I’ve been re-reading Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli’s brilliant and prescient DMZ comics lately. It makes me think a lot about the conditions that could lead to a second American civil war. A war-weary public feel like they’re about to be railroaded into yet another military intervention in the Middle East without any clear understanding of the goal or strategic necessity. Whackaloons are talking about secession because they lost a democratic election. Congress is so broke that it can’t even come together to accomplish the most basic requirements of governing. There’s something in the air that Brian Wood could see coming nearly a decade ago. People left, right and center have this vague, undefined feeling that forces just out of sight and beyond their control have taken over the levers of power, a quiet coup by the kleptocracy.
Astute grinders sensed it coming as well. Texas libertarians Kill the Client dedicated a whole album to the concept way back in 2008.
Freedom-loving Ron Paul aficionado Champ Morgan launches a revolutionary diatribe, exhorting people to rise up against the plutocrats who have used their wealth and influence to tilt the economic playing field against Joe Sixpack who’s just trying to cover a mortgage and keep the kids in school. It’s the frustrated cry of the bewildered workaday office drone who never got a fair shake. Kill the Client aren’t calling for a huge societal upheaval. They just want the rules to be square for everyone.
Hailing from the opposite end of the political spectrum, Jan Frederickx and crew appropriated the language of Karl Marx when they called out the kleptocrats on Agathocles’ 2010 effort This is Not a Threat, It’s a Promise. Frederickx exhorts “Comrades of all nations [to] kick back capitalist domination.”
Two bands with almost diametrically opposed political ideologies keyed in on the same sense of frustration with the way the modern economy is unforgivably gamed to the benefit of the already rich. Same diagnosis but different prescriptions. However, it gives you the sense that maybe something is brewing among the disaffected masses of wage slaves who lack the clout to force their elected representatives to act in their constituents’ interest. So maybe next time somebody warns you about a redneck uprising in Helena, Montana, you better pay attention.
Ok, we started with 32 classic albums from all of grindcore's eras and now we're down to the Sweet Sixteen. Round One is over and the bands have been reseeded. The matchups only get uglier from this point on. You guys did a great job because there's some absolutely fascinating pairings coming your way in the very near future. Who's going to rise to the top of the fray?
Meanwhile, here's how round one came crashing to an end. THE GEEZERS
More Metal Brutal Truth left Carcass to Reek of Putrefaction because the New York grind freaks Need to Control everything around them, rising by a vote of 11-7.
More Punk This one surprised the hell out of me. I had Siege picked as a contender to win it all but they dropped dead in the face of Assuck's anticapitalist sentiments, 11-8.
THE UPSTARTS
More Arty Night Sky Transform is barely a year old, but Dephosphorus upset one of my favorite grind albums ever, Agoraphobic Nosebleed's transformative Altered States of America, by 10-8. More Farty Japan's crustcore deities 324 pulled it out in squeaker. Boutoku no Taiyo edged past Suffering Mind's eponymous effort by 9-8.
So with all of that in the bag, the matchups and been reseeded and here's how Round Two is going to play out. Check it all out here.
THE GEEZERS More Metal 1. Repulsion-Horrified v. 7. Assuck-Misery Index 3. Terrorizer-World Downfall v. 4. Brutal Truth-Need to Control
More Punk 1. Napalm Death-Scum v. 6. Disrupt-Unrest 2. Brutal Truth-Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses v. 5. Assuck-Anticapital
THE UPSTARTS
More Arty 1. Discordance Axis-The Inalienable Dreamless v. 6. GridLink-Amber Gray (That's right you picked between Matsubara projects only to get stuck with Chang on Chang) 2. Pig Destroyer-Prowler in the Yard v. 4. Dephosphorus-Night Sky Transform
More Farty 1. Insect Warfare-World Extermination v. 6. Kill the Client-Cleptocracy 2. Wormrot-Abuse v. 324-Boutoku no Taiyo
So all of that is prologue to this week's matchups. Once again, you have until Sunday. Vote here or at the Facebook page. Have at it.
THE GEEZERS
More Metal 1. Repulsion-Horrified v. 7. Assuck-Misery Index
More Punk 1. Napalm Death-Scum v. 6. Disrupt-Unrest
THE UPSTARTS
More Arty 1. Discordance Axis-The Inalienable Dreamless v. 6. GridLink-Amber Gray
More Farty 1. Insect Warfare-World Extermination v. 6. Kill the Client-Cleptocracy
Round two brought us the first upset and it kinda surprises me. (In retrospect, maybe not so much.) Who got unceremoniously dumped? Let's get to the results.
THE GEEZERS
More Metal Napalm Death's From Enslavement just got obliterated by Assuck's Misery Index. What many consider to the be the most influential grind albums in history got smoked 14-9.
More Punk This one wasn't even close. Unseen Terror's Human Error mustered a single protest vote, losing to Brutal Truth's Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses by 21-1.
THE UPSTARTS
More Arty Even the mighty Nasum couldn't stand against Pig Destroyer as Prowler in the Yard trounced Helvete by 15-7.
More Farty Sakatat gave us eight blissful minutes of grind perfection with farewell album Bir Devrin Sonu, but that wasn't enough to come close to Singaporean masters Wormrot and their totally out of left field debut Abuse, which triumphed 19-2.
So that was round two. As always, you can view the updated brackets here. Just keep in mind I'll be reseeding when the first batch is done, so the matchups it shows right now might not be the final faceoffs.
Anyway, on to the 3-6 matchups.
THE GEEZERS
More Metal 3. Terrorizer-World Downfall v. 6. S.O.B.-Gate of Doom
More Punk 3. S.O.B.-Don't Be Swindle v. 6. Disrupt-Unrest
THE UPSTARTS
More Arty 3. Mortalized-Absolute Mortality 2 v. 6. GridLink-Amber Gray (ya think I did that deliberately?)
More Farty 3. Agoraphobic Nosebleed-PCP Torpedo v. 6. Kill the Client-Cleptocracy
Have at it. Once again, you have until Sunday. You can vote here or at the Facebook page, whichever is most convenient.
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.
Political maestro James Carville shepherded Bill Clinton to two terms of balanced budgets and relative world peace with his simple insight that in a post-Cold War world it was the economy that would be the electorate's overriding concern. Just to make sure campaign staffers stayed on message, Carville posted a note on the office wall: "It's the economy, stupid."
Tapping in to its punk and hardcore roots, grindcore is preoccupied by social and political topics. While it does its best to spit bile in the direction of religion, politics and other easily identifiable villains, grindcore does not do a good job of addressing thornier, more complicated issues like the economy. Granted, there's only so much you can say in 75 seconds, but it's a topic -- especially in the depth of the worst global downturn since the Great depression -- that's ripe for some angry discussion. Here are four artists who keep their mind on their money and their money on their mind.
Tools of the (Free) Trade
No other band has ever been as attuned to the economic unease of modern blue collar workers as Benumb. Where other grind bands were content to choke out vague denunciations of The System and how it needs to be Taken Down, Benumb penned factory floor ditties about offshored jobs, disappointing unions and lives spent paycheck to paycheck with none of Bruce Springsteen's bullshit romanticism. One of the best examples is Withering Strands of Hope's "WTO: Disintergration of the Working Class," which detailed the aftershocks of the Clinton administration's obsession with international free trade deals. The treaties that ultimately tied the world together more tightly economically came at the expense of blue collar wage earners.
Exhume to Consume
Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of chatting up Kill the Client's Champ Morgan will tell you that dude is not shy about sharing his libertarian outlook on life. The guy's caustic outlook on life is perfect for a "pox on both their houses" approach to America's useless, bifurcated political landscape. And like every true Ron Paualite I've ever met, Morgan is also attuned to the modern economic landscape. Cleptocracy's "Consumption is Intoxication" could have been just another "buying shit is evil" song. What elevates the tune is that Morgan zeros in on the debt and funding mechanisms that make our consumption-driven existence possible. It's that extra perceptive step that makes Kill the Client such a force.
Occupy Everywhere
Matthew Widener's impending revolution will begin at the banks. The rabble rousing Liberteer ringleader can be found philosophically camped outside of Wall Street's rapacious halls. The avowed 99 Percenter has been pretty clear about his social/economic philosophy. So it's no surprise that a song like "Usurious Epitaph" takes on the economic chains that bind us. That loan you took out to get ahead in life ultimately only holds you back, Liberteer says. A lifetime of scrimping and saving and living paycheck to credit card only to be wiped out in a catastrophic economic collapse would make even the most mild mannered middle class consumer into a frothing Marxist revolutionary.
Candy Land
Harry McClintock's "Big Rock Candy Mountain" may just sound like a goofy Candy Land tune about a pancreas-crushing paradise of diabetic delights. But if you pay closer attention to the lyrics and put the song into its proper context, suddenly it becomes a snapshot of the economic instability that led up to the Great Depression. In the hands of The Oily Menace, the song also takes on a fierce new urgency, getting a 21st Century update for a new era of bankruptcy, both moral and monetary.
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.
It may have taken extra innings, but we're ready to get back into it. I asked you who made the most persuasive arguments and here's who won the masses over:
Yes I know this wasn't actually Perpetual Strife's vote (actually, he voted the opposite way, but it was enough to get Shane Bywaters thinking: "I'd totally die before I call Psyopus a grindcore band, but I'm totally enjoying this tom-foolery of fretboard silliness. Reminds me of one of my most hidden dirty secrets: I like Beneath the Massacre's first EP. Something about sterile sounding guitars flipping the fuckout. "
So Arp moves on.
Meanwhile, Will Hubbell got down with Desiccated Veins' reasoning: "Huh, kind of a tough one. Dick Johnson definitely did his part to shepherd grind safely out of the '90s, and for better or worse, Borja taught us what meaty-as-fuck Discordance Axis riffs sound like. Maybe it's 'cause I'm guilty about sending one Rob Marton worshipper through already, or maybe it's because Fractured Theology is sounding really good right now, but I'm gonna vote Johnson."
So that means Johnson will live to fight another day.
So here's the opening frame of round two. Check out the reseeded brackets here. Here's this week's matchups. As always, you've got until Sunday to make your case.
The Old Guard 1. Olivo/Freeman (Repulsion) v. 4. Pintado (Terrorizer/Napalm Death/Resistant Culture) Grind from the grave vs. the guy who went to his too soon.
The Innovators 1. Procopio/Baglino (Human Remains) v. 6. Papirmollen (Parlamentarisk Sodomi/PSUDOKU) I think this might be the most fascinating of the bunch: the guys who pretty much invented grind weirdness vs. the guy who perfected it for the 21st century.
The Punks 1. Burda/McLachlan (Phobia) v. 6. Beau (Insect Warfare) Classic California punky grind vs. classic sounding Texas punky grind.
The Technicians 1. Matsubara (Mortalized/GridLink/Hayaino Daisuki) v. 7. Rainwater (Noisear/Kill the Client) You all broke my heart when Rainwater somehow beat Rob Marton (I forgive you). Can the up and coming underdog take it two impossible triumphs in a row by taking out Matsubara as well?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 21st 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.
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.
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.
That client has done been killed good and dead by the Texans on third full length and Relapse debutSet 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...
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.
“Life is pain, life is fear, and man is unhappy[,” Kirillov said “]Everthing is now pain and fear. Man loves life now because he loves fear and pain. That’s how it’s been. Life is given in return for pain and fear now, and that’s the whole deception. But man is still not really man. There will come a new man, happy and proud. He who doesn’t care whether he lives or dies – he’ll be the new man. He who conquers pain and fear – will become God. And then the old God will no longer exist. […] God is the pain of the fear of death. He who conquers pain and fear – will become God. Then a new life will dawn; there’ll be a new man; everything will be new… History will be divided into two parts: from gorilla to the destruction of God and from the destruction of God to… […] … to the physical transformation of the earth and man. […] Everyone who wants absolute freedom will have to dare to kill himself. Everyone who dares to kill himself will have discovered the secret of deception. There’s no freedom beyond that; that’s everything – there’s nothing more. He who dares kill himself is God.” Dostoevsky Devils 1871
Kill the Client’s post-Escalation of Hostility progress has been a nigh on Buddhist seminar in addition by subtraction. Shedding a second guitarist and their more overt Terrorizer and Brutal Truth influences for something more primal. More instinctual than intellectual, the Texans have hit this state of blissful transcendence since Cleptocracy. At this point I don’t see how the band could even continue as Kill the Client if it were to ever lose one of its component parts. While Set for Extinction may not sound as crisp as Cleptocracy, there’s no escaping the glowering murk of the guitars or Champ Morgan’s snarling dynamo as he winds up his bandmates to paroxysms of bursting frenetic energy. And James Delgado and Bryan Fajardo are quite simply the tightest rhythm section in grind, mixing fluid bass and concussive drumming. There’s pretty much no point in talking about any of the 19 individual songs on Set for Extinction because it's a suffocating 30 minute gestalt with each unrelenting blast passage choking out rational thought, leaving only atavistic brain stem impulses to crush and kill. The down tempo moments that stuck out like speed bumps on Escalation of Hostility have been gleaned of their finest moments and sprinkled throughout the album on songs like “Pandemic” as ballast. I look forward to several years of arguments (with myself, if no one else) about whether Cleptocracy or Set for Extinction is the superior album. I can’t say for sure, but I do know that when “Cull the Herd” crashes the album to a close on such an abrupt note I’m caught breathless and I have to hit play again.
Here’s the second half of the quarterfinals. You’ll have until Tuesday to make your case in the comments.
North America GridLink (2) v. Kill the Client (3) A battle of aesthetics. GridLink are sleek, emotional and oddly positive for the normally grumpy world of grind. They’re like magically finding one of Japan’s legendary vending machines outside of your local 7-Eleven. Kill the Client just want you to die. Preferably exploded into little pieces. Subtle is one thing they’re not with their violent brew of blast beats and punk riffs.
Asia and Australia 324 (2) v. Magnicide (3) Like Obi Wan and Darth Vader, this is a meeting of master and student. Has the circle been completed? Are Magnicide now the masters while 324 has laid idle due to lineup instability? Who wears the Asia crust grind crown at the moment?
Scandinavia Sayyadina (2) v. Afgrund (3) There’s no need to rehash old territory. We’ve had this argument before. I think Sayyadina represent the best of post-Nasum Swedish grind. Many of you offered up Afgrund instead. Now it’s time to make your case in the comments. May the better band win.
Continental Europe and the United Kingdom Blood I Bleed (2) v. Nashgul (5) Two of Europe’s most promising bands offer a fairly stark contrast. Holland’s Blood I Bleed embody the finest aspects of modern grind songwriting. Everything’s spiky and frenetic, strangled by deliberately placed static. Spain’s Nashgul, on the other hand, think grind peaked with Horrified and are content to keep it traditional. So do you prefer Coke Classic or New Coke. Wait, bad analogy.
The first round is coming to a close with the final victors to be announced Thursday. Meanwhile, here’s who you thought ruled the 3-6 bracket. Finally, you guys delivered an upset. Who’s hitting the showers early? Read on to find out.
North America Kill the Client may wanna consider changing their moniker to Kill Graf Orlock. The cine-grinders got blown out by a score of 19-2. Kill the Client will get a chance to escalate the hostility in round two.
Asia and Australia There’s something festering in the water in Singapore. Magnicide’s 324 worship cut across Unholy Grave’s black wings by a vote of 8-5.
Scandinavia In probably the most fiercely argued matchup of the round, Afgrund partisans narrowly won a rear guard action against up and comers The Arson Project by 7-5.
Continental Europe and the United Kingdom Finally an upset! Sixth ranked Attack of the Mad Axeman's animal magnetism won out over Poles Suffering Mind’s traditional grindcore by 8-5.
The 4-5 winners will come on Thursday and the reseeded matchups for round two will kick off again Monday. As always, the updated bracket can be perused here.
The people have spoken and it wasn’t even close. Here are your 1-8 winners.
North America Pig Destroyer terrifier-ed crust grind lifers Phobia, blowing them out 17-4. Turns out a fairly consistent record over 20 years and an unwavering commitment to DIY ethics just can’t compete with Hull et al’s scathing art grind nightmares. (Bonus points go to Bill Willingham IV Esq. for better articulating my problem with recent Phobia albums. I also agree they’re too safe.)
Asia and Australia In the most lopsided contest of the lot, Wormrot eviscerated Captain Cleanoff by a vote of 18-2. Though many of you argued fiercely for the Australians’ right to slot in the contest, their booze drenched nods to classic Carcass just couldn’t stand in the face of Wormrot’s exquisite ferocity.
Scandinavia Though a few of you offered up spirited defenses of Infanticide’s new jack noise, Rotten Sound’s legacy of consistently crushing records drove them to a 16-5 victory. Give Infanticide a few more years to build up their reputation and I suspect the results would be much closer.
Continental Europe and the United Kingdom Maybe it was just wishful thinking since I’ve been on an Agathocles binge lately, but I had smelled upset going into this one. You, the voters, were having none of it. Old dogs Napalm Death’s new tricks crushed Agathocles’ relentless singelmindedness by 15-6. It was the tightest contest of the day, but it wasn’t even close.
The winners have advanced and you can check out the revised brackets here. Meanwhile, we move on to the 3-6 matchups. The faceoffs should be more evenly matched so I expect closer calls and some really interesting arguments. Let the streets flow with the blood of the unbelievers. Argument’s open until Saturday.
North America Kill the Client (3) vs. Graf Orlock (6) Go mess with Texas. I dare you. Yeah, didn’t think so. Kill the Client are an audio pipe bomb packed full of nails and the knucklebones of lesser competitors who shred their fingers to the nub vainly trying to keep pace. But there’s just not another band working right now that’s as purely pissed as Kill the Client. Champ Morgan is a man possessed and he’s backed by of top shelf musicians. Jesus, is there any grind band that Bryan Fajardo hasn’t joined? But the secret sauce to the Dallas barbecue may be bassist James Delgado who anchors the chaos and quietly shapes the sound from behind the scenes. If the MPAA sends out a flurry of new cease and desist letters, cine-grinders Graf Orlock must be back in the studio. The band has dropped a triptych of releases that follow the formula of introduction/conflict/and violent conclusion that stitches together a narrative from cinematic samples and swiped dialog lyrics. And while that has been the bit of trivia that has formed the basis of the Graf’s identity, don’t overlook their quality of the hardcore tinged noise they bang out. The music is just as sweeping, emotional and explosive of the meathead movies that inspire them.
Asia and Australia Magnicide (3) vs. Unholy Grave (6) A fascinating matchup between two Asian acts that are perhaps better known for their artists they ape than the music they make on their own. Singapore’s Magnicide do a capable 324 impersonation as they play second grind fiddle to countrymen Wormrot. But do Wormrot have grindcore didgeridoo? Hmm? Do they? With 324 frozen in carbonite for the time being, Magnicide are your best bet to scratch that crusty grind holocaust itch until the masters’ triumphant return. Unholy Grave are the Asian Agathocles both because they bang out a consistently lo-fi morass of punky grind with only a fleeting acquaintance with 21st Century recording techniques and technology and because the list of their split-heavy back catalogue outweighs your average phone book. But the Japanese quartet has defined its niche in the grindcore ecosphere and have burrowed in comfortably. You don’t pick up an Unholy Grave album expecting to be wowed with the latest thinking in songsmithy. However, the band has a deft hand at grinding the fuck out, never swaying from their strengths.
Scandinavia Afgrund (3) vs. The Arson Project (6) Some of you have had the temerity to develop your own surprisingly cogent opinions, making lucid arguments in favor of Afgrund’s superiority to Sayyadina as Sweden’s top working grinders. How dare you? Oh, I can certainly see where you’re coming from because Afgrund raged out of the abyss (all of those who got that pun, raise your hands) with a potent brew of punk- and metal-distilled audio aggression. When the sometimes Swedish/sometimes Italian/sometimes Finnish sometimes trio/sometimes quartet (OK, their lineup is not stable) clicks, the set all of Europe aflame, like the song says. The question before you is if that is strong enough to overcome the band’s insistence of larding albums with thoroughly pointless and dreary doom passages. Against them comes upstarts The Arson Project who only boast one EP to their name to date, but it’s a corker. Hobbled by a name stolen from the bad metalcore handbook, The Arson Project have a slick hand with a tune and a poise and energy that belies the band’s relative youth. Do 14 minutes of prime noise and bucketsful of future potential stack up against the here and now attractions of Afgrund?
Continental Europe and the United Kingdom Suffering Mind (3) vs. Attack of the Mad Axeman (6) Suffering Mind couldn’t be more serious; Attack of the Mad Axeman couldn’t be less. Do you prefer the rage or the jester? Poles Suffering Mind are grind incarnate. Far more hardcore inflected than many of their European kin, the band blasts and huffs and doesn’t waste its time with much else. They know their strengths and they will throttle you with their raw rage and bullwhip attack. Against them stands Germany’s Attack of the Mad Axeman the ecologically minded grinders harness the sounds of the animal kingdom in the name of animal activism and environmental responsibility. They also know their way around a thoroughly infectious riff over the course of two increasingly awesome full lengths. And yes, they wear fuzzy animal costumes on stage, but don’t let that lull you into thinking they’re a joke band.
Like any other sane person here in the magic kingdom of DeeCee, I celebrated Barack Obama’s historic inauguration by staying the fuck out of the city. It’s not that I wasn’t feeling the hope or the change or the changing hope or the hoping change or whatever it was we were celebrating. Hell, despite my reservations about Biden and the most egregious aspects of the drug war he authored, I voted for Obama. (That’s partly thanks to the Greens and Libertarians coughing up two candidates who were so completely antithetical to each party’s stated philosophy that I had no choice but to vote for a major party candidate for the first time in my life.) And if he accomplishes nothing else I’ll raise a toast to Obama for fucking over those goddamned Baby Boomers who have ruined every election in my adult life by turning it into a pointless circle jerk about who did what way back in the ’60s rather than actually leading the country. No, my reason for skipping the downtown festivities was far more practical. I didn’t feel like being hassled by the Capitol Police when I inevitably kicked some fat Midwestern tourist in a fanny pack and a souvenir FBI shirt down the stairs for violating the Metro’s escalator rules. So spending a frigid Tuesday watching the inauguration from the warmth and comfort of my couch left me plenty of time to ponder the new era in Washington. Actually, I spent a good bit of time considering that hoary punk and metal truism that Republican administrations make for the best musical inspiration. Even a cursory survey of my music shelf reminded me of the difficulty even some top flight bands had adjusting to the post-Reagan/Thatcher/Cold War era when easy enemies were scarce. So I started asking some of my favorite political grind frontmen whether they have any concerns about their job security in this new era of hope. “I don't think it makes much difference,” Bloody Phoenix/ex-Excruciating Terror guitarist Jerry Flores said. “Doesn't matter what party is in office. Look at the Clinton years: plenty of angry bands surfaced during that era. Republicans just make easier targets. Poverty, corruption, etc. It fuels the fire. It's not going to go away. Our problems haven't gone away.” While Richard Johnson has generally shied away from being overtly political with Drugs of Faith (though they did slap Dubya’s mug on their self-titled EP, a trend I am glad to see peter out),he penned some classic diatribes with drum machine progenitors Enemy Soil back when Bush Sr. was the one leading the ill-conceived Middle East excursions. And though he may be relieved Sarah Palin is not one geriatric heartbeat away from starting all out nuclear war with Paraguay, Johnson said he will not be letting the ascendant Democrats off the hook so easily either. “I think the left is resting on its laurels now and it's a grave mistake,” he said. “We are not in a post-race world. And while it is a huge change having Obama in the White House in some areas, and I'm very happy about those aspects of his presidency (global gag rule, fuel economy, Guantanamo, talks with Iran, et cetera), in other areas, nothing has changed at all.”The kind of change Johnson said Obama doesn’t seem to believe in: Bush and Cheney in orange jumpsuits at Leavenworth for shitting on the Constitution, an immediate end to America’s entanglements in foreign wars – including Afghanistan – and Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid pulling their noses out of the latest Rasmussen poll and spontaneously developing functioning vertebrae. “While I'm ecstatic that McCain didn't get in, I didn't vote for Obama,” Johnson said. “I voted for Nader. As a matter of fact, I voted independent or green only from president down to local school board.” Which raises a good point: even if you skip the presidential side show, vote your local races. Seriously, that’s where the worst shit that will fuck up your life goes down and since turnout and participation are historically so low for local races, a small, concerted group (*cough* whackjob godbotherers *cough*) can easily sway the vote and before you know it your school kids are being led in unconstitutional school prayer and being taught that unsubstantiated bullshit like intelligent design is just as valid as the theory of evolution. “Corruption never sleeps,” Kill the Client’s Champ Morgan said. And if you worry changing the drapes in the West Wing means Texas’ finest’s will lack for inspiration, rest easy. Morgan’s libertarian leanings leave him equally dissatisfied with both the conventional left and right. “Things here are fucked up,” Morgan said. “You cut off the head of the hydra and two more appear. The once greatest country in the world is up to our eyeballs in debt, education and health care barely exist, and we take another goose step towards the police state every day.” Cynically confident in the fallibility of human nature, Kill the Client will not starve for inspiration regardless of how squeaky clean the current POTUS seems. “Until the government is dismantled and control is put back in the hands of the people, we will not be truly free,” Morgan said. “There will always be material and inspiration out there. You just may have to dig past the surface to see it.” Now that’s no change we can believe in.
Novelist David Foster Wallace hit upon an ingenious idea in his hefty tome Infinite Jest: at some point in the near future corporations will be able to buy the naming rights to individual years. So instead of 2009, this would be the Year of the Perdue Wonder Chicken. With that inspiration, I say we all pool our scratch and retroactively buy up 2008 at a reduced price and rename it the Year of Bryan Fajardo’s Unfuckwithable Blastbeat. If there were ever a candidate for grindcore’s equivalent of the Hart Memorial Trophy, it would be Fajardo for his wrist-shattering efforts to out-Witte drumming ubermensch Dave Witte. The year 2008 alone saw the guy backstop Discordance Axis-Jr. Noisear, bolster Phobia’s live presence, help Kill the Client notch a new personal best and still found time to collaborate with Jon Chang on GridLink (which I heard put out a decent enough album). In addition to a day job like you and me. Shit, my arms are tired just typing that and I guarantee you I wasn’t moving at 200 bpm while Jon Chang shrieked at me to go even faster. “It gets pretty crazy when I have two tours booked and they coincide with each other,” Fajardo said. “And flying all over the country is just part of the game.” In a slight twist on Edison’s formula for success, Fajardo has risen to the top of the grind heap through 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent location. Seems like that guy is always in the right place at the right time when top flight bands come calling. Case in point: being invited to perform a Discordance Axis cover with Noisear for the Our Last Day compilation (the leftovers from which ended up on Pyroclastic Annhialation) opened the door for Fajardo to slide into GridLink during one of that band’s well publicized personnel reallocations. “Well, they were having problems finding a drummer that was able to pull off the speed they needed with out adding too much,” Fajardo said. “I pretty much kept to Chang’s ideas but was able to add my own styles.” And it’s not just those of us outside looking in flipping over Amber Gray’s psychotic mix of Discordance Axis and neon flashing, pachinko hall, cold coffee in an aluminum soda can Japanese goodness. Somebody else got a tad fanboy over Matsubara’s post-Mortalized shred as well. “I am pretty happy with the way it all turned out,” Fajardo said. “The music is just as intense as we planned. I must say the guitar playing on the record is what makes it one of my own favorite grind releases. Matsubara is amazing!” And remember what we said earlier, if you’re gonna score prime grind real estate, it’s all location, location, location. “It was pretty easy hooking up with the KTC dudes,” he said. “I actually live in the same city as these guys so we have more time to focus on writing and keeping the bands sound up to par. As far as input on writing, ee all put in equal creative freedom. I knew I wanted this record to be more intense and tighter than the previous efforts. It also helped that I got back from a tour with Phobia a day before we started recording Cleptocracy so I was pretty warmed up.” That easy transition went both directions. “He loves playing music. That's all he wants to do,” Kill the Client mouthpiece Champ Morgan said. For all the intensity you hear on vinyl, Morgan said Fajardo remains zen when it’s time to hit the studio or pile into a van for a show, which probably helps him juggle the kind of course load that would crush your average college freshman. “Brian, or ‘Fajita' as I like to call him, brings real precession and power to KTC.,” Morgan said. “He's very, very technical and knows what he wants to hear in the songs. He really has a great feel for grind music and in that he strengthens the backbone of what we are as a band. His speed is sickening. That's all I can say. I watch him sometimes just wondering how his hands and feet move that fast.” So to sum up: Fajardo anchored the best grind release of 2008, backstopped an unappreciated legend of American metal on stage and propelled Texas’ finest to new heights of rectal ripping goodness. Oh and Noisear plan to grace us with new issue by the close of 2009 as well as the second installment of the finest compilation series since the crucial Cry Now, Cry Later albums. “[Noisear] are writing new material for a full length that will be released on Six Weeks hopefully by the end of the year. Also recording for the next This Comp Kills Fascists Vol. Two on Relapse,” Fajardo said. And somehow this drummer doesn’t see himself as the current king of the blastbeat heap. “I don't really see myself as a top contender in the grind world but I appreciate that people are noticing what I do,” Fajardo said. Modesty is all well and good, but at this rate, we may have to save up to rename 2009 after the guy as well.
Noisear Pyroclatic Annhiallation RSR Do metal people keep resumes? Can I call your former band for a recommendation before we bring you in full time? The reason I ask is because Noisear’s latest album, Pyroclastic Annhiallation, released over the summer but recorded in 2007, boasts six (count ‘em six) seriously spot on Discordance Axis covers (like in a blind test I’d swear it was the real thing), and given drummer Bryan Fajardo’s collaboration with Jon Chang in GridLink, the temptation to read this is a job application is overwhelming. 2008 was a big year for Fajardo, who in addition to proving he can ably fill Dave Witte’s Adidases, also recorded with Kill the Client and anchored Phobia live. In the midst of all that, almost overlooked (at least by me) was the fact that New Mexico’s finest grinders also put out a new album of their own. And you don’t need a handful of DxAx covers to figure out Noisear has collectively given Jouhou a spin or a thousand because they kick out their grind jams in the same, sleek Tokyo bullet train style. Alex Lucero has clearly put in post graduate work in the Jon Chang school of tonsil assault, ably mimicking the screech/growl tradeoffs that powered Discordance Axis. But Noisear can’t be simply written off as mere plagiarists, or worse, a tribute band. “Myownworstenemy’s” guitar squalls and squeals hearken back to Witte’s pre-Axis collaborators, Human Remains while the awesomely titled “The Chains that Grind Us” slouch back toward Napalm Death. (Nonsensical word salad titles like “Endless Struggle with Invariable Imminence” and “Senselessly Torn Apart by the Corporate” are slightly more subtle Napalm references.) So yeah Zmaj, this probably would have made my year end countdown had I gotten my shit together in time. And no, I have no clue what I would have cut either.
