeination. And neither reference point is much of an exaggeration. Cellgraft, with two self released albums under their studded belts, possess masterful songwriting skills. While just about every song is a wild eyed experiment in acceleration, Cellgraft know just when to throw a few angular hiccups into the rhythms into “Divine Resistance” or the staccato floor tom thunder that studs the colonic “Codex Alimentarius.”
Fiercely DIY, releasing their own albums, Cellgraft defy lyrical expectations with their scientifically-minded diatribes that don’t devolve into gore (like their Retribution EP) or rehash like-minded political slogans. This is a band that's poised to be major players in grindcore’s future if they can maintain their stellar quality and crash through the internet noise to reach a wider audience.
External Habitation, their eponymous debut and a gore-tinged EP are all free for download at the band’s blog.

Covered in Napalm

Let’s be honest. Covering Napalm Death is not the most revolutionary idea a grind band can hit upon. In fact, recent research has pretty conclusively proven the correlation between people who love grind and people who love Napalm Death. So covering the band that pretty much wrote the rulebook by which you're playing isn't going to win any prizes for originality. However, Rotten Sound are just joining a well-established fraternity of punks and grinders who have paid tribute to the grindfathers.
Enjoy.

Rotten Sound – “Suffer the Children”
Ablach – “Unchallenged Hate”
Discordance Axis – “The Kill”
Agoraphobic Nosebleed – “Control”
Capitalist Casualties – “From Enslavement to Obliteration”
Xbrainiax – “You Suffer”
Cellgraft - "Scum"