G&P Review: GROG

Women’s lack of rights has nothing to do with not being allowed to vote or to be judges – those matters don’t constitute any sort of right. No, it has to do with the fact that in sexual relations she’s not the man’s equal. She doesn’t have the right to avail herself of the man or abstain from him, according to her desire, to select the man she wants rather than be the one who’s selected. You may say that would be monstrous. Very well. Then the man shouldn’t have these rights, either. The way things are at present, the woman is deprived of the rights possessed by the man. And, in order to compensate for this, she acts on the man’s sensuality, forces him into subjection by means of sensuality, so that he’s only formally the one who chooses – in actual fact it’s she who does the choosing. And once she has mastered this technique, she abuses it and acquires terrible power over men.

Leo Tolstoy
“The Kreutzer Sonata”
1887

GROG
Scooping the Cranial Insides
Murder Records
I’m always am/conf-used by porno/gore bands that thank their wives and girlfriends in the liner notes. I try to imagine how I would react to having songs about gang rape and bukkake dedicated to me, but it’s a wonderfully bizarre world and I’m sure there’s someone out there who finds it flattering. Assuming the Sofia that GROG-ster Alexandre Ribeiro thanks “for what was, what is, and what shall be” in the liner notes is the same Sofia who contributes orgasmic groans to the rectal violation tale “Anal Core,” I’m just going to concede that Rule 34 is still in effect and then try to scrub that image from my cortex.
Portugual’s GROG grind with a brutal death edge (the chestburster vocals and unrelenting/monotonous double bass) and they wouldn’t be half bad if they weren’t perverting all that talent in services of songs named “10 Cummandments,” “Sphincterized (Materialized in Shit)” and “Hanged by the Cojones,” which comes closest to something identifiable as humor.
Because the band clearly has the chops to aspire to better. Witness the opener “Toia Mai,” a Maori tribal chant/percussion number that sounds like something Sepultura or Neurosis would have experimented with in the 1990s before exploding into first true song “Beyond the Freakish Scene,” a slippery sinuous slash of grind and death pounding. But the retardedly juvenile lyrical detritus and a bit of same-iness to the songs (just about every one ends with the same resonating cymbal crash) does wear over 37 minutes.
GROG can blast with the pack and can bust out a decent tune (“Acephalic Meatgrind Orgy Hibernation” sneaks and snarls in a way that sets it apart from the album’s all-blast ethos) and that best that can be said about their lyrical content is that the vocals render them completely unintelligible.

[Full disclosure: The band sent me a review copy.]

G&P Review: Utopium

Utopium
Conceptive Prescience
Self Released
Opener “Undermatch” is a hell of a calling card for Portuguese grinders Utopium. It’s a stampede of wildebeest with rusty Folger’s can snare drums for feet that gets savaged by a king of the jungle scream (“Armageddon!”) and a maliciously bass heavy assault on the tympanum. That bass sound will go on to form the bedrock of the song’s doomed bridge before blasting farewell. It’s also the secret to Conceptive Prescience’s triumph.
Self produced by Utopium with art contributed by Joemack of Complete Failure, Conceptive Prescience is a damn near flawless eight song effort by the band who are making their debut available for sale, stream or download here. What are you standing around here for? Go give this shit a listen.
Utopium rock a low slung grind akin to Phobia and Catheter with a mix of European precision, American savagery and a deft hand at imagery with songs like the awesomely titled “Blacksmith of Irony.” “For the Sake” downshifts gears – from fifth down to fourth – just enough to really savor the thrashtastic riffs that can only be described as “radical” just before it gives way to the all build, no release simmer of its iron shod second half.
Where things go briefly – but annoyingly – askew is the lumbering sludge aimlessness of “Slumber Edge,” which manages to crib from Grief’s “Earthworm” without any of that song's charisma. While Utopium had more than proved themselves in the preceding five songs as being adept at lacing their grind with down tempo interludes to arresting effect, “Slumber Edge” is monotonous, a five mile back up on an otherwise open stretch of interstate on a glorious spring day.
But all that means is the band went six for seven on their original songs (nearly 86 percent success rate, for you math types) before closing out with a cock punch cover of Nasum’s “My Philosophy” that’s just devastating. This is a band I whole heartedly endorse. Utopium are a band to watch.
[Full disclosure: Utopium sent me a download for review.]