One EP Wonders

Some bands don't even get the benefit of a single full length to make their mark on grindcore. Instead, they have to prove their chops in the space of a single EP. The time constraints inherent in the format seem perfectly suited to melting out the fat, forcing bands to focus on their finest, strongest material. If your band's 7-inch drags in spots, you've got bigger problems. But the bands below needed nothing more than that to stake their claim to grindcore glory.

Siege
Drop Dead
Deranged (Re-release)
1984
Siege only had nine songs and 16 minutes of material to their credit (and half of that was the saxophone-heavy freak out of "Grim Reaper") but that's all the Boston band needed to lay the cornerstone of what would become grindcore. Siege pushed the tempos of hardcore to nigh-blastbeat territory on Drop Dead and their flailing brand of thrashed out punk is an undeniable influence on Napalm Death's Scum, side A in particular. Everything that would later be associated with grindcore can be spotted on Drop Dead: thrashing drums, tonsil-scraping screaming and punk on speed guitars. Unfortunately, the band would drop dead shortly after recording their demo, but the legacy was just getting started.

Luddite Clone
The Arsonist and the Architect
Relapse/Cyberdine 243
2000
Coming out of the same New Jersey scene that brought us Human Remains and Burnt by the Sun, Luddite Clone played a shifty brand of hardcore, grind and metal on EP The Arsonist and the Architect. The band's collected works would include a split with Burnt by the Sun and a live split with the hardcore band The Esoteric, but it was their solo six song EP that made their reputation as a tech savvy band with a penchant for ear virus riffs and jazz complexity. Even though it was later re-released by Relapse, The Arsonist and the Architect, out of print again, is a quietly impressive slab of noise that's never quite gotten the respect it desperately deserves.

King Generator
King Generator
Tankcrimes
2008
If a second collaboration between Dave Witte and Mike Hill doesn't excite you (Witte subbed in on drums for Anodyne's Red Was Her Favorite Color, and tossed in a rare guitar performancee for good measur), then you're reading the wrong goddamn blog. Throw in Jamie Thomson of Shank and you've got a recipe for an asskicking hardcore experience. King Generator gave us seven awesome punk/grind songs as part of one-off collaboration in 2008. There's probably nothing here that you haven't heard before, but in the hands of three punk masters, King Generator bring it with the kind of confidence and panache that a lot of their younger challengers lack.

Hope Collapse
Year of the Leper
Inkblot Records
2005
Yet another Dave Witte one-off, this time he reunited with Carlos Ramirez and Andrew Orlando of Black Army Jacket to form Hope Collapse. The band banged out an EP of top shelf grind inspired by the likes of Terrorizer, Assuck, Repulsion, Siege, S.O.B, who all get namechecked in the liner notes. For the names involved and quality of musicianship at play, Year of the Leper has been criminally overlooked by too many people in their target demographic. From the start of first true song "Cold Steel Penetrates You Flesh," which is just as piercing as it sounds, the band rages like a post-millennial version of Assuck. They don't let up until the last notes of "Leper Convention" fade into oblivion. More than any other EP on this list, Hope Collapse deserves a sequel.

Bodies in the Gears of the Apparatus
Simian Hybrid Prototype
The Spew
2004
Florida grind mouthful Bodies in the Gears of the Apparatus' discography is essentially Simian Hybrid Prototype and a split with Despised Icon, but that's all it took to notch their mark on grindcore. From the Scott Hull production through the Paul Romano art, Simian Hybrid Prototype is a nasty, unnerving nugget of subversive grind that tries to shock like Anal Cunt with a college diploma rather than a handful of homophobic insults or what Agoraphobic Nosebleed used to be before they fell for their own shtick. Either way, the band wasn't able to keep it together beyond one EP and the split. Members went on to Khann and Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky, but neither of those outfits have been able to capture the spark of Bodies in the Gears of the Apparatus.

Sampler Platter

If, from my perch as a cranky old guy, I could offer you young bands a word of advice, it’s this: I know you think Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now are, like, totally awesome movies ‘n’ shit, but all of the rest of us already know that, too. Please stop sampling them on your albums. I’m just saying Netflix boasted about having 65,000 titles a few years ago, so why not give another movie a try?
I don’t object to samples on albums; I often enjoy them. I just think they’re mostly used haphazardly. I often play the fantasy sampling game when I’m watching a movie. I’ll hear a great bit of dialogue and I’ll ponder how I would apply it to a song. What would it say about the music? Would it influence the lyrics or performance? How would it work in an album context? I don’t think enough people ask themselves those questions when they pull a bit of dialogue from their favorite movie. [Ed. Note: I’m not talking about somebody like Graf Orlock. Their shtick is so total as to place them in a whole ’nother realm.]
I can think of very few examples of bands using samples thoughtfully or for more than a superficial rhetorical point. The first would be Who’s My Saviour’s “Save Your Breath,” an album-closing 90 seconds of sludgy psychedelia that deploys creepy flat toned HAL 9000 from 2001 with expertly counterpointed music to perfectly claustrophobic effect. It’s the kind of song I end up listening to three or four times in a row because it’s so well constructed. The second would be Damad’s second album, Rise and Fall, which trickles bits of dialogue from Swimming With Sharks throughout. The choice to go with a single film and to highlight Kevin Spacey’s relentless asshole boss built a misanthropic theme that jibed with the band’s southern crust style.
I wish more bands were that thoughtful when they reach for their DVD collection. Extreme Noise Terror pretty much admitted the samples for 2010 2009’s return to form Law of Retaliation were largely chosen at random and had no bearing on the songs themselves.
I read an interview with Pig Destroyer’s J.R. Hayes a few years back (I think it was circa Terrifyer) where he talked about why the band decided to stop using movie samples and start creating their own theatrical bits. He said when you hear a sample and identify it, it pulls you out of the music. It adds in other associations that maybe the artist didn’t really intend to be there. I’ve often gone back and thought about that quite a bit since then. Especially after I hear the same samples or the same directors endlessly used to augment a band’s song or aesthetic.
Do I really need to hear the exact same "pain has a face" quote from Hellraiser: Bloodline from both Kataklysm (not a grind band, I know; but they’re a repeat offender so bear with me) and Suffering Mind? Are they trying to imply that their music will cause me pain? Because last I checked I thought they wrote songs for their and my enjoyment.
Maruta and Abstain have both used the – thanks to Glenn Beck – no longer farcical Howard Beale rant from Network in their music. Beale’s character was supposed to be satirical rip on the inanity and venality of television news. Are they asking me to seriously identify with his frothing about being mad as hell and scared of the world? If so, why? According to the FBI violent crime has plummeted over the last decade.
Some movies are just overused to the point of painful cliché. Means of Existence is my favorite Phobia album, but even I have to groan at “Snail,” a midtempo, mid-album instrumental meltdown built around samples describing Col. Kurtz from Apocalypse Now. Audio Kollaps have also pillaged Coppolla’s cursed jungle epic (at least they do it in dubbed German), borrowing the Col. Kilgore hitting the beach scene (but mercifully not "Ride of the Valkyries") on an album that also pays visual homage to the movie. If there’s some sort of take home message from either, I’m not sure what it means. Is there some special commentary about the futility and madness of war (Coppolla’s intended themes) I’m not getting from them.
David Lynch is also a popular target for bands looking to boost their arty, intellectual cred. Remember Hayes said Pig Destroyer decided to stop using movie samples? Cuz they sure didn’t have a problem nicking a line from Twin Peaks for the song “Elfin” on the Explosions in Ward 6 (later 38 Counts of Battery) album. Ditto Circle of Dead Children who decided a bit of the Cowboy’s dialogue from Mulholland Dr. would make a fitting opener for Human Harvest. While the “Let’s get down to it” line does make for a nice bit of intro, am I supposed to glean anything else from their choice? Do they identify with Lynch’s vision or artistry in any significant way? Is Human Harvest informed by the themes of duality, identity and delusion that pervaded the movie? How about the Destroyers of Pigs and Twin Peaks?
So I say this as both an undying fan of film and grind: I get tired hearing the same samples on every fucking album. You wanna surprise me? Next album, sample Steel Magnolias or Terms of Endearment instead and do it in a way that’s honest to the spirit of the music.
I’ve collected some of the more egregious offenders and Who’s My Saviour’s sterling example here. Give it a listen and tell me if I’m completely off base and just a grumpy old man.

2001: A Space Odyssey
Who’s My Saviour – “Save Your Breath”

Dark City
Luddite Clone – “Oratory of the Jigsaw”
Kataklysm – “1999:6661:2000”

Network
Abstain – “Discriminating”
Maruta – “Replicate”

Hellraiser: Bloodline
Suffering Mind – “Dead Part of Cause”
Kataklysm – “Il Diavolo in Me”

Apocalypse Now
Phobia – “Snail”
Audio Kollaps – “Aussent Welt”

David Lynch
Pig Destroyer – “Elfin” (Twin Peaks)
Circle of Dead Children – “A Family Tree to Hang From” (Mulholland Dr.)

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: Luddite Clone

Luddite Clone
The Arsonist and the Architect
Cyberdine 243/Relapse
2000
Shortly after bargain basement Frankenstein Dr. Weird unleashed anthropomorphic fast food on New Jersey, he moved on to his next project: a cutting edge metallic hardcore band cobbled together from leftover pieces of Human Remains, Creation is Crucifixion and Unruh, creating a post-singularity robot fighting league killbot. Like those contemporaries (as well as Burnt by the Sun with whom they shared a split), Luddite Clone packed grind intensity, death metal heft and hardcore passion into one package long before all that shit became a tiresome cliché. Like those other bands, Luddite Clone never skimped on the technical prowess, particularly unsung secret weapon Kevin Hannum whose tortuous, jazz-speckled bass brings both depth focus to the band.
“Oratory of a Jigsaw” is Dark City-sampling machine shop full of power drills riffs boring through your skull to excoriate the sweetmeats beyond while frontman Andy Cummings does his spittle-flecked R. Lee Ermey impersonation over your shoulder. And the other five songs are just as composed and powerful. “Circle Template” hovers and pecks like the marauding seagulls from The Birds, Andrew Shearer and Ian Berkowitz’s guitars crest against the whitewater tug of Bob Raf’s drums on “Arthropod” and “The Contortionist” wracks bone and tendon like David Blaine against a backdrop of Hannum’s bebop bass and record scratch breakdowns.
This was an EP so good Relapse immediate snapped it up and widely reissued it. Unfortunately, Luddite Clone flared like a supernova in 2000, issuing both The Arsonist and the Architect and their split with Burnt by the Sun. But like a solar implosion, the band quickly fizzled. A split live album with The Esoteric (the ex-Coalesce one not the doom one), chronicling Luddite Clone’s final show at CBGB’s, was the band’s epitaph in 2001.