Grindcore for Dummies

Extreme metal demands extreme marketing.
As sub-sub-sub genres like folk-inflected post-death blackened NeurIsis-core further slice and dice the metal audience into niche-ier and niche-ier niches, bands have to work harder and harder to woo their target demographic. And clearly they don’t think we’re bright enough to read the giant hype sticker on the front of their album proclaiming them the grindiest grind that ever ground because a number of them go to absurd lengths to remind us they play grindcore.
Absurd lengths like…

Magrudergrind
Magrudergrind
Willowtip
2009
Magrudergrind play grind and they’re from the Magruder neighborhood near D.C. You see where this is going? That’s like me naming my this place Suburban Townhouse Grindcore Blog, the only name possibly worse than the one I already chose. But if you write grind tunes as catchy as Magrudergrind, you may want to make it as obvious as possible to their target demographic that they’re not banging out Maroon 5 covers at their high school dance.

While few bands have gone to the length of shoving grind into their name, more than a few have oh so subtly reminded you of the blastbeaten proclivities in their album titles.

Nasum
Grind Finale
Relapse
2006
More than any other band, Nasum have earned the right to proclaim their grindcore bonafides via album title with an unparalleled track record of essential albums. I’ve previously sung the praises of this immaculate tribute to the late Mieszko Talarczyk, which collects everything that didn’t end up on their four Relapse albums. This is grind incarnate and the finale of an unsurpassed career. They get a pass. But statistically speaking, your band is probably not Nasum (the numbers are not gonna lie there; don't argue with numbers). So that means you should probably avoid that level of obviousness. You haven't earned it.

Denak
Grindcore
Cooperaccion
2003
How obvious can you get, you ask. Astute question, young grasshopper.
Spain’s Denak are as about as blatant as you can get, simply naming their retrospective collection Grindcore. Try to picture how that in-band conversation may have gone:
What should we name our album?
I dunno. How about grindcore?
Glad that's settled. Who's up for some tapas?
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand ... Scene.
Band members would develop more tact when they went on to form Looking for an Answer, but Denak was brash enough to stake their claim to the genre as a whole. They were talented enough to back it up as well. See the Nasum rule above. You are not Denak. Do not do this.

324
Rebelgrind
HG Fact
2006
How do you rebel against grind? If 324 are to be believed, it includes copious amounts of crust and a few gang choruses. 324 doubled down on the grind proclamations with 2006’s Rebelgrind, announcing their intentions not only through the title but also in the CD tray, which anoints their music “Grind Babylon/Babylon Grind.” Yeah. I have no clue what the fuck that means either. But it's Japanese, so I'm just gonna assume it's awesome and involves tentacle rape. But perhaps the whole “rebel” shtick was a defensive move because 324 knew how polarizing this album would be.

Unholy Grave
Grind Killers
SelfMadeGod
2010
Japanese antiterrorism freaks Unholy Grave put a hit out on grindcore with 2010 live in the studio album Grind Killers. Dear Unholy Grave, this is an intervention. After 18 years and a metric butt ton of splits, we know you play grindcore. And if we didn't, I'm pretty sure we could have intuited that fact based on Unholy Grind Destruction, Grind Freaks, Grind Victim, Angry Raw Grinder, Raw Grind Mayhem, Grinding Hell Slaughter, Grind Heads, Grind Eternal, Grindholic, Grindignation, The Grind Militia, Immortal Grind Legion, Grind Hell and Grind Blitz.
We get it. Now please stop.

Putting the grind in your band name or album title will certainly grab the eyeballs, but some people just don’t want to be that gauche. Album art provides another excellent outlet to proclaim your grind fidelity.

Cyness
Loony Planet/Industreality
Sound Pollution
2003
I randomly bought Cyness’ debut album during a going out of business sale at Tower Records. For you whippernsappers out there a “Tower” was one of many physical places called a “store” that sold “records” in an era before you could simply download it. Now get the hell of my lawn.
Why did I grab this, having previously never heard of the German band? Well that gigantic “grindcore” spooning underneath their logo on the album cover was pretty much all the enticement I needed. Well played, gentlemen.

Bear in mind this is not a foolproof system. For every band jumping up and down on a street corner shouting “GRINDCORE” into a day-glo green megaphone, you’ve also got to keep an eye out for moments of pareidolia. Moments like…

Scrotum Grinder
The Greatest Sonic Abomination Ever
Prank
2001
Scrotum Grinder sounds like the kind of name you’d pick for your high school Carcass cover band. And when you hear the Floridians feature Steve Kosiba, bassist on Assuck’s Misery Index, visions of blast beats should start dancing in your bewildered little heads. Actually, this chick fronted band surfed the final wave of southern crust punk, drawing more inspiration for Antischism than Anal Cunt. While still an enjoyable listen (and despite a fixation on Ronald Reagan 13 years after he left office) the down tempo chug-a-lug shoutalong may not satisfy your bpm jones. And album title to the contrary, it is not the worst sonic abomination ever. I've heard Pat Boone's metal album.

AfgrundVid Helvetets Grindar
Willowtip
2009
Also beware the illusory false cognates. Sure Afgrund sounds like it should be some sort of past participle tribute to their grinding awesomeness (think something like Metallica, but hopefully not pissing off Hitler). But the name actually means Abyss in Swedish (please tell me they're recording their next album at Peter Tagtgren's studio). Afgrund set you up for a double dose of misconception here because their second album, Vid Helvetets Grindar, sounds like it's out to pimp grind like Unholy Grave. Nope, foiled again. Run through an internet translator, I’m told Vid Helvetets Grindar has nothing to do with hellaciously awesome grind. Instead, it means something close to “At Hell’s Gates.” Still perfectly metal, just not as grindcentric as an amateur translator may assume on first glance

Look Back and Laugh: A Prank Records Crust Primer

Antischism
Still Life
1991
Southern crust’s Fort Sumter. These gay positive, feminist bunny huggers fired the scene’s first shots and set the tone for what was to follow on their first, and only, full length album, later reissued by Prank.
Antischism set the blueprint for much of what was to come: metal technique welded to punk ferocity, the male and female mic passing and the urgent, jaundiced lyrics that catalogued the time’s ills. Updating the sounds of Dishcarge and Amebix for a death metal and hardcore generation, Antischism’s buzzing attack set the tone for the southern bands that followed and helped keep the crust sound vital more than a decade after its emergence.
Though they flamed out early, members kept the spark burning with stints in Initial State, dotfuckingcom and Guyana Punch Line. Guitarist Kevin Byrd is currently active with a new band, Thank God.

His Hero is Gone
Monuments to Thieves
1997
His Hero is Gone were Southern crust’s darkly melodic lords and their middle child, Monuments to Thieves, saw them surveying their domain in triumph.
The apocalyptic worldview and scalding political diatribes, ringing lead guitar work and scraping riffs transcended the southern crust scene, making HHIG worldwide icons. Staunchly luddite – eschewing the rising internet (though electric instruments and recording studios were somehow kosher?) – and fiercely DIY, the Memphis misanthropes carved a path through punk that generations of lesser lights would continue to tread.
Like weeds they did grow and even after their demise, the band’s seeds took root in the fertile Northwest, pollinating a new generation of punk, including From Ashes Arise and the mighty Tragedy.

Damad
Burning Cold
1998
After the Antischism Jr. outing of Rise and Fall, Damad roared back a few years later, crossing Neurosis with Antischism and presaging much of today’s Southern sludge revival with stark songs about alienation, dejection, death and environmental destruction on their second and, sadly, final disc.
Album art by Pushead and production by Billy Anderson, Burning Cold was a buzzing, chugging, churning mess of frustration and anger cemented by guitarist Phillip Cope’s alternately spiraling and excoriating fretwork.
Victoria Scalisi was also one of the most intense and versatile frontwomen to ever hoist a mic. From pint sized pitbull to rabid Donald Duck, Scalisi changed up her vocal style on nearly every one of the album’s eight tracks.
Cope rode the Southern wave with his new band, Kylesa, while Scalisi briefly found a place for her formidable pipes in Karst, but it was Burning Cold that easily cemented the duo’s punk and metal legacy.

In/Humanity
Violent Resignation: The Great American Teenage Suicide Rebellion
1998
While it’s hard to imagine the stone faces in His Hero is Gone so much as cracking a smile, Columbia, S.C., merry pranksters In/Humanity never forgot that getting together with your friends to play hardcore is s’posed to be, ya know, fun.
Inspired by Jello Biafra’s savage satire, I/H headman Chris Bickel heaped his sarcasm on whatever target traversed his transit, but his keenest cuts were saved for the harder core than thou punk scene itself. Under the guise of emoviolence, a not so subtle elbow in the ribs to the powerviolence scene on the opposite coast, and occultonomy, a laughable brew of magick and anarchy, Bickel laced his band’s sloppy, spazzy punk with a deadly satiric core.
But emoviolence and occultonomy eventually gave way to a new tongue in cheek movement…

Guyana Punch Line
Irritainment
2000
…Smashism! Bolstered by faux punk sloganeering (“Home Fucking is Killing Prostitution,” “Reality is Elitist”), Chris Bickel, with Antischism’s Kevin Byrd in tow on guitar, realized occasional rehearsals were not anathema and updated and tightened the spastic In/Humanity sound for a new century.
Subtitled Songs to Disturb the Comfortable, Songs to Comfort the Disturbed, Irritainment buzzes, thrashes, stumbles and slithers through 21 tracks of speedy, crusty punk, tongue embedded in cheek, that spends more time excoriating the self righteous punk scene (“Skinz and Punks,” “Old Guy in the Pit,” “Punk Rock Sloganeering”) than it does ripping on corporate greed, political apathy and douchebaggery in general.
At a time when punk when seemed comfortable with formula, rules and that 2X4 rammed up its collective ass, Bickel and Co. philosophized with a hammer and were a refreshing middle finger to the scene itself, which is about as punk as fuck as you can get.

Scrotum Grinder
The Greatest Sonic Abomination Ever
2001
Hailing from Tampa, where sweatpantsed, white sneakered death metal reigned, at first glance, the band’s moniker and choice of album title scream tired Carcass clone retread.
Instead, The Greatest Sonic Abomination Ever, southern crust’s rear guard, was one of the burliest albums to grace Prank’s roster to that point. This Florida enclave’s sole album was a late entry to the Southern crust scene, but it makes up for its tardiness with sheer sonic heft.
Sure they devote a good chunk of the album to beating up on Ronald Reagan, a man who had been out of office for 12 years and was sliding into senility, but with every red tied Republican falling over themselves to name drop #40 during the presidential primary, it comes off less late than prescient in retrospect.
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