G&P Review: Nashgul/Malpractice Insurance

Nashgul/Malpractice Insurance
Split
To Live a Lie
Gore grind has pretty much been denuded of any lingering shock value by 25 years of bands happy to ape Carcass and swipe polysyllabic synonyms for death, decay and destruction from whatever medical dictionary their local library happens to stock. So just when I'm about to write off the whole movement, along comes Los Angeles duo Malpractice Insurance who cleverly twist around that paradigm by playing sly with the language of surgical mistakes, insurance forms and indemnity for doctors  by cranking out five tunes that focus less on the breakdown of the human form (though they have done plenty of that too) and more about the legalities that some from surgical slip ups.
That they pair that lyrical legerdemain with some smoking grind that draws from the same musical well as splitmates Nashgul only makes this 7-inch that much more awesome. In particular, guitarist and vocalist Ivo's delivery is worthy of being singled out for praise; his raspy Jeff Walker screech is wonderfully expressive and shapes the songs' contours where too many grind vocalists are content to play follow the leader and chase the music.
Considered alongside their recent split with P.L.F., Nashgul continue to impress me with their choice selection of musical associates. Meanwhile, the Spaniards' three songs deliver everything you've come to expect: zombified romps through Carcass and Repulsion that revel in gorehound cinema and B-movie action flicks. Faced with the limitation of half a 7-inch, Nashgul make the intriguing choice to go long with their three songs (long in this case being defined as approximately two minutes each). While only three songs feels a bit insubstantial, it's also always good to leave your audience wanting more and I've got to say the awesome chug-a-lug of "Estigma" and the way the middle passage of "Estimociver" nods back to Bolt Thrower's "World Easter" certainly had me digging out my other Nashgul albums. Mission accomplished.

[Full disclosure: Nashgul sent me a download.]

G&P Review: Under Vultures/466/64

Under Vultures/466/64
Split
Bandcamp
466/64 is either a reference to Nelson Mandela's prison number,  the fashion company he's not affiliated with or a math nerd way to name your band 7.28125, the IP address for a chunk of Columbus, Ohio. But it's hard to tell what they have in mind because their web presence is absolutely nil. But you'd think these Canary Islanders (now there's a part of the globe we don't usually hear from) would want to shout their name from the rooftops after they backended their share of this 2011 split album with 15 songs of a sweet ass Looking for an Answer-style hostility. 466/64 have actual riffs buried under their feral aggression, like the serpentine wiggle of "Monstruo." I've listened to a metric fuck-ton of grind in my life so it's not every day some out of nowhere band (from an out of nowhere corner of the world) comes along and de-socks-es me, but 466/64 had me hitting up Google Earth to plan my next vacation in what sure must be grindcore's next holy land.
None of that gushing is to overlook the mighty work Spain's Under Vultures do opening up the album. Playing Nashgul to 466/64's Looking for an Answer, Under Vultures bring a burlier, thick-bodied slamming that leans heavily on the rusty, serrated guitar tone. The comparison only goes so far because Under Vultures don't have the same tunesmith knack that erupted from Nashgul's empty grave and they are not shy about falling back on unadulterated blastbeats when they need to move a song along. The band's strongest selling point will likely be the vocal tradeoffs between dedicated screamers Fran and Sebax, creating a screech versus growl interplay that punctuates and advances the songs even when the songwriting falls into a chugging/blasting rut.
This one's up for free download on Under Vultures' Bandcamp page. You'd be wise to avail yourself of that opportunity. Look for me jamming this one on some Spanish beach somewhere in the near future.

[Full disclosure: the band sent me a download.]

G&P Review: Teething

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
1 Corinthians 13:11

Teething
Teething
Bandcamp
High school fucking sucked. We can all agree about that, right? Being surrounded by hordes of the hormonally unbalanced, the insipid jock-o-rama culture and good teachers forced to dumb down their classes to accommodate the stupidest of students was pretty much my very definition of hell. There was not a single redeeming thing to be said of the entire miserable four year experience. So it was a bit disconcerting to hear Teething wax nostalgic about high school on the song “1996,” which has got to be the least punk thing a punk band could do. Sure they say it sucked, but the song also romanticizes things like smoking in school bathrooms and getting good and underaged wasted. I remember 1996; I was in high school in 1996; 1996 can kiss my ass.
Not to pick on that one ill-conceived song, but I think “1996” underscores the broader problem I had with the Spanish punks’ rough-throated hardcore. For all the spit and pissing, I just don’t get the feeling Teething really mean any of their generic punk sloganeering. Some of the songs sound almost like a middle aged scriptwriter’s fantasy of what teen punk rebellion feels like for some lame-ass weepy teen flick. Case in point, sour-note starting point “Hell Song” is all “I’m a worthless piece of shit” and chants of “666,” which to Teething’s ears are probably meant to sound bad ass. I just don’t get the feeling they really mean any of it. It’s more punk pose than something heartfelt. It borders on parody. Teen self-loathing is certainly a punk-worthy topic that would be instantly relatable, but “Fuck This Face,” which leaps out with blastbeats and then fizzles to mediocrity, doesn’t convey any real human connection as the singer talks about how much he hates his features and his parents.
My problem is Teething seem to be mouthing the words without delivering the emotional substance. They very well could be deadly serious about this stuff, but their approach just doesn’t convey sincerity. I get the feeling Teething very much want to their songs to be meaningful, but that’s the area where their music needs the most work.

[Full disclosure: Teething sent me a download.]

Panic! at the Discography: Looking for an Answer

"Matthew, Mark. Luke and John are a bunch of practical jokers who meet somewhere and decide to have a contest. They invent a character, agreed on a few basic facts, and then each one's free to take it and run with it. And the end, they'll see who's done the best job. The four stories are picked up by some friends who act as critics: Matthew is fairly realistic, but insists on that Messiah business too much; Mark isn't bad, just a little sloppy; Luke is elegant, no denying that; and John takes the philosophy a little too far. Actually, though, the books have an appeal, they circulate, and when the four realize what's happening, it's too late. Paul has already met Jesus on the road to Damascus, Pliny begins his investigation ordered by the worried emperor, and a legion of apocryphal writers pretends also to know plenty. ... Toi, apocryphe lecteur, mon semblance, mon frere. It all goes to Peter's head; he takes himself seriously. John threatens to tell the truth, Peter and Paul have him chained up on the island of Patmos. Soon the poor man is seeing things: Help, there are locusts all over my bed, make those trumpets stop, where's all this blood coming from? The others say he's drunk, or maybe it's arteriosclerosis. ... Who knows, maybe it really happened that way."

Umberto Eco
Foucault's Pendulum
1988

Looking for an Answer
Split the Suffering Split the Pain
Deep Six
2010
Looking for an Answer may have had the most immaculate conception since Athena bored her way out of Zeus' noggin fully formed. Even when they were just a couple of guys tooling around with a drum machine, the raging Spaniards showed a poise and songcraft that set them apart from their peers as evinced by this early efforts compendium. Once they roped in live drummer Moya (who collaborated with vocalist Inaki in the semi-legendary Denak), Looking for an Answer became truly incendiary. The evolutionary growth from their earliest material, categorized chronologically, through their pre-Extincion offerings is almost operatic in its sweep and only becomes that much more impressive viewed through the hindsight lens of the awesome Eterno Treblinka.
In fact, just about any song at random from Split the Suffering Split the Pain could have been lifted and dropped on to the later albums without arousing too much comment. "Voluntaria Ignorancia's" thrash riffs meet blast beats could be the long lost twin of Extincion's "Ruptura." The (finger picked?) bass garbling of "Invasion" and "Verdadero Enemigo" bring to mind the more lofi, Repulsion Jr. scummery of La Caceria. Driving Looking for an Answer's best work is that slab-sided, grim visaged death inflection that adds a menace that punk alone just can't provide.
This is one of those rare discography records, like 38 Counts of Battery, that works perfectly well on its own as a self-contained album experience. Learning more about Looking for an Answer's past can only make you more excited for their future. Give them 60 seconds and they'll give you an awesome song.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Unsane Crisis/Hashassin

Unsane Crisis/Hashassin
Split
Throne Records
2003
With a new Looking for an Answer album making me do the Snoopy dance, I wanted to pay tribute to another transitional fossil in the Spanish band’s evolutionary development: Unsane Crisis. I’ve already gushed my warm manlove for Denak, where Looking for an Answer vocalist Inaki and drummer Moya got their start, but bassist Ramon traces his roots back to Unsane Crisis.
That band, whose discography consists only of this split with fellow Spaniards Hashassin and then another shared album with Ekkaia, actually leans more to the burly, grisly grind of another slice of Spanish awesome, Nashgul. Their opening 16 selections sound like a tribute to classic grind: all blower bass rumble and power drill riffing done in a tidy 30 seconds or less for the most part. Though they keep it short, Unsane Crisis manage to ensure each song has an identity and a movement of its own without giving way to faceless blasting. Ramon also makes his mark on the song “Anti-Emo” where he busts out a pitch perfect parody of self indulgent Red Hot Chili Peppers bass noodling. You can see why Looking for an Answer had to snag him a few years later.
Flipside, less info is available about Hashassin (so if anybody knows more, feel free to share) whose 13 songs are burdened under the weight of overly long, intrusive samples and a featureless wall of fuzz and screaming. While the band occasionally channels Total Fucking Destruction style vocal wipeouts, their songs are mostly a forgettable blur that don’t demand close listens. As far as I can tell, this is the sum total of the band’s existence.
Neither band was destined for the grindcore hall of fame, but for those curious about the emerging supremacy of Spanish grind, this is an interesting footnote in that development.

G&P Review: Looking for an Answer

Looking for an Answer
Eterno Treblinka
Relapse
Eterno Treblinka, Looking for an Answer’s first long player for Relapse, takes its name from a quote attributed to Polish Jewish author Isaac Bashevis Singer in which he Godwinned the entire animal rights movement by likening farm critters to concentration camp inmates. And while being called a culinary Nazi is not likely to dissuade me from my carnivorous lifestyle, Eterno Treblinka is every bit as grim and grisly as the slaughterhouse floors and blood-crazed gods Looking for an Answer so despise. Following up on their stellar La Caceria EP, the band has dropped the album they have been building to from their days in their prior bands. There’s an elegant economy to every one of the 17 tracks. Not a moment is wasted; not a movement is superfluous. Looking for an Answer have simply turned in a flawless modern grindcore album that’s catchy, aggressive and instantly engaging. Everything that made Extincion such an enjoyable, tightly wound listening experience has been given a serrated edge.
The addition of second guitarist Makoko adds a stereoscopic depth as songs flow and snake like a 17 headed hydra. The six stringers churn like twin guitar Dismember goodness on fast forward over an impeccable rhythm section. Produced by the band, the album benefits from a superlative mix that hits that precarious balance between pristine and raw, allowing you to bask in every instrument individually without sacrificing the necessary adrenal jolt. Eterno Treblinka hooked me so hard I listened to it five times in a row the first day. The last album I could say that about was Abuse. Make of that what you will.
This is Looking for an Answer’s moment to stake their claim to top tier status. There’s been a quiet buzz building around the band the last year or so. Deep Six has collected their various impossible to find splits, Bones Brigade has put one of their early efforts back in circulation and now they have the backing of Relapse. Eterno Treblinka is exactly the kind of album they needed right now. If you haven’t already indulged, don't be surprised to hear their name come up frequently in conversation the next few months.

Reggae-core: Looking for an Answer

Looking for an Answer
Buscando una Respuesta
Bones Brigade
In retrospect, it probably shouldn’t surprise me that grind bands would want to get up, stand up with reggae’s slow boiling grooves. (I, myself, have felt the seductive pull of its loping rhythms.) Differences in acceleration aside, both genres are protest music at heart. Still, there I was gobsmacked when I hit the end of Looking for an Answer’s 2003 EP Buscando una Respuesta, re-released this year by Bones Brigade, and crashed face first into a fullblown reggae freakout in “Crustafari.” And damn it’s good (and not the only instance of reggae grind I’ve heard this year).

Looking for an Answer – “Crustafari”

Things seem primed for a Looking for the Answer grind explosion. Relapse backed their last 7-inch, Bones Brigade re-released this EP (apparently missing one track from the original, though) and Deep Six just dropped a collection of the band’s splits on to one handy CD for easier consumption, making life that much easier for the LFAA completist.
From day one Looking for an Answer rocked bruising, low slung grind pitched with piss and snarl. “Tierra” rumbles and blasts with a punked out opening like classic Napalm Death while “Caminando En La Dirección Equivocada” pogoes a spiked riff that would put a smile on Rob Marton’s face.
While it’s not as composed as Extincion or as rawly ragged as La Caceria, Buscando una Respuesta proves the band knew its shit right out the gate, which is to be expected from a band that’s half of the almighty Denak reunited.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Denak

Denak
Grindcore
Cooperaccion
Having lavaged expectorate of a sycophantic nature all over Looking for an Answer and Nashgul, it’s time to step back and correct a major oversight. I need to recognize one of the true foundational bands of Spanish grindcore. I’m talking about motherfucking Denak. They were a band so goddamned awesome they simply titled their 7-inch compendium Grindcore because that’s pretty much all you need to know about them: they played grindcore. And those fuckers played it pretty damn well.
LFAA and Nashgul’s festering apple didn’t fall far from this corroded tree (and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to hear Afgrund have a few choice Denak EPs tucked away in their collection). Denak’s songs are fast, punky, static-flayed and ionized with an electric intensity. Denak played grindcore like it was fired from a railgun. The secret warhead in Denak’s arsenal was the Witte-grade drumming of Juan, who was bondage gear tight but graceful and fluid with his spot on frills on songs like “Carlos Torio” or the all blasts/wailing/cymbal crashing “Solo.”

Denak – “Solo”

Over 38 tracks (and two thoroughly pointless and annoying noise remixes), Denak tick off every requirement for a grind band, but do it with a flawless professionalism. Guitars buzz like wet hornets (“!M.E.T.P. No!”) and subterranean roars build a foundation for star screaming shrieking. Though it’s a collection of early works, Grindcore is pretty damn consistent. The disparate collection of splits and 7-inches manages to cohere into a satisfying listening experience on its own.
Denak’s influence, though not as heralded as some, still rattles through grindcore, if you know where to look.

Nashgul ---- “Estado de Bienestar (Denak)”

P.L.F. ---- “Siempre Yo (Denak)”

Personas para el Tratamiento ético de los Animals: Looking for an Answer Grind for a More Humane Society

Looking for an Answer’s late 2009 surprise 7-inch La Caceria was a minor revelation for me and not just for the joy of seeing the Spaniards win Relapse’s backing. All well and good, but the true pleasure was listening to the band loosen up their assault, making it more feral and unpredictable over three new songs and a Repulsion cover. Extincion had been masterful bit of extrapolation on Nasum’s need to control – that precision that defined the Swedes – but the 7-inch was far more loose and rangy like early Napalm Death’s punk shocks.
In fact, guitarist Felix called the 7-inch “the best stuff we have recorded ever until now, music, lyrics and artwork.”
All of that gets even better when you learn La Caceria was essentially a demo for the band’s pending full length for Relapse. They band forwarded the four songs to the Pennsylvania major label after learning from friends in Suppository Relapse was scouting out new bands.
“Well it is the demo, but it was re-mastered for the 7-inch EP version,” Felix said. “The sound of the original demo, it’s rawer than the 7-inch EP for sure. But we really love that kind of sound, raw and intense. That´s 100 percent grindcore.”
The deal only runs through the upcoming longplayer for the time being, but Felix said the band intends to maximize the shot Relapse is giving them by building on the intensity and aesthetics of La Caceria.
“I think we have improved in some facts like the intensity, velocity, dirty sound and lyrics written,” Felix said.
Looking for an Answer’s blend of gore grind imagery, vegetarian sloganeering and whipcrack grindcore intensity should also make them a natural fit for the Relapse stable.
“Definitely. We are not a gore grind band. We play grindcore and we have lyrics about animal liberation and veganism, that´s all. We are not an animal rights org just a band. We feel [it’s] necessary to write about we care.”
As a stubbornly carnivorous volunteer for the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, I’ll be the first to admit I have certain respect for the purity of Looking for an Answer’s ethical vision even if I won’t follow as far down the same path. However, where far too many grind bands are too content to spew invective without backing it up in fact, Looking for an Answer put grind to deeds.
“We are three vegans and two vegetarians in LFAA and we have not any other connection to the animal protection world,” Felix said. “I am also a volunteer in a humane society (feeding people from the street with no resources, homeless etc) and I also was a meat eater years ago, but I think that [it] never is so late to get the compassion as life style.”

In With the Old; Out With the New: Nashgul Go Rummaging Through Grindcore’s Graveyard

Like a zombie punching out a shark, Spanish grinders Nashgul know some things just never go out of style. Zombies have been the little black dress of grindcore ever since Repulsion first horrified a generation with gore-flecked tales of maggot-filled coffins, innocents being slaughtered and fear that lurks.
Knowing a good thing when they hear it, Nashgul have resolutely defied the last 20 years of cultural evolution, pillaging the festering cinematic leftovers of 1970s and ’80s for musical inspiration. These are guys who’ve written songs called “Mad Max” (which was renewed for a second season), “Snake Plisskin” and “El Vengador Toxico,” after all.
“I think 70/80s horror movies had a fucking great atmosphere of disturbing realism,” vocalist Santi said. “Special effects were fucking great before all this CGI shit and also being in our mid/late 20s these are the movies we grow up with. Old school grindcore and old school horror movies with some beer and weed. Anything better in life?” [Editor’s note: Only to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.]
So it should surprise only those of you who haven’t been paying attention that Nashgul’s proper debut album, El Dia Despues al Fin de la Humanidad (The Day After the End of Humanity for those who no habla), comes off like a classic Fulci fright fest right down the awesomely festering artwork, courtesy of bassist Luis.
“He did all our artwork except the one for the split with World Downfall which was made by Emma Rios, a friend from our city who is now working for Marvel Comics!” Santi said. “Luis is professional drawer, he has a daily job drawing and designing. He improved a fucking lot during the last years, and I’m proud to say that is one of the best drawers you can meet in the music scene. He did lot of work for other bands.”
Not only do Nashgul think cinema peaked nearly 30 years ago, don’t look to them to blaze new grindcore trails either. As far as the band is concerned, grind also reached a state of transcendent perfection two decades previously and they just see themselves as acolytes of their predecessors.
“We don’t pretend to be original or innovate in any form,” Santi said. “With our music we just want to pay tribute to the bands we are obsessed with since many years ago. Of course our main influences are the classic grindcore bands like Repulsion, Carcass, early Napalm Death, Terrorizer, Defecation etc., but we are very open minded people, we love punk as much as we love metal. So there’s a lot of influences in our heads when we are making new songs, so maybe that make our stuff more interesting, because we don’t follow any formula or trend. We just make what our guts and heart tell us to do.”
Given Nashgul’s obvious mastery of the zombie oeuvre, I turned to Santi to settle a schism that has ended marriages, destroyed families, sundered friendships and driven nations to the brink of war: Fast zombies versus slow?
“Slow zombies, of course,” Santi said, forestalling the need for me to eviscerate him and declare his falsity to the grindcore masses. “There’s nothing more disgusting than knowing that a lifeless piece of meat filled with maggots is coming after you, and no matter how fast you can run, no matter how intelligent you think you are, they have all the time in the world and they will end up surrounding you, approaching to you very slowly and eating you alive without any hurry. Return of the Living Dead fast zombies are the exception. That movie rules so much, it’s a fucking great classic parody!”

G&P Review: Nashgul

Nashgul
El Dia Despues al Fin de la Humanidad
Power It Up
If Cujo has taught me nothing else, it’s that you should vaccinate your pets because this shit usually starts with rabies.
Sure enough, right off the top of zombie audio film El Dia Despues al Fin de la Humanidad (The Day after the End of Humanity), Spain’s Nashgul are bellowing about the “Hidrofobia.” Somebody put Ol’ Yeller down before it’s too late. I joke, of course. It’s already too late.
Shotgun-wedding Max Brooks horror with a Mike Mignola aesthetic to a more Carcass-ian attack than Humanicidio, the band’s prior collection of splits and 7-inches, Nashgul script and soundtrack a zombie horror film lacking only the visuals. Dipping into the always reliable well of Fulci and Romero, Nashgul drop what arguably was one of the best grind albums of 2009, had I gotten to it in time.
The vocals are suitably Jeff Walkeresque and the prominent bass sounds like a rotten femur strung with a twanging tendon and the Repulsion influences are notable, especially in “Cremated Remains.” But then there’s other, less expected influences burbling up like corpse gas in a Louisiana swamp. Bassist Luis rumbles like a reanimated Cliff Burton during the startling Metallical close out to Resident Evil-style charmer “La Plaga.”

Nashgul – “La Plaga”

Anyone who bought Humanicidio will recognize a few of the titles here: “El Vengedor” gets recycled while in true Hollywood style swinging, bent string ’70s-style instrumental “Mad Max” gets sequelized as “Mad Max II.” Zombies and grindcore go together like Tom Savini and latex gore and while Nashgul don’t reanimate any new corpses with El Dia Despues al Fin de la Humanidad they know where the choice bodies were buried.

G&P Review: Looking for an Answer

Looking for an Answer
La Caceria
Relapse
Well Helen Keller should have seen this coming. Spain’s Looking for an Answer are practically custom built for Relapse, wielding a bludgeoning brand of grindcore that doesn’t scrimp on the soft tissue trauma. Extincion was easily a highlight of 2008, but now the band has dropped a 7-inch with four new songs (one being a Repulsion cover) on us courtesy of Relapse’s dime and many tentacled distribution muscle that should maybe shove Looking for an Answer under a few more of the right noses.
For all the cash at Relapse’s disposal, La Caceria is actually rougher and more sepulchral than Extincion, which isn’t a bad thing. “Estandarte de Huesos” heaves out of the grave to chew over the politics of the day and possibly your left femur, if you’re not using it. “Supremacia Etica” starts with those snappy cymbal clutches that practically defined early Napalm Death and for which I’m still a sucker. The rest of the song is a high impact cardio routine played on fast forward while being stalked by ominous blasts of perverted bass. That grisly bass grist mill is also the star of the more down dynamic (read: some slower parts) “La Peste Roja,” which sounds absolutely filthy, like these bunny hugging crusaders have been wallowing in slop with the hogs they’d rather you not eat. All of this bass focus makes perfect sense when Looking for an Answer exhumes and reanimates Repulsion’s “Driven to Insanity” as their closer, perfectly aping Scott Carlson’s festering settings, complete with bone saw guitar solo.
This slim tasting platter is a perfect sampler for anybody who hasn’t had the joy of one of grindcore’s rising stars.
Oh, and those homonivorous minotaurs on the awesome, charcoal toned album art? They just want you to know that, no, you cannot has cheezburger.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Nashgul

Nashgul
Humanicidio
Crimes Against Humanity
2006
Questionable names ripped off from ur-nerd texts from J.R.R. Tolkien may be most pronounced among bad black metal bands and even worse power metal offerings, but Mumakil weren’t the only grinders to fail a saving throw verses really bad literature. While Nashgul may spring from source material of questionable merit, these Spaniards are no slouch in the all important department and along with a few likeminded countrymen may be signaling a cultural shift on Euro-grind’s western front.
Beginning in the ’90s the locus of European grindcore was firmly entrenched in northern E.U. countries with a few old Warsaw Pact nations nipping at their heals. But somewhere in the last few years bands like Looking for an Answer, Overnoise, Denak (whose “Estado de Bienestar” gets covered here) and Nashgul suggest the center of gravity for European grind may be decamping for sunnier climes.
Debatable points of cultural import aside, Humanicidio, Nashgul’s collection of splits and singles through 2006 brings the fucking grind. Opener “CNP’s” varying punk and metal moods serve as the band’s business card, neatly summarizing everything these Spaniards can unleash. Before giving way to lumbering double kick, “Mad Max’s” psychedelic swirl could have been swiped from just about any CSSO album.
Slathering on some (admittedly monotonous) guttural vocals, telenovela-quality samples and assorted electric weirdness towards the end of the album tends to drag down the collection, but Nashgul more than redeem their flagging performance with the ripping, 1337 speak, gang chorused snarl of “Fr4ctur4 d3 C0still4.”
For grind this good, I’m willing to overlook the occasional misplaced Lord of the Rings reference, but don’t get me started on how much I hate The Matrix.

G&P review: Looking For An Answer

Looking for an Answer
Extincion
Living Dead Society
When punk and metal dip their toes into the political pool, they’re generally known for breeding some fairly extreme stances. And if we’re honest, some of the scene’s politics are hilariously questionable.
Take d-beat defenders Tragedy, who, while unarguably are one of the most dedicated and honest practitioners of a 30-year-old style that prizes integrity and DIY over the increasingly mainstream trappings of the current punk and metal business world, also tend to pop off at the mouth about the evils of technology and how it will strangle civilization and the planet. But somehow that ludditism doesn’t extend to electric guitars, recording studios, and CD pressing plants. Just sayin’.
Madrid’s Looking For and Answer, ideological kindred to Cattle Decapitation, suffer from the same conundrum with their “Animal Liberation, Human Extinction” motto. If you’re serious, I say extinction begins at home, so lead by example and step in front of a bus.
Luckily, these grindcore conquistadors, featuring members of Denak and Unsane Crisis, have yet to go gently into that good night, because their latest 29-minute platter of Terrorizer-basted bunny hugger metal is a meaty slab of medium rare grind.
Lopping off the obligatory intro/outro of squealing pigs being led to the slaughter, Looking for an Answer rage against the impending Perdición Mundial through 17 songs of breathless, rampaging, grindy goodness.
Though the obligatory high/low vocal interface comes into play, frontman Inaki is perfectly content to let his gut busting grunt do the talking for most of the album, holding the screech in reserve for highlights and texture. And just in case your Espanol no es bueno, LFAA conveniently provide English translations for the rest of us.
The title track’s bass heavy battery recalls the low end crunch of crusty grind forefathers Phobia while “Cada Nacimiento es una Tragedia” and “Ruptura” chug along like early Bolt Thrower on fast forward.
Mixing Carcass’ penchant for provocation, Cattle Decapitation’s ideology and Terrorizer’s execution, Looking for an Answer have pulled together a crisply produced package of grind that would slot neatly next to Insect Warfare or ASRA in any CD collection. And if you see them at a show, don’t invite them out for a burger.