Grindcore Bracketology 2: Round 3

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Grindcore Bracketology 2: Round 2 Week 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grindcore Bracketology 2: Week 2 Results/The 3-6 Matchups

I'm just gonna go ahead and say up front that I hate all of you. Every last one of you ingrate bastards. I know I deliberately rigged this round to have some of the most interesting head to heads. But damn, people. Seriously? Let's see if you can figure out why I'm so speechless.

Here's the 2-7 results:

The Old Guard
Though the anti-Carcass crowd came on strong early, Bill Steer ultimately triumphed over Mick Harris 10-5.

The Innovators
No surprise that Scott Hull got the first shut out of the competition, blowing out Pingdum with a perfect 15-0.

The Punks
324's Shinji now rates a 12-3 on the Misery Index after getting stomped by Heritage.

The Technicians
Rainwater by 8-7 over Marton.



Anyway, the updated brackets can be viewed here.
So, on to the 3-6 matchups. Not that you deserve them. As always, you've got until Sunday.

The Old Guard
3. Gurn (Brutal Truth) v. 6. Toshimi (S.O.B.)
Drug crazed grind freak v. sabotaged organized barbarian.

The Innovators
3. Talarczyk (Nasum) v. 6. Papirmollen (Parlamentarisk Sodomi/PSUDOKU)
A Scandinavian smackdown between the patron saint of modern grind and Norway's master of both cornholes and wormholes.

The Punks
3. Richardson (Kill the Client) v. 6. Beau (Insect Warfare)
Who is king of all Texas? This may be more divisive than the outcome of the Alamo.

The Technicians
3. Burke (Lethargy/Sulaco/Brutal Truth) v. 6. Unks/Nowoczynski (Creation is Crucifixion)
Burke has been tearing shit with little fanfare for 20 years. Creation is Crucifixion were 20 years ahead of their time.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Lethargy

Lethargy
Discography ’93-’99
Watchmen/Spoth
2000
Not just horribly misnamed, but hyperactive death/grind monstrosity Lethargy also never seemed to have racked up the kudos it deserves on its own. Instead, the Rochester, N.Y., band is best known for everything that came after. Famously, it spawned future Mastadudes Bill Kelliher and Brann Dailor who went on to major label fame and fortune following a brief, apocalyptic pass through Today is the Day (In the Eyes of God era). Lethargy was also the springboard for guitar guerilla Eric Burke who has cycled through Kalibas (jumping to drums), Sulaco, Nuclear Assault and now filling Gurn’s Adidases in Brutal Truth.
All that post-millennial success was germinated in Lethargy, a rotating cast of characters that dumped death, grind and hardcore into a Cuisnart and punched liquefy, ending up with a sound like Human Remains getting roundly pimp slapped by Botch. Strained, gut-busting, turd-squatting hardcore vocals wrassle with death-inflected riffs that soundtrack Hunter Thompson’s drug binged rampage through a circus-themed casino in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas all topped over by Dailor’s Ritalin-deprived drumming, which hammers and skitters across the spectrum, challenging everyone else to play catch up.

Lethargy – “Grope”

Lethargy – “Grieve into the Eyes That Bleed”

Just when you lock into a grove or latch on to a mindbending riff, it gets whipsnapped out from under you like a lame dinner theater magician’s routine gone horribly…. right? Quite honestly, if I’m not in the right headspace, this shit can be overwhelming, particularly given the two-disc, 2.5 hour reissue from several years back. However, this monster’s DNA has been filtrating through metal and hardcore for the past decade as an act of musical panspermia. You’ve heard a lot of this before, but if you were fortunate, you heard it here first and you probably haven’t heard it better.