“And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled,
maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous
flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the
detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and
absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the blind, voiceless,
mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.”— H.P. Lovecraft,
“Nyarlathotep”
It’s time we talk about grindcore’s dirty secret. For 30 years—literally from the very first moment—grind musicians have been cheating on you with the must un-metal of instruments: the saxophone. (Yes, I know, literally, that's it made out of metal. You know what I mean, smart ass!) Saxophone is that instrument your parents tried to foist on you when they misunderstood what exactly you meant when you told them you wanted to join a band. It’s probably not the instrument you picture yourself shredding on a stage in front of throngs of panty-throwing fans.
Ladies.
However, it’s probably got more of a grindcore pedigree than you’d credit it at first blush. Its reedy wail has been adding an extra frisson to the wonted arsenal of slashing guitars and thumping drums for decades. If nothing else, dabbling in odd instrumentation will probably get you street cred as a serious musician who’s not afraid to test barriers. Also expect lazy reviewers to drop the term “jazzy” a lot when describing your song. “Any band with a saxophone that doesn't play ska will eventually be described as jazz,” Dead Neanderthals saxophonist Otto said. “I'm really not into traditional jazz but love free jazz. Maybe we're a little jazz in that sense.” Saxophone grind is still a bit of a novelty, and I’m certainly not advocating making it a full time thing, but maybe it’s time we recognize it’s not as incongruous as it sounds at first blush.
Extreme metal vocals are largely just another blunt instrument – one more unintelligible weapon in a band’s arsenal of noise. For the most part, that’s all they really need to be, another tool in the mix. There’s not exactly a lot of down time in grind songs. So when the band gets rolling, singers are left to try and keep pace and fight for space in the mix. But occasionally savvy musicians will know when and how to pull back. Putting the vocals forefront and providing a moment of clarity can really punctuate a song both lyrically and musically. Slamming the music to a halt to let the vocals stand on their own is a great attention grabber when done right. Here’s a handful of ways it’s been put to good use.
You Scream, I Scream
Southern crust punkers Antischism were pissed off. They wanted to scream. They wanted you to know that they wanted to scream. So on the song “Scream” they built in space for vocalist Lyz to make that point readily apparent. The result is a musical pause that gives Lyz the space to “SCREAM!” She’s screaming about the need to scream which is all kinds of cathartic and meta at the same time.
Drugs of Faith mastermind Richard Johnson made potent use of the musical pause on Corroded’s ode to rationality over religion “Age of Reason.” To punctuate his point about the value of freethinking, the song holds its breath long enough for him to scream out his intention to live “WITHOUT. THE. FAIRY. TALES.” From there, the song chooses to slowly spool out, as though all of the rush had built up to that single, powerful moment and then gave up in exhaustion. It makes the point that much more powerful.
You’re Hot Then You’re Cold
Jesus’ favorite grinders Rehumanize turn the book of Revelation’s tale of the lukewarm church at Laodecia into a grinding nightmare of vengeance and dismay on the song “Planet Loadecia.” While the song doesn’t come to a full stop, clearly its centerpiece is the relatively clean middle section where the band, personifying God, announce that “I WILL SPIT YOU OUT OF MY MOUTH.” Taken as a tale of divine retribution, that’s the moment when the implacable deity has passed judgment and only doom will follow. There can be no appeal and no reparations. Justice from that point on is swift and merciless.
Napalm Death fans generally fall into two categories. There are those perceptive individuals among us who believe their finest moment was Scum, particularly Side A (aka, those who are RIGHT) and untrustworthy mountebanks who argue the band’s best representation was From Enslavement to Obliteration (aka everyone else who is WRONG). But endlessly debating the relative merits of two albums (especially since we’ve already established the correct answer is Scum Side A) kinda ignores the fact that the band has recorded a dozen other albums since.
The quintet of Mark “Barney” Greenway, Shane Embury, Mitch Harris, Jesse Pintado and Danny Herrera—in various juxtapositions over two decades—took their predecessors’ grind and alloyed it with spine of death metal crunch and crust punk apocalypse, forging a new middle path that was often delivered in the same indecipherable gibberish language that the cast of The Red Riding Trilogy tried to pass off as English. And whatever you might think about the legitimacy of Napalm Death Mk. 3, that’s an assload of material worth consideration and closer scrutiny. So let’s rank the work of the lineup that has defined Napalm Death for past two decades.
Not content with a deadlocked ending last week, you had to go and do it again. Good job, guys. This is why we can't have nice things. So for the second week in a row I was forced to employ my dictatorial powers to call the victor. Who did I just condemn to perdition? Read on.
THE GEEZERS More Metal Once again the more metal category gave you fits with Terrorizer's World Downfall and Brutal Truth's Need to Control knotted up at 10 a side. So by the power vested in me by the state of insanity, I'm advancing Terrorizer to the next round. Plus, I'm afraid Gamefaced would beat me up if they lost.
More Punk Assuck (anti)capitalized on their opportunity to bump Brutal Truth out of the running, squeaking past Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses by 11-9.
THE UPSTARTS
More Arty Dephosphorus put out a beast of a record with Night Sky Transform, but who are we kidding? It's up against Prowler in the Yard. Pig Destroyer took a decisive 18-2 win.
More Farty In the battle of Asia experience triumphed over youthful energy as 324 snuck past Wormrot by 11-9.
So that brings us to the end of the initial rounds and the updated brackets are available for your viewing pleasure here. Now it's time to get serious. It's time to decide who's the most metal, who's the artiest, who's the fartiest. Who will triumph in each category? As always, you have until Sunday and you can vote here or at the Facebook page.
THE GEEZERS The Most Metal 1. Repulsion-Horrified v. 3. Terrorizer-World Downfall
The Punkiest 1. Napalm Death-Scum v. 5. Assuck-Anticapital
THE UPSTARTS
The Artiest 1. Discordance Axis-The Inalienable Dreamless v. 2. Pig Destroyer-Prowler in the Yard
The Fartiest 1. Insect Warfare-World Extermination v. 5. 324-Boutoku no Taiyo
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 one is in the books, folks. I don't think there were any surprises with this one, but here's who will be hitting the showers early.
I don't think any serious grind fan will discount just how awesome and quietly underrated Enemy Soil's Casualties of Progress is, but Horrified is a grindcore cornerstone. Repulsion trounced them 20-4.
In a matchup of early punky grind, Napalm Death's Scum ran all over Extreme Noise Terror's A Holocaust in Your Head by 19-5.
We all appreciate what Matt Widener did with Liberteer, but cmon, Discordance Axis' The Inalienable Dreamless is The Inalienable Fucking Dreamless. (I'm kinda a fan of this record). This one wasn't even close at 22-3.
Finally, I was curious how this one would go down since I juiced the rankings to force proteges Cellgraft to square off against masters Insect Warfare. I thought this might be the best chance for a spoiler, but I underestimated your love of World Extermination, which stomped all over External Habitation by 22-2.
So that was round one. You can keep tabs on how the brackets are shaking out here. Meanwhile, here are your 2-7 matchups. Once again, you have until Sunday. You can vote here or at the Facebook page. Have at it.
THE GEEZERS
More Metal 2. Napalm Death-From Enslavement to Obliteration v. 7. Assuck-Misery Index
More Punk 2. Brutal Truth-Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses v. 7. Unseen Terror-Human Error
THE UPSTARTS
More Arty 2. Pig Destroyer-Prowler in the Yard v. 7. Nasum-Helvete
More Farty 2. Womrot-Abuse v. 7. Sakatat-Bir Devrin Sonu
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
This is probably the hardest year end list I've ever compiled because 2012 gave us a good, varied crop to pick from and I masochistically enforced a 10 albums only limit on myself. That means I've written this post about seven times, tweaking the order and shifting bands in and out of the lineup. But I think I'm fairly comfortable with my top 10. Unless I change my mind and rewrite it next week. Anyway, here's my favorite albums from 2012 as of right now. Feel free to add, delete and reorder my choices and lecture me on my stupidity in the comments. Here's to a productive 2013.
10. Detroit Detroit Grindcore Karaoke
Detroit's self titled record, their second album of the year, was an example of evolution through regression. The Canadian youngsters (some of whom can't legally buy beer in the States), proved their mettle by getting in touch with their troglodyte selves, turning in a buzzing, biting little critter of an album that's perfectly noisy and decidedly single-minded. Detroit are already banging out riffs in preparation for a more traditionally full-length record. I sincerely hope they build off the template they've established here.
9. Napalm Death Utilitarian Century Media If you told me at the start of the year that venerable grind geezers Napalm Death would be busting out one of the most visceral, exciting and varied records of their career 20 years and 11 albums after the current lineup solidified, I would have been highly skeptical to say the least. But Utilitarian kicks all kinds of ass. Liberated by their elder statesmen status, Napalm Death are free not to give a fuck and indulge in whatever whim struck them in the studio. So you've got crazy saxaphone and Gregorian chanting staple-gunned to crusty death-grind and somehow it all just works. A little less chanting would have been fine by me, but when everything is this damn good, I can't really complain. Sticking Napalm Death on a year end list is cliche at this point, but this is easily one of my most-listened albums of the year. 8. Standing on a Floor of Bodies Sacrilegious and Culturally Deficient 7 Degrees Legions of demonic doomsters and even the mighty Mythbusters have struggled in vain to achieve the brown note--that mythical infrasonic tone that can make you shit your pants. Frightmare duo Standing on a Floor of Bodies prove that it's not how low you drone, but how effectively. Right after I wiped off the shit Standing on a Floor of Bodies scared out of me, I strapped on my Depends and put Sacrilegious and Culturally Deficient on for another spin. Eschewing the modern horror trend for just jump cut shocks, Standing on a Floor of Bodies keep their bass-slung grind/violence shocks old school, building a claustrophobic atmosphere that revels in breaking down your psyche rather than traipsing through your viscera.
7. F.U.B.A.R. Lead Us to War Hammerheart There wasn't another album this year that felt as massive as F.U.B.A.R.'s Lead Us to War. While they're not likely to win a foot race with some of their speed obsessed contemporaries, the Dutch grind/violence institution made sure every second of their long awaited album hit you firmly between the peepers and left an indelible mark. Fast, slow, screaming, despairing, F.U.B.A.R. had a range and sincerity sorely lacking in too many grind bands. They delivered their diatribes with the subtlety of a car crash, and I loved every second of it. 6. Antigama Stop the Chaos Selfmadegod This has been a good year for getting sci-fi all up in your grindcore and Antigama's stop gap EP Stop the Chaos was a great excursion beyond the asteroid belt. Jetting into the black infinitude gave these technically adroit Poles a platform to get all cyberpunky up in here. It doesn't hurt that Stop the Chaos is also Antigama's most focused, song-centric batch of tunes in quite a while. This will keep you occupied until NASA figures out what caused those organic compounds on Mars (aliens, duh). The chaosmongers are coming to take you away.
5. The Kill Make 'Em Suffer Blastasfuk Australia has been on a grindcore tear in recent years as The Kill are rightly the country's alpha dingo. Named after one of Napalm Death's finest songs, the band lives up to its name, ripping and snorting through 15 songs in under 20 minutes of impeccably performed grind nastiness. This is everything you want in a grind record and not a jot more. But you'll be too busy scraping your brains off the wall to care. They make you
I
still think a more varied vocal assault would have really pushed this
revolutionary call to arms over the top, but that's getting pretty damn
nitpicky when you consider the staggering breadth and originality
Matthew Widener served up as Liberteer. I listen to way more grind than
is probably healthy for any stable person and I can say I've literally
never heard anything like this. The operatic sweep and ideological focus
of Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees is unlike
everything you've ever heard before. The way it integrates into a
singular musical experience speaks to a level of thoughtfulness and
foresight sorely lacking from a lot of other musical quarters. Viva la
revolucion.
3. thedowngoing ATHOUSANDYEARSOFDARKNESS Bandcamp More like a thousand years of screaming in unending agony as demons strip away your flesh one teensy thin layer of skin at a time. Australia's gruesome grindcore twosome thedowngoing roared back again in 2012 with yet another tidy 10 minutes of soul flaying insanity that traps you in the pincer of Mathias Huxley's insane screeching and white-noised ear drum rape. Noisegrind has always been a fringe of a fringe of a musical underbelly, but thedowngoing's deliberately inaccessible art should get wider acclaim anywhere that people declaim their love for anything extreme. Time to add one more lethal addition to the long list of venous nasties that infest the antipodes.
2. Sakatat Bir Devrin Sonu Everyday Hate What Bir Devrin Sonu lacks in length, Sakatat more than make up for with raging aggression. There is not a wasted second to be found here as Sakatat minced through a maelstrom of grind and wipeout screaming. Sakatat succeed by burning grindcore down to its most basic constituent parts and then kicking their fucking asses with energy and aplomb. Enjoy all eight minutes of Bir Devrin Sonu because Sakatat have just called it quits. They weren't joking when they named their album End of an Era.
1. Dephosphorus Night Sky Transform 7 Degrees Dephosphorus transformed more than the night sky with their sophomore effort; the Hellenic trio upended many of my preconceptions about what grindcore could be and convey. Night Sky Transform has evolved so far beyond mere grindcore that even trying to squeeze them into that label feels like a gross disservice to what they've brewed up as they musically venture into the empty(?) spaces between the stars. The first time I heard Axiom in 2011, this immediately became my most anticipated album of 2012, and Dephosphorus did not fail to deliver, even if they charted a course I didn't expect. Axiom was more immediate and visceral, but Night Sky Transform is ultimately the more rewarding musical experience if you take the time to invest yourself in its otherworldly meditations on the cosmic irrelevance of humanity and the splendor that is the universe at large. All hail aurora.
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.
We walked along Beaufort Avenue to the centre of the estate. The herb gardens, the cheerful children's rooms filled with sensible toys, the sounds of teenagers at violin practice, were given an odd spin by the notion of imminent revolt. Most revolutionaries in the last century had aspired to exactly this level of affluence and leisure, and it occurred to me that I was seeing the emergence of a higher kind of boredom.
J.G. Ballard Millennium People 2003
The suburbs dream of violence. Asleep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world...
J.G. Ballard Kingdom Come 2006
Napalm Death Utilitarian Century Media When it came time for Napalm Death to record their fourteenth album, Utilitarian, apparently not a single fuck was given the day they hit the studio. After 20 years together, the current lineup has enough confidence in their grind-inflected death metal to fully indulge every musical digression that came to mind. The result, surprisingly, is their strongest album since Smear Campaign, and possibly of their post-Earache oeuvre. From the Swans churn of opener "Circumspect," the Dimension Hatröss vocals of "The Wolf I Feed" and the saxual assault of Everyday Pox," courtesy of avant-jazz nutbar John Zorn, Napalm Death spread their musical wings further than ever. But between all of that, they've set to tape the most concise and focused death-grind tracks of their last decade. The rollicking "Collision Course," a fulminating ball of spite, is destined to be a live set standard and the 65 seconds of "Nom de Guerre" is the most pointed we've heard these Birmingham bangers have been since Lee Dorrian decided to trip back into the '70s. Utilitarian finds Napalm Death sounding punchier than they've been in years. There's a jaunty spring to the quartet's step you wouldn't expect from a bunch of middle aged guys who still cling to death metal so tenaciously. Particularly reinvigorated is Danny Herrera whose thumping is somewhat shortchanged by a production job that stifles the snare drum, but the toms shudder with brain-rattling force. Over top him, Mitch Harris has never sounded so catchy as he bangs out one great crust-inflected riff after another. Mark "Barney" Greenway's phlegmy roar is augmented and counterpointed by new screams courtesy of his bandmates. However, Napalm Death's recent fondness for chanting gets way overused on Utilitarian in one of the few false steps. Even if Utilitarian violates the 30 minutes or less rule, Napalm Death do their best to earn every extra second of their 48 minute runtime with an renewed intensity that makes me think they might have another 20 years in them.
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?
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?
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 sorry to tell you all, but every single vote you've cast so far has been completely wasted. We're going to have to start over completely from the beginning because we all missed one guitarist who will run away with the whole competition. I don't know how we missed her in the beginning, but bow before your queen.
While you sit there looking ashamed over your inability to remember the complex chord progression of "You Suffer," here's the 3-6 results.
The Old Guard Gurn ran away with it, squashing Toshimi a perfect 10-0.
The Innovators We're all going to infinity and beyond with space grinder Papirmollen, who edged out Talarczyk 7-5.
The Punks No contest, Insect Warfare's Beau ran the table against Kill the Client's Richardson 12-0.
The Technicians Another blowout with Erik Burke taking a 9-0 lead over the Creation is Crucifixion dudes.
So, we're moving on. As always you can check out the updated bracket here. Meanwhile, here's the last batch from round one, on to the 4-5s.
The Old Guard 4. Pintado (Terrorizer/Napalm Death/Resistant Culture) v. 5. Habelt (Siege) Habelt had no clue he was inventing grindcore with Siege. Pintado helped perfect it over the next two decades.
The Innovators 4. Johnson (Enemy Soil/Drugs of Faith) v. 5. Borja (Maruta) I've said this a lot, but Richardson has done a buttload to drag grind kicking and screaming into the future with drum machines and grindcore swing. Borja invented an instantly recognizable guitar tone that perfectly encapsulates grindcore's grizzly edge.
The Punks 4. Aalto (Rotten Sound) v. 5. Rasyid (Wormrot) Finland and its Scandinavian kin represented the best grindcore had to offer during the first decade of the century. The next decade belongs to Southeast Asia. Who rules right now?
The Technicians 4. Rokicki (Antigama) v. 5. Arp (Psyopus) I don't have the foundation in advanced chaos mathematics to keep up with either of these guitarists, but I recognize the insane talent involved.
As always, you've got until Sunday to make your best arguments.
To keep himself occupied during those tedious tour bus rides (when the keyboardist wasn't playing video games, at least), David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap fame subscribed to the Namesake series of cassettes. The hook was that a celebrity would read the works of some author with the same last name (though why Dr. J was reading the works of Washington Irving remains a mystery). More than just a throwaway gag during the credits of a 30 year old flick, the notion of namesakes really resonates with me. When you come from a general musical world that revolves around hate, misery, death and pain, it shouldn't be a surprise when two different bands strike at the same image or idea. It's a pretty limited pool you're working with. Nonetheless, I'm always intrigued to see two divergent groups of musicians reach the same point from different directions. Case in point, in a three year span both Napalm Death and Converge hit upon songs titled "I Abstain." I can't see any other correlation between the two bands and two songs other than that they both decided on the same phrase at about the same time. One doesn't seem to be a reference to the other, as far as I can tell. Intriguingly, both bands slotted it as the second track on their albums First out the gate in 1992 was Napalm Death with Utopia Banished. After a pointless bit of noisy/industrial folderol, Napalm get their death on with "I Abstain."
Short of my personal favorite, "Dementia Access," I'd say "I Abstain" pretty much typifies both the album and Napalm Death's better post-Mick Harris output. With the only consistent presence and principle songwriter on their first thee full lengths defenestrated, guitarists Mitch Harris and Jesse Pintado shook off the deathly (but respectable nonetheless) rust of Harmony Corruption and started penning pretty much the kinds of songs you'd expect from the guys who anchored Righteous Pigs and Terrorizer, respectively. Just ignore that run from Fear, Emptiness, Despair through Words From the Exit Wound and dive back in with Enemy of the Music Business and the continuity seems to make more sense. Two years later sickly talented Massholes Converge were lighting the fuse on a hardcore powder keg with their debut Halo in a Haystack (conveniently collected on Caring and Killing with bonus goodies for those of you who don't want to spend a rent check on a piece of hardcore trivia). There at track two is old faithful, "I Abstain."
The plodding menace of the song's deliberative tread is about as anti-grind as you can get short of going all drone doom on our asses. But from the start, "I Abstain" flashed the poise, creativity and pure technical chops that would define Converge, especially once they encountered a young lady who will forever be known as Jane Doe. Two very different bands within the space of three years write songs with identical titles. So who owns it best? Don't ask me. I abstain.
GridLink can keep banging out 12 minute albums until the sun flames out as long as it means they keep things tight and ruthlessly eviscerate any fat. Perhaps the greatest thing I could say for the death of physical music is that artists are no longer chained to the limitations or expectations of the format. Albums are now free to be as long or as short as the music demands without being beholden to a delivery system. Anybody who grew up during the great CD boom of the '80s and '90s will remember every artist suddenly felt pressured to make full use of a format that would allow them to inflict up to an hour of music on their fans. So we got Metallica songs that clocked in at a bloated eight minutes on average. Now, I have a huge doom collection, and I can appreciate excruciatingly long songs if done well, but you have to earn the right to put out 75 minute albums. It's not something just anybody should be doing. You are probably not Neurosis. Especially grindcore bands. However, some of my favorite artists and even my favorite albums, if I'm honest, are absolutely way too fricken long. With very few exceptions, no grindcore album should top half an hour. Here are five good reasons why.
Anal Cunt Everyone Should be Killed Earache 1993 If no grindcore band should write more than 30 minute albums, that goes doubly for Anal Cunt. I'm gonna go ahead and establish a new iron clad grindcore rule: Seth Putnam should never have been allowed to record anything longer than the infamous 88 Song EP. Morbid Florist, tops. But in 1993 Putnam et al dropped the hefty 58-song, 58:40 behemoth Everyone Should Be Killed. Many of the songs were recycled from Morbid Florist and easily could have been axed in the name of economy. Nearly an hour of blurcore insanity that...ummm...blurs together is too much to ask of even the band's most dedicated fans.
Napalm Death Time Waits for No Slave Century Media 2009 Time Waits for No Slave was a respectable Barney-era Napalm Death album, but in no rational world should it have clocked 50:22. Especially for only 14 songs. (By comparison, predecessor Smear Campaign was a punchier album over all but still a gratuitous 45 minutes for 16 songs). Lopping a good 15 minutes off of Time Waits for No Slave could have made it a ferocious beast of an LP. The From Enslavement to Obliteration days are never coming back, but a pitiless editor could have checked the band's bloat and turned in a record that would have done the Napalm Death legacy proud, regardless of lineup and era.
Nasum Inhale/Exhale Relapse 1998 Before the flaming starts, I abso-fricken-lutely love this album. Inhale/Exhale was my first exposure to Nasum back in college and it holds fond memories for me. But it's just too damn long at 45:11. Shortly after Mieszko Talarczyk died, Decibel asked drummer Anders Jakobson to look back over the band's catalogue and something he said about Inhale/Exhale really struck me. After years of struggling, scrimping and saving up to record 7-inches that forced the band to keep things tight, he said Inhale/Exhale was Nasum's first chance to leave a little fat on a record. While Jakobson admitted the record is overly long, anyone who watches Food Network as much as I do will tell you fat=flavor. However, fat is also not always healthy. Judicious pruning would have made an excellent album doubly explosive.
Brutal Truth Sounds of the Animal Kingdom Relapse 1997 Shitty production aside, Songs of the Animal Kingdom remains my favorite Brutal Truth record because it's so weird and unexpected, even 15 years later. However, at a whopping 74:16, it's a hell of a slog to get through in one sitting. Yes, the infamous "Prey," which may be one of the most skipped tracks in metal history, comes in at just a skootch under 22 minutes, but even without it, that still leaves more than 50 minutes of grindcore to absorb. Serial long album offenders Brutal Truth packed up a whole Noah's Ark of animal insanity on their then-swansong record. Now, it just feels like a tad like the Marx Brothers' crowded stateroom.
Noisear Subvert the Dominant Paradigm Relapse 2011 Noisear turned in album that will surely dominate many top 10 lists in a couple of months with Subvert the Dominant Paradigm. But then they had to go fuck up a tidy 25 minute album by tacking on the 20 minute annoyance that is "Noisearuption" (for comparison, the whole of Pyroclastic Annhialation was less than 22 minutes despite a half dozen Discordance Axis covers). "Noisearuption" is an absolutely awful, grating noise kissoff that nearly obliterates any good will the band had accrued up to that point. It should serve as an object lesson on screwing up a perfectly good album with an uncharacteristic and unnecessary assault on listeners' expectations that doesn't really have any payoff other than pissing people off and making a great album too damn long.
Funny how so many of them are from Relapse, innit?
The early '90s, apparently, was the heyday of the "let's start our album with a bunch of sampled industrial noise" phenomenon. I guess I had kinda picked up on that before, but it recently gobsmacked me between the peepers when I sat down to blaze through a stack of classic Earache records. It's like sort of the Opposite Day equivalent of ending your album with a really slow song that probably doesn't need to be there. Case in point, Napalm Death indulge in "Discordance," kicking off my favorite Barney-era album, Utopia Banished.
Dragging it out for 85 seconds is probably uncalled for when slamming straight into "I Abstain" would have been far more effective, but I'm not here to review 20 year old album choices but a British institution content to take a few more victory laps around former glories. No, I'm here to pick on Carcass and Brutal Truth. Because what really struck me during my Earache binge is that Carcass and Brutal Truth kicked off Necroticism - Descanting the Insalubrious and Need to Control, respectively, with industrialized samples that sound like close enough kin that a wedding license for the two would be unlawful anywhere other than Alabama. First off, I'll admit they're not perfectly identical, but they have the same crushing kind of vibe to them. Let's start with Carcass ' "Inpropagation," which tees up 1991's Necroticism with a sound like a small hill giant in soccer cleats stomping over a blabbing bit about forensics.
Three years later Brutal Truth would go to the same well for 1994's Need to Control. Opener "Collapse" was a sludgy trudge that gets going with booming industrial sounds similar to Necroticism. Boom. Boom. Chsssk. Chsssk. Boom. Boom. Chsssk. Chsssk. It's the grindcore equivalent of Jason Voorhees' stalking noises.
As I said, it's not identical, but when I had the two albums teed up back to back, it was close enough to give me pause. I find this fascinating because, as you may recall, I noticed Brutal Truth may have been stealing Carcass' mail when they wrote the song "Regression/Progression." That opening drum and bass bit sounds, at least to my ears, an awful lot like the intro to Carcass' "Ruptured in Purulence." So to find Brutal Truth trailing a second Carcass-ism was especially intriguing. As Pablo Picasso (and possibly T.S. Elliot and Oscar Wilde) is alleged to have observed, good artists borrow; great artists steal.
Napalm Death shocked the shit outta me during the recent tournament. Out of 32 bands, the venerable British institution placed third – keeping in mind my dictate that the band had to be evaluated based on its current merits and not be allowed to lounge on decades old glories that were sieged by other people’s power. Hell, I thought pitting them against Agathocles in the first round would be a clever little joke to play on a band that has often strayed far from the roots of the style it embodies (in most people’s minds). We all love Napalm Death in some form or another, right? But I was surprised to find out people love the current version as much as they do because I’m not really sure it's accurate any more to label them a grind band. So that’s the question I’ve spent the last few months really pondering as I dug back into some of the more awkward annals of the band’s history – like that period after Harmony Corruption but before their post-Earache rejuvenation. And here’s the thing, post-From Enslavement to Obliteration, Napalm Death has graced us with 11 full length albums of original material. But of those, only three, at least to my thinking, qualify as actual grindcore records: Utopia Banished (which some of you already dispute), Enemy of the Music Business and Order of the Leech. That's only 27 percent. The rest drift through phases of death metal and crusty grind-lite with varying levels of success. Smear Campaign is probably only of my favorite recent album. Inside the Torn Apart, granted not recorded under the best of circumstances, is a blast beat-free blight on my record collection that I’m perfectly happy to never hear again but can’t bear to throw out. Diatribes used to have a soft spot in my heart, but the poppy production has soured my appreciation for it (instead, I recommend getting their collection of BBC recordings where the band – short Mitch Harris, who had the flu – just destroy songs like “Greed Killing”). Fear, Emptiness Despair and Words From the Exit Wound (aka the screaming face albums) are, respectively, short on blast beats or given to really unnecessary experimentation. Seriously, I can live a pretty contented life without Barney trying his tonsils at clean vocals ever again. Shane Embury has credited Nasum with kicking the band in the ass and setting them back on the path of true grind with the Spitfire duo of Enemy of the Music Business and Order of the Leech, but while the former was a joyous return to adrenaline and aggression, the latter fell a bit flat, like a carbon copy of a better record. It just lacked some spunk and spark. That spark was short lived because the band’s trio of albums for Century Media has seen it drifting into another experimental phase, mixing Amebix crust with Voivod thrash with scattershot results; again, Smear Campaign kicks ass, but the Code is Red … Long Live the Code seemed like Fear, Emptiness, Despair v. 2 and Time Waits for No Slave was nearly a damn hour long and could use the ministrations of a ruthless editor. I’ve been kicking this around for quite a few months now, and I’m not sure I can really come to a conclusion. Napalm Death seems at once to be a band that is both something more and something less than you can sum up by labeling it grindcore. Unable to work this one out for myself, I toss the question out to you: Is Napalm Death still a grindcore band? A lot of you and a lot of folks over at Cosmo's digs seem to think so.
I knew Zmaj would eventually break down and chime in. No one can resist my nefarious plotting. It was only a matter of time. Having already reached that crowning achievement, we’re rapidly closing in on the end of the brackets. For something I thought started as a lark and would probably only get five or six votes per round, this has snowballed beyond anything I could have predicted. Here’s what you had to say in the last round.
North America Given their trans-Pacific composition, it’s probably only fitting that GridLink slaughtered Pig Destroyer by 22-12 as they advance to square off against the best Australasia has to offer. The constant refrain against them has been their lack of material to date, but apparently Amber Grey and a couple of one-off tracks are winners.
Asia and Australia This was another round where nobody was going to walk away happy because a solid case could be made for either band walking away with the whole contest. The people have spoken and Wormrot edged out 324 by 16-12.
Scandinavia In the battle of the Nasum clones, Finns Rotten Sound squeaked past Swedes Sayyadina by 17-15. So Rotten Sound moves on to make the case for dominating all of Europe.
Continental Europe and the United Kingdom Nashgul partisans put up a quality fight to the end. The Spaniards kept swinging above their weight division, but faced with the imperial might of Napalm Death, it was a bit like attacking the Death Star with spitballs and rubberbands. Napalm Death blew them out 21-12 as the machine rolls on. Oops, I just violated my own ground rules.
Sooooooooooooooooooo... That means now we move on to the hemispheric championship round. It’s North America v. Asia and Europe turning on itself. The revised brackets are available here, and you have until Saturday to make your case.
North America v. Asia GridLink (2) v. Wormrot (1) Given Matsubara’s integral contributions to GridLink’s success, you could easily argue the band more properly belonged in the Asian category to begin with, so it’s only fitting to find them here squaring off with Wormrot. If there’s been a consistent knock on both bands throughout the process, it’s that each has a dearth of music to their credit to date. So in a battle of one album wonders, who deserves a shot at the title round?
Europe Rotten Sound (1) v. Napalm Death (1) I’m willing to bet Napalm Death was probably responsible for most of us really getting into grind (Utopia Banished in 1993 drastically altered the course of my musical life). Keeping in mind we’re talking about Napalm Death’s current incarnation, do they still stand up as the best grind has to offer for all the stylistic and personnel shifts? And how do they stack up against Rotten Sound, a band that embraces the grind ethic Napalm Death (and, yes, Nasum) laid down long since?
