Blast(beat) from the Past: Cyness

Cyness
Loony Planet/Industreality
Sound Pollution
2003
Apply German engineering principles to grindcore and you’re bound to come back with these Berliner lugnuts. The Germans are so damn efficient at everything they do Cyness conveniently included the words “grindcore” underneath their logo to avoid any confusion on debut long player Looney Planet/Industreality, a 20 minute tutorial in lock tight Napalm Death with a drafting degree grind.
And like that band, Cyness set these 22 songs to tape during two sessions between 2001 and 2003 with all the requisite line up instability. For all of that, though, both halves seamlessly fuse Voltron-like to form a single Nazi-stomping, God fucking, nationalist smearing engine of anger.
“Godkiller” boasts a hooked bit of guitar noodling that could have graced a later period Amebix tune. And given the cyclical nature of human stupidity, “Holy War,” a pissed little ditty about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still just as relevant today. Cyness could also run a clinic on the tried and true grind tic of ominously rumbly opener giving way to eyebrow singeing grind on “Mangla Son Agg” (with a bonus lesson in gang shoutalongs for no additional cost). The band even spatulas in those frigid black metal gone grind riffs at which northern Europeans seem to excel on “Bush – Krieger,” which called Dubya’s removal (by force if necessary) for the safety of the whole world.
While I doubt Cyness will be penning any paeans to Obama in the near future, I hope the Germans don’t beat their grindcore bayonets into plowshares just yet. Because Looney Planet/Industreality and 2006 followup Our Funeral Oration for the Human Race should vault Cyness into the realm of grind elite.

G&P review: Capitalist Casualties/Hellnation

Capitalist Casualties/Hellnation
Split
Sound Pollution/Six Weeks
Iraq war, environmental degradation, government corruption. Blah, blah blah. We’ve heard it all so many fucking times before. But if you’re like me, and Mithras help you if you are, what you’ve really been dying to know is where Capitalist Casualties stands on fatal jellyfish attacks off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. If so, “Irukandji, the best jellyfish-themed slice of pop culture since Kiyoshi Kurasawa’s Bright Future, should merit special attention, belying its placidly bobbing subject matter by cruising at great white speeds.
This is CapCas’ first new issue in nearly a decade and the power violence elder statesmen have lost nary a step from their fleet footed early days, turning in their best sounding effort ever on this split with Appalachian bangers Hellnation, who have also soldiered on in the finest fastcore style for the last 20 years despite changing tastes.
While both bands’ golden years date back to Bush Pere, the transition to the administration of Bush Fils has clearly posed no existential challenge for either outfit, ripping through Dubya’s legacy of bloodshed, dubious constitutional interpretations and religiosity in punk spats played at cocaine heartbeat speeds.
Both bands essentially – and ably – work the same style, no-time-for-subtlety shots of accelerated punk that repeatedly jab to the kidneys with no respite over 16 minutes and 21 songs. They’re like aging boxers who can still show the young guns how to wear an opponent down with a relentless flurry of jabs rather than trying to land one spectacular haymaker.
With all the retro love power violence seems to be getting this year, it’s awesome to see two of the style’s progenitors surf the crest of belated appreciation without any whiff of cash-in trend-hopping or cheap nostalgia.

G&P review: Cyness

Cyness
Our Funeral Oration for the Human Race
Sound Pollution

Somebody’s roots are showing, and it’s not the mohawked guy whose silhouette graces the disc.
On their second album, Our Funeral Oration for the Human Race, these Berliners channel their hardcore heritage, and it’s that punk sense of immediacy that propels the dozen tracks.
From the “Grintro” (their term not mine) through album closer, “Children of No Revolution” Cyness harkens back to the late ‘80s when hardcore tempos blurred into blastbeat territory.
The ominous melody in “Nazi Rein’s” bridge makes that track, one of the album’s longest at an epic 2:33, a clear standout. Like a lot of European grinders, Cyness sneak in swirling, almost black metal-ish melodies in many of their songs (“Harley Horst,” “Single Nation”). But this isn’t some bit of Cradle of Filth wankery; the melodies are firmly welded to a bed of early Napalm Death worship.
Though half of the song titles are in English, to get the most out of the lyrics you’re going to need some remedial German classes. However, the band provides brief summaries of each song’s theme for the Amerikaners.
The language barrier isn’t a factor when it comes to the album’s retro Bolt Thrower artwork. The spear wielding lizard man squaring off with a cyber ninja in front of a Mad Max-ian tank needs no translation. Some things are just universal.

The Dirty (Baker's) Dozen Number 12: Assück

Assück
Misery Index
Sound Pollution
1996

At a time when genre forerunners Napalm Death were cursed to crawl through a series of questionable stylistic shifts, these nimble Floridians dropped a doozy of a mini-album to keep the grind flag flying.
Anchored by sometimes Discordance Axian Rob Proctor’s no-nonsense blast beating, Assück hit and run with 15 tracks in 15 minutes, snarling their way through screeds about war, human rights and economic justice with lyrics that out-Napalmed Napalm.
The album’s eponymous index was created by economist and presidential adviser Arthur Okun as a measure of how unemployment and inflation were taking its toll on the American people. (The current misery index is 7.46 percent, well below the national high of 21.98 in June 1980.)
The misery index for 1996 when Assück stormed the studio was a fairly manageable 8.34, but that didn’t deter the band from raging against the “prostitution in everything wrought” (“Salt Mine”), “force fed notions of nation” (“Wartorn”) and “another generation of slaves and masters coughed up and reswallowed” (“A Monument to Failure”).
The little album that could’s reach is still being felt more than a decade later. The album’s title was swiped for another band’s name and these 15 tracks still resonate for anyone with a jones for no-frills grindcore and depressing economic indicators.