Burn it Down: The Arson Project Believe in Slow Cooking Their Grind

The Arson Project seemed poised on the cusp of something spectacular in 2008 when they dropped their incendiary debut EP Blood and Locusts. The Swedes combined the best of their homegrown grindcraft with maybe a hint of North American punk bellicosity into 10 songs and 14 minutes of rampaging snarl.
The strength of Blood and Locust earned The Arson Project a split 7-inch on Relapse with critical darlings Noisear and an invitation to play Maryland Deathfest in 2008 (which they had to miss). But since then, the band has been quiet – a handful of tours through Europe and Asia but no new music. That’s about to change as The Arson Project ready their debut LP, which will hopefully ignite their phoenix-like resurgence to Scandinavian grind upstarts.
Here’s hoping this attempt goes better than the band’s first pass at recording a long player.
“In 2010 TAP was still only about touring and to stress out a debut full length wouldn’t have been something which we would have liked to put our names on. We tried it once in 2007 and it ended up with putting all the songs in the bin and starting from the beginning and that’s when we wrote Blood and Locusts,” vocalist and founding member Niklas Larson said. “In contrast with the MCD, we didn’t have enough time when we wrote the songs for the split, and we're not at all happy with the way the songs turned out. But we learned a lot by doing it, so we will without any doubts never release anything by deadline again. TAP songs only come when the inspiration is there.”



Fire Walk With Me.

Patience seems to be a defining theme for The Arson Project. Getting their start in tiny Oskarshamn on Sweden’s southeast coast – poised nearly equidistant between Stockholm and Copenhagen – the band  has never tried to force themselves beyond their comfort points, even if that means letting half a decade slide between releases or watching trends swirl around them.
“This band is my life. I have spent thousands of hours on the road, in our different rehearsal places and on shitty jobs just to afford going on tour or to record like five to six minutes in the studio,” Larson said. “Even though we haven’t been that active the past years, this band reminds me every day that it has made me discover so many great things which have affected me as a person. It doesn’t matter if we play a show every ten years or release albums every twenty. It's not only about being seen everywhere; it's more about not living an ordinary boring life with full time jobs, debts and lots of shit you don’t need. As long as the band exists, it lets me be who I am.”
After years of being spread around Sweden, the majority of The Arson Project is now headquartered in Malmö, which should jolt their productivity as 75 percent of the members are able to physically assemble to prepare new music several times a week. Larson in 2010 even quit his job to make The Arson Project a priority. He’s been chauffeuring other metal and punk bands around Europe the last few years since his own group has been temporarily sidelined from touring.
Larson is cautiously optimistic that The Arson Project’s upcoming album will be the band’s ticket to hit the road and see the world. Until then, it’s just a matter of deciding how they will deliver the new album to the masses once the quartet is satisfied. True to their hardcore punk roots, The Arson Project are considering handling the release in-house.
“We have many contacts and we already know a bunch of labels that are interested to put out TAP releases. But with the things we've been through in mind, we won’t give the recordings or promises to anyone before we're satisfied with the finished result,” Larson said. “We've already had discussions about releasing it ourselves as well, and it's something which I'm finding more and more as an attractive option. I don't care about being associated with respected labels at all. My only concern is that the people who want to get their hands on the vinyl should be able to find it easily without paying shitloads of money.”

G&P Review: Noisear/The Arson Project

I am not writing this book for people below the age of 18, but I see no harm in telling young people to prepare for failure rather than success, since failure is the main thing that is going to happen to them.

Kurt Vonnegut
Hocus Pocus
1990

Noisear/The Arson Project
Land of Entrapment/Split
Relapse

If I were

to break off my sentences at really random

points. That would disrupt any

flow the words would have, making

this really a bitch to read, wouldn’t

it? It

would probably interfere

with any enjoy

ment you’d get from reading this wouldn’

t it?

That’s the frustration I have with what should be an awesome split EP between two great young bands. The breaks between the songs are so long — five and six seconds in some cases — you lose any momentum from one track to the next. Noisear or The Arson Project will bang out a tune that plugs straight into your adrenal glands and then…stop. Long pause, and the bands have to establish that momentum again.
It’s a puzzle because these Relapse 7-inchers (this one is actually from late last year and I’m playing catch up) have been gems: Agoraphobic Nosebleed facing off with The Endless Blockade, Mumakil and Blockheads going head to head for a second time and, of course, Looking for an Answer’s awesome La Caceria. So I have no clue why the pacing on this one got all borked up.
Musically, both bands are working a fine hustle. While Noisear’s four tracks sound like demo versions of songs cut from Subvert the Dominant Paradigm, they display the same skronk ’n’ grind that’s made their name. This is the sound of platinum crickets armed with 21st Century recording technology. “Lamenting Breathalyzation” is Bryan Fajardo’s moment to shine as the bass and drums struggle to keep up with the punishing pace he sets. Guitarist Dorian Rainwater dominates “Li(f)e” with tight-wristed guitar rushes that may be better than some of the songs on their last full length. More than introducing a new sub-sub-sub genre on “Rhino Grind/Frienemy,” the song is one of the band’s better amalgams of all their competing impulses perhaps ever.
Flipside, Sweden’s The Arson Project’s four songs sound much more professional and are a logical continuation of Blood and Locusts. It continues their trajectory as an up and coming Scandi-grind phenomenon. Though the Niklas Larson’s vocals tend to be one dimensional, he gets a chance to stand on his own as the instruments drop away at the close of “Gutter King.” “Life Drained” swipes the glittering guitar tones from some shoegaze troupe, and just about the time you start pondering whether shoegazecore is (or ought) to be a thing, The Arson Project erupt into their wonted grisly grind ways.
Pauses and pacing issues aside, this another tidy little chunk of vinyl that adds Relapse’s imprimatur to two up and comers.

Grindcore Bracketology: The 1-8 Winners/The 3-6 Matchups

The people have spoken and it wasn’t even close. Here are your 1-8 winners.

North America
Pig Destroyer terrifier-ed crust grind lifers Phobia, blowing them out 17-4. Turns out a fairly consistent record over 20 years and an unwavering commitment to DIY ethics just can’t compete with Hull et al’s scathing art grind nightmares. (Bonus points go to Bill Willingham IV Esq. for better articulating my problem with recent Phobia albums. I also agree they’re too safe.)

Asia and Australia
In the most lopsided contest of the lot, Wormrot eviscerated Captain Cleanoff by a vote of 18-2. Though many of you argued fiercely for the Australians’ right to slot in the contest, their booze drenched nods to classic Carcass just couldn’t stand in the face of Wormrot’s exquisite ferocity.

Scandinavia
Though a few of you offered up spirited defenses of Infanticide’s new jack noise, Rotten Sound’s legacy of consistently crushing records drove them to a 16-5 victory. Give Infanticide a few more years to build up their reputation and I suspect the results would be much closer.

Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Maybe it was just wishful thinking since I’ve been on an Agathocles binge lately, but I had smelled upset going into this one. You, the voters, were having none of it. Old dogs Napalm Death’s new tricks crushed Agathocles’ relentless singelmindedness by 15-6. It was the tightest contest of the day, but it wasn’t even close.

The winners have advanced and you can check out the revised brackets here.
Meanwhile, we move on to the 3-6 matchups. The faceoffs should be more evenly matched so I expect closer calls and some really interesting arguments. Let the streets flow with the blood of the unbelievers. Argument’s open until Saturday.

North America
Kill the Client (3) vs. Graf Orlock (6)
Go mess with Texas. I dare you. Yeah, didn’t think so. Kill the Client are an audio pipe bomb packed full of nails and the knucklebones of lesser competitors who shred their fingers to the nub vainly trying to keep pace. But there’s just not another band working right now that’s as purely pissed as Kill the Client. Champ Morgan is a man possessed and he’s backed by of top shelf musicians. Jesus, is there any grind band that Bryan Fajardo hasn’t joined? But the secret sauce to the Dallas barbecue may be bassist James Delgado who anchors the chaos and quietly shapes the sound from behind the scenes.
If the MPAA sends out a flurry of new cease and desist letters, cine-grinders Graf Orlock must be back in the studio. The band has dropped a triptych of releases that follow the formula of introduction/conflict/and violent conclusion that stitches together a narrative from cinematic samples and swiped dialog lyrics. And while that has been the bit of trivia that has formed the basis of the Graf’s identity, don’t overlook their quality of the hardcore tinged noise they bang out. The music is just as sweeping, emotional and explosive of the meathead movies that inspire them.

Asia and Australia
Magnicide (3) vs. Unholy Grave (6)
A fascinating matchup between two Asian acts that are perhaps better known for their artists they ape than the music they make on their own. Singapore’s Magnicide do a capable 324 impersonation as they play second grind fiddle to countrymen Wormrot. But do Wormrot have grindcore didgeridoo? Hmm? Do they? With 324 frozen in carbonite for the time being, Magnicide are your best bet to scratch that crusty grind holocaust itch until the masters’ triumphant return.
Unholy Grave are the Asian Agathocles both because they bang out a consistently lo-fi morass of punky grind with only a fleeting acquaintance with 21st Century recording techniques and technology and because the list of their split-heavy back catalogue outweighs your average phone book. But the Japanese quartet has defined its niche in the grindcore ecosphere and have burrowed in comfortably. You don’t pick up an Unholy Grave album expecting to be wowed with the latest thinking in songsmithy. However, the band has a deft hand at grinding the fuck out, never swaying from their strengths.

Scandinavia
Afgrund (3) vs. The Arson Project (6)
Some of you have had the temerity to develop your own surprisingly cogent opinions, making lucid arguments in favor of Afgrund’s superiority to Sayyadina as Sweden’s top working grinders. How dare you? Oh, I can certainly see where you’re coming from because Afgrund raged out of the abyss (all of those who got that pun, raise your hands) with a potent brew of punk- and metal-distilled audio aggression. When the sometimes Swedish/sometimes Italian/sometimes Finnish sometimes trio/sometimes quartet (OK, their lineup is not stable) clicks, the set all of Europe aflame, like the song says. The question before you is if that is strong enough to overcome the band’s insistence of larding albums with thoroughly pointless and dreary doom passages.
Against them comes upstarts The Arson Project who only boast one EP to their name to date, but it’s a corker. Hobbled by a name stolen from the bad metalcore handbook, The Arson Project have a slick hand with a tune and a poise and energy that belies the band’s relative youth. Do 14 minutes of prime noise and bucketsful of future potential stack up against the here and now attractions of Afgrund?

Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Suffering Mind (3) vs. Attack of the Mad Axeman (6)
Suffering Mind couldn’t be more serious; Attack of the Mad Axeman couldn’t be less. Do you prefer the rage or the jester? Poles Suffering Mind are grind incarnate. Far more hardcore inflected than many of their European kin, the band blasts and huffs and doesn’t waste its time with much else. They know their strengths and they will throttle you with their raw rage and bullwhip attack.
Against them stands Germany’s Attack of the Mad Axeman the ecologically minded grinders harness the sounds of the animal kingdom in the name of animal activism and environmental responsibility. They also know their way around a thoroughly infectious riff over the course of two increasingly awesome full lengths. And yes, they wear fuzzy animal costumes on stage, but don’t let that lull you into thinking they’re a joke band.

G&P review: The Arson Project (How Swede it is Again, Part 5)

The Arson Project
Blood and Locusts
Power It Up
The liner notes to Blood and Locusts namechecks a pretty comprehensive swath of the current Swedish grind scene with Splitter, From the Ashes and Afgrund all getting shout outs. And while each one is an exemplar of the NWOSGC (sorry, hadda do it) sound, like meandering Frodo, newcomers The Arson Project just may be in possession of the one grind ring to rule them all with a compelling restatement all of that is good and wonderful about grind in 14 minutes.
I think the thing I love the most about Swedish grind is the crispness – that tension between brutal songwriting and performance and the clarity of the production that allows every searing note and beat and yowl to rip a dimensional wall through your speakers and lacerate your brain. The Arson Project manage to rail grind the very fine line between those two poles with poise and aplomb, turning in an ear bleeding assault that’s a wonder to behold for their debut EP. The production by Gadget’s William Blackmon is monstrous, but Oscar Lindbergh’s drums do tend to get lost behind Daniel Rosenqvist and Sebastian Kling’s respective guitar and bass typhoon. However, the blunt force wall of sound is like jousting with bulldozers.
While The Arson Project hit all the right Svensk notes, Rosenqvist and singer Niklas Larson seem to share an unconscious kinship with copylefters Graf Orlock. “The Black List,” especially, nicks some of the riffing style and vocal pacing from the Californians when the howled bridge kicks in at about the 50 second mark.
The Arson Project’s hit it and quit it 60 second blasts hark back to every death scuffed band to cut song lengths and up BPMs since Terrorizer, but ADHD attack neatly serves as the set up to the band’s song writing punchline. “God of War’s” inferno blasts sprout a nifty twining, serpentine guitar riff and “Mentalit Avrattad,” one of the EP’s longest songs, goes from 60 to 0 in the space of a bar, making way for a bass-led Godzilla stomp break that gets to lumber across Blood and Locusts for a full minute before oozing into Jesu-style guitar chimes.
In a 14 minute scorched earth assault The Arson Project burn down the house their grind forefathers built, clearing the land for a new wave of young, brash innovators to reseed the landscape.