Grindcore for Dummies

Extreme metal demands extreme marketing.
As sub-sub-sub genres like folk-inflected post-death blackened NeurIsis-core further slice and dice the metal audience into niche-ier and niche-ier niches, bands have to work harder and harder to woo their target demographic. And clearly they don’t think we’re bright enough to read the giant hype sticker on the front of their album proclaiming them the grindiest grind that ever ground because a number of them go to absurd lengths to remind us they play grindcore.
Absurd lengths like…

Magrudergrind
Magrudergrind
Willowtip
2009
Magrudergrind play grind and they’re from the Magruder neighborhood near D.C. You see where this is going? That’s like me naming my this place Suburban Townhouse Grindcore Blog, the only name possibly worse than the one I already chose. But if you write grind tunes as catchy as Magrudergrind, you may want to make it as obvious as possible to their target demographic that they’re not banging out Maroon 5 covers at their high school dance.

While few bands have gone to the length of shoving grind into their name, more than a few have oh so subtly reminded you of the blastbeaten proclivities in their album titles.

Nasum
Grind Finale
Relapse
2006
More than any other band, Nasum have earned the right to proclaim their grindcore bonafides via album title with an unparalleled track record of essential albums. I’ve previously sung the praises of this immaculate tribute to the late Mieszko Talarczyk, which collects everything that didn’t end up on their four Relapse albums. This is grind incarnate and the finale of an unsurpassed career. They get a pass. But statistically speaking, your band is probably not Nasum (the numbers are not gonna lie there; don't argue with numbers). So that means you should probably avoid that level of obviousness. You haven't earned it.

Denak
Grindcore
Cooperaccion
2003
How obvious can you get, you ask. Astute question, young grasshopper.
Spain’s Denak are as about as blatant as you can get, simply naming their retrospective collection Grindcore. Try to picture how that in-band conversation may have gone:
What should we name our album?
I dunno. How about grindcore?
Glad that's settled. Who's up for some tapas?
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand ... Scene.
Band members would develop more tact when they went on to form Looking for an Answer, but Denak was brash enough to stake their claim to the genre as a whole. They were talented enough to back it up as well. See the Nasum rule above. You are not Denak. Do not do this.

324
Rebelgrind
HG Fact
2006
How do you rebel against grind? If 324 are to be believed, it includes copious amounts of crust and a few gang choruses. 324 doubled down on the grind proclamations with 2006’s Rebelgrind, announcing their intentions not only through the title but also in the CD tray, which anoints their music “Grind Babylon/Babylon Grind.” Yeah. I have no clue what the fuck that means either. But it's Japanese, so I'm just gonna assume it's awesome and involves tentacle rape. But perhaps the whole “rebel” shtick was a defensive move because 324 knew how polarizing this album would be.

Unholy Grave
Grind Killers
SelfMadeGod
2010
Japanese antiterrorism freaks Unholy Grave put a hit out on grindcore with 2010 live in the studio album Grind Killers. Dear Unholy Grave, this is an intervention. After 18 years and a metric butt ton of splits, we know you play grindcore. And if we didn't, I'm pretty sure we could have intuited that fact based on Unholy Grind Destruction, Grind Freaks, Grind Victim, Angry Raw Grinder, Raw Grind Mayhem, Grinding Hell Slaughter, Grind Heads, Grind Eternal, Grindholic, Grindignation, The Grind Militia, Immortal Grind Legion, Grind Hell and Grind Blitz.
We get it. Now please stop.

Putting the grind in your band name or album title will certainly grab the eyeballs, but some people just don’t want to be that gauche. Album art provides another excellent outlet to proclaim your grind fidelity.

Cyness
Loony Planet/Industreality
Sound Pollution
2003
I randomly bought Cyness’ debut album during a going out of business sale at Tower Records. For you whippernsappers out there a “Tower” was one of many physical places called a “store” that sold “records” in an era before you could simply download it. Now get the hell of my lawn.
Why did I grab this, having previously never heard of the German band? Well that gigantic “grindcore” spooning underneath their logo on the album cover was pretty much all the enticement I needed. Well played, gentlemen.

Bear in mind this is not a foolproof system. For every band jumping up and down on a street corner shouting “GRINDCORE” into a day-glo green megaphone, you’ve also got to keep an eye out for moments of pareidolia. Moments like…

Scrotum Grinder
The Greatest Sonic Abomination Ever
Prank
2001
Scrotum Grinder sounds like the kind of name you’d pick for your high school Carcass cover band. And when you hear the Floridians feature Steve Kosiba, bassist on Assuck’s Misery Index, visions of blast beats should start dancing in your bewildered little heads. Actually, this chick fronted band surfed the final wave of southern crust punk, drawing more inspiration for Antischism than Anal Cunt. While still an enjoyable listen (and despite a fixation on Ronald Reagan 13 years after he left office) the down tempo chug-a-lug shoutalong may not satisfy your bpm jones. And album title to the contrary, it is not the worst sonic abomination ever. I've heard Pat Boone's metal album.

AfgrundVid Helvetets Grindar
Willowtip
2009
Also beware the illusory false cognates. Sure Afgrund sounds like it should be some sort of past participle tribute to their grinding awesomeness (think something like Metallica, but hopefully not pissing off Hitler). But the name actually means Abyss in Swedish (please tell me they're recording their next album at Peter Tagtgren's studio). Afgrund set you up for a double dose of misconception here because their second album, Vid Helvetets Grindar, sounds like it's out to pimp grind like Unholy Grave. Nope, foiled again. Run through an internet translator, I’m told Vid Helvetets Grindar has nothing to do with hellaciously awesome grind. Instead, it means something close to “At Hell’s Gates.” Still perfectly metal, just not as grindcentric as an amateur translator may assume on first glance

Grindcore Bracketology: The 2-7 Matchups

We're off to a perspicacious (and occasionally surprising) start with grindcore bracketology. The 1-8 matchups will stay open for argument until Saturday just in case you've been straggling to voice your opinion. Meanwhile, it's on to the 2-7 faceoffs. You've got until Tuesday. Discuss amongst yourself.
Full bracket available here.

North America
GridLink (2) vs. Noisear (7)
It’s hot Fajardo on Fajardo action. First up is the post-Discordance Axis/Mortalized mash up, GridLink. Jon Chang is an elite lyricist with a striking vision being backed up by another superlative cast of musical collaborators as he spits and screams his way through fractured narratives that wrench philosophical musings from anime and manga, refracting a blend of neon jazz and caffeinated energy.
Discordance Axis aficionados Noisear have been toiling in the masters’ footsteps but have recently taken steps toward their own distinctive sound, a complex hornet’s nest of buzzing guitars, Witte-worthy drumming and boundless enthusiasm. Listening to Noisear is like plowing face first through a plate glass window. The question before you is if the new jacks have hijacked the masters’ noise.

Asia and Australia
324 (2) vs. Swarrrm (7)
Japanese rebel grinders 324 have pretty much owned the crust grind crown for more than a decade now even if they’ve been dormant since 2006. Sharing a three way split with Discordance Axis – and easily holding their own – 324 are masters of a hook laden riff. But the band also knows how to stretch its musical muscles on occasion. The Across the Black Wings EP featured moments that simply rocked the psychedelic fuck out. And then they immediately went back to derm-abrading your ass with their grinding goodness.
Packing a few inexplicably extraneous consonants in their name, Swarrrm also pack a few outré musical notions as well. Not content to simply be a humble grind band, Swarrrm stuff their repertoire with five minute songs that feature more switchbacks and doublecrosses than a carefully plotted heist film. I don’t know what they’ve been packing in their black bong, but it’s a potent brew.

Scandinavia
Sayyadina (2) vs. Splitter (7)
Quite simply, Sayyadina just do everything well in that inimitably poised Swedish fashion. Songs always hang from a blade sharp musical meathook and the introspective, emotional lyrics set them apart from lesser bands that are content to rehash familiar themes. Mourning the Unknown is an unfuckwithable slab of punk toned blast beaten goodness that epitomizes everything modern grind should embody.
While Splitter can bring the brutality with the best of them, what truly sets them apart are their melodic sensibilities. Combining early At the Gates (pre-Slaughter of the Soul) with demo-era Nasum, Splitter solder together two disparate strains of extreme Swedish musical outgrowth into a seamless whole. It shouldn’t work as well as it does, but the band manages to interweave the competing impulses perfectly.


Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Blood I Bleed (2) vs. Cyness (7)
Dutch dervishes Blood I Bleed have a pedigree for perfection dating back to their prior incarnation as My Minds Mind. Shantia is top five among songwriters working right now and Blood I Bleed set off a staggering stream of audio pipebombs that grenade grind and punk without remorse. This is sonic adrenaline set to wax.
Germans Cyness have steeped themselves in grindcore history with a post graduate symposium in From Enslavement to Obliteration for good measure. They take that history and drag it into the 21st Century but otherwise keep the tradition intact. This is another band that’s been inactive for too long, but their two albums are enough to secure their spot in the discussion.

Ever Increasing Circles

I have a limited musical vocabulary. So much for all those piano lessons when I was 10, mom. But Mourning the Unknown features one the best of what I call “circular” riffs during the swirling maelstrom that is “I Dare.” It’s a vaguely black metal-ish round of tail-biting that circles like a shark-toothed Ouroboros before closing in for the kill. Like piercing, ringing guitar tones, it’s one of those songwriting tricks for which I’m absolutely a sucker. Like the aforementioned Sayyadina, Luddite Clone also uncork a circuitous ripper on “Oratory of the Jigsaw” while Swedish Discordance Axis disciples Asterisk* fast forward their way through the same slight of hand. Even Napalm Death and ASRA, neither exactly known for their commitment to flowery songwriting, have been known to toss out chunkier versions of the same trick.
Here’s a few of my favorites. Enjoy.

Asterisk* – “Dromology”
Cyness – “Lonely Planet”
ASRA – “Payload”
Napalm Death – “Next on the List”
Wojczech – “Superparadigma”
Rotten Sound – “Blind”
Sayyadina – “I Dare”
Luddite Clone – “Oratory of the Jigsaw”
Who’s My Saviour – “You March”

Blast(beat) from the Past: Cyness

Cyness
Loony Planet/Industreality
Sound Pollution
2003
Apply German engineering principles to grindcore and you’re bound to come back with these Berliner lugnuts. The Germans are so damn efficient at everything they do Cyness conveniently included the words “grindcore” underneath their logo to avoid any confusion on debut long player Looney Planet/Industreality, a 20 minute tutorial in lock tight Napalm Death with a drafting degree grind.
And like that band, Cyness set these 22 songs to tape during two sessions between 2001 and 2003 with all the requisite line up instability. For all of that, though, both halves seamlessly fuse Voltron-like to form a single Nazi-stomping, God fucking, nationalist smearing engine of anger.
“Godkiller” boasts a hooked bit of guitar noodling that could have graced a later period Amebix tune. And given the cyclical nature of human stupidity, “Holy War,” a pissed little ditty about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still just as relevant today. Cyness could also run a clinic on the tried and true grind tic of ominously rumbly opener giving way to eyebrow singeing grind on “Mangla Son Agg” (with a bonus lesson in gang shoutalongs for no additional cost). The band even spatulas in those frigid black metal gone grind riffs at which northern Europeans seem to excel on “Bush – Krieger,” which called Dubya’s removal (by force if necessary) for the safety of the whole world.
While I doubt Cyness will be penning any paeans to Obama in the near future, I hope the Germans don’t beat their grindcore bayonets into plowshares just yet. Because Looney Planet/Industreality and 2006 followup Our Funeral Oration for the Human Race should vault Cyness into the realm of grind elite.

G&P review: Cyness

Cyness
Our Funeral Oration for the Human Race
Sound Pollution

Somebody’s roots are showing, and it’s not the mohawked guy whose silhouette graces the disc.
On their second album, Our Funeral Oration for the Human Race, these Berliners channel their hardcore heritage, and it’s that punk sense of immediacy that propels the dozen tracks.
From the “Grintro” (their term not mine) through album closer, “Children of No Revolution” Cyness harkens back to the late ‘80s when hardcore tempos blurred into blastbeat territory.
The ominous melody in “Nazi Rein’s” bridge makes that track, one of the album’s longest at an epic 2:33, a clear standout. Like a lot of European grinders, Cyness sneak in swirling, almost black metal-ish melodies in many of their songs (“Harley Horst,” “Single Nation”). But this isn’t some bit of Cradle of Filth wankery; the melodies are firmly welded to a bed of early Napalm Death worship.
Though half of the song titles are in English, to get the most out of the lyrics you’re going to need some remedial German classes. However, the band provides brief summaries of each song’s theme for the Amerikaners.
The language barrier isn’t a factor when it comes to the album’s retro Bolt Thrower artwork. The spear wielding lizard man squaring off with a cyber ninja in front of a Mad Max-ian tank needs no translation. Some things are just universal.