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.

Grindcore Bracketology: The Regional Kings/The Battle for Hemispheric Dominance

I knew Zmaj would eventually break down and chime in. No one can resist my nefarious plotting. It was only a matter of time. Having already reached that crowning achievement, we’re rapidly closing in on the end of the brackets. For something I thought started as a lark and would probably only get five or six votes per round, this has snowballed beyond anything I could have predicted. Here’s what you had to say in the last round.

North America
Given their trans-Pacific composition, it’s probably only fitting that GridLink slaughtered Pig Destroyer by 22-12 as they advance to square off against the best Australasia has to offer. The constant refrain against them has been their lack of material to date, but apparently Amber Grey and a couple of one-off tracks are winners.

Asia and Australia
This was another round where nobody was going to walk away happy because a solid case could be made for either band walking away with the whole contest. The people have spoken and Wormrot edged out 324 by 16-12.

Scandinavia
In the battle of the Nasum clones, Finns Rotten Sound squeaked past Swedes Sayyadina by 17-15. So Rotten Sound moves on to make the case for dominating all of Europe.

Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Nashgul partisans put up a quality fight to the end. The Spaniards kept swinging above their weight division, but faced with the imperial might of Napalm Death, it was a bit like attacking the Death Star with spitballs and rubberbands. Napalm Death blew them out 21-12 as the machine rolls on. Oops, I just violated my own ground rules.

Sooooooooooooooooooo...
That means now we move on to the hemispheric championship round. It’s North America v. Asia and Europe turning on itself. The revised brackets are available here, and you have until Saturday to make your case.

North America v. Asia
GridLink (2) v. Wormrot (1)
Given Matsubara’s integral contributions to GridLink’s success, you could easily argue the band more properly belonged in the Asian category to begin with, so it’s only fitting to find them here squaring off with Wormrot. If there’s been a consistent knock on both bands throughout the process, it’s that each has a dearth of music to their credit to date. So in a battle of one album wonders, who deserves a shot at the title round?

Europe
Rotten Sound (1) v. Napalm Death (1)
I’m willing to bet Napalm Death was probably responsible for most of us really getting into grind (Utopia Banished in 1993 drastically altered the course of my musical life). Keeping in mind we’re talking about Napalm Death’s current incarnation, do they still stand up as the best grind has to offer for all the stylistic and personnel shifts? And how do they stack up against Rotten Sound, a band that embraces the grind ethic Napalm Death (and, yes, Nasum) laid down long since?

False Flag Attack

I guess I was never what you could call a very orthodox punk. There were plenty of bands that were considered canonical that I just never could get into. Cases in point: though many would have dubbed me straight edge throughout high school and college, I despise Minor Threat (though “Filler” is a damn fine exception) and think Ian MacKaye is a self righteous prick. I also hate the Misfits and take an immediate loathing to the kind of toothless meatheads you see in pretty much every mall Hot Topic sporting that goofy skull logo.
Likewise, Black Flag was a band I struggled with for many years. A lot of it is because the whole Henry Rollins persona irritates the shit outta me for reasons I can’t quite articulate.
I eventually made my peace with Black Flag much later in life, backing my way into the band through the music of those they influenced. But I still thank Damaged is painfully overrated, particularly in light of Greg Ginn’s later masterworks. Ginn is simply the greatest punk to ever sorta tune a guitar and it was hearing his atonal template trickle down through the next few generations that brought me back around to the original.
Here are three bands that radically altered by thinking about Black Flag.

Sick of it All
If anybody can claim Rollins’ caterwaul/catharsis crown, it would be hardcore stalwart Tim Singer. Dude had a band called Family Man, f’fuckssakes, but most of you probably know him as the guy popping forehead veins in Deadguy. Now I loved Deadguy just as much as the next 'banger, but, for me, Kiss it Goodbye was always the most interesting and cathartic of Singer’s bands. And if I’m going to reach for one song by Singer, it’s going to be the titanic drone of “Sick Day,” which has helped me come to appreciate the B-side of My War more as I get older. In fact, I doubt this amazing song would even exist without that polarizing Black Flag album and the sepulchral misery of “Nothing Left Inside.” It defied the “play faster” ethos of the era by daring to get down with the doom. Hell, this was an era when Saint Vitus and Black Flag shared a label, something that still astounds 20 years later.

Fuck Yeah
If any band in recent years has fully embraced Black Flag’s proposition that punk is a process and not a product, it would have to be Canadian audio provocateurs Fucked Up. With a swing like Class of ’77 Brit punk band, Fucked Up also channeled Black Flag’s unique blend of down and dirty punk and elevated aspirations from the transitional Slip it In and Loose Nut albums with a toe tapper like the scorching “The Black Hats.” It sends a shout out to that era when Black Flag was coming out of a crippling lawsuit that essentially sidelined their efforts but gave them the space they needed to nurture a sound that just couldn’t be contained by the strictures of what passed for punk at the time. A song like “Bastard in Love” still had one Doc Marten firmly planted in Los Angeles’ grimy underbelly, but Ginn and (sigh, yes, even) Rollins were beginning to grapple with the expanded possibilities of lyrical narrative and sonic dynamism.

Harmonic Convergence
As I said, Black Flag’s more e/in-volved later albums are far more interesting to me than their early generic punk works, and nobody in hardcore has really pushed the songwriting aspect as much as Kurt Ballou and his co-conspirators in Converge. Converge’s quiet mastermind has fully embraced the notion of abrading traditional song structure with a scouring pad of atonal awesomeness filigreed with amazing single note runs that jolt me into immediate attention. In fact, it was songs like album of the decade contender Jane Doe’s opening “Concubine” that lead me back to late catalogue goodness like In My Head’s title track, which shames all of the Flag’s narrow minded three chord contemporaries for its shifting tempos, textures and trills.

Here’s a quick comp of the songs that lead me back to an appreciation of one of punk’s finest practitioners. Enjoy.
Meanwhile, this is my list of other supposedly classic bands that don’t do shit for me. What classics can’t you stand?

The Beatles
Black Sabbath without Ozzy
Cannibal Corpse
Death
Deicide
Dio
The Exploited
The Germs
Judas Priest
King Diamond
Led Zeppelin
Minor Threat
Misfits
Morbid Angel
Ozzy’s solo material
Pantera
Venom

G&P Review: Wojczech

Wojczech
Pulsus Letalis
Selfmadegod
As an amateur epicurean with a budget, a lot of enticing delicacies have been denied me on the basis of cost. Chief among them would be the purported glories of Kobe (aka Wagyu) beef, famed for its exquisite marbling and excellent taste. The bastards on Iron Chef keep tempting me, but so far the opportunity to partake has eluded me.
And while that delectable morsel is beyond my current pocketbook’s reach, it does make a perfect metaphor for Germans Wojczech’s unexpected new album, Pulsus Letalis, which is beautifully marbled with lean grind muscle and veins of unctuous death metal substance. It’s just a shame it’s a bit of step back from their earlier work.
As to be expected since it's the band’s first full length since 2005’s Sedimente, there’s some rust that still needs to be worked off. Where that album was a gymnastics routine tied to a foundation of grind (bassist Andy Colosser moonlights in criminally underrated grind visionaries Who’s My Saviour), Pulsus Letalis plays it safer with a more familiar blend of death and grind. Wojczech have hunkered down to deliver a dozen songs (including Repulsion’s “Maggots in Your Coffin”) of bullish death grind that pits aggression over artistry. While it may tend to a tad generic lacking the band’s prior expansiveness, it does its job.
“Battlestar” swirls along on a delightful circular riff while the astrally projected “Leitkultur” hints at Wojczech’s former experimentalism as it slithers along like a glass serpent. The strongest aspect of the album, overall, is Stephan Gottwald’s perfectly on point drumming, highlighted by the thunderous “Steinzeit” or snare rolling “Izotope.”

Wojczech - "Izotope"

Wojczech have always suffered from middling band syndrome, never finding that hook to vault them into wider consciousness, but by jettisoning the irregularities that made Sedimente stand out from the pack, they’ve made their job that much more difficult. On its own, Pulsus Letalis is a perfectly acceptable album, but compared to Sedimente, it just feels lacking.

Grindcore Bracketology: Semifinals/Regional Championships

All the winnowing to date leads to this. This round you’re going to crown kings of the region who will advance to compete for hemispheric dominance and, ultimately, the global title. You guys have been in top game form to date, but I think a few of these are going to test your argumentary mettle. Who is going to advance one step closer to grindcore's Mount Midoriyama?
Take a gander at the brackets here, and now it’s game on. You’ve got until Saturday.

North America
Pig Destroyer (1) v. GridLink (2)
Art reigns supreme in North America. Now it’s a question of whether you prefer Pig Destroyer’s nightmarish explorations of psychological decay over GridLink’s neon jazzed tribute to the New World’s enduring fascination with the Far East. Many of you have grumbled about GridLink's dearth of material. How will they fare against Pig Destroyer's quartet of albums and a few splits?

Asia and Australia
Wormrot (1) v. 324 (2)
For the Pacific Rim, it’s a battle of the old guard vs. the new jacks. 324 have been pretty consistently awesome over a dozen years (though I will acknowledge Rebelgrind was not to everyone’s taste). In the other corner is Wormrot who are still riding the buzz of a single unbelievably awesome record that channels the pure essence of grind.

Scandinavia
Rotten Sound (1) v. Sayyadina (2)
Apparently Sweden and Finland have been nurturing a healthy rivalry for about 1,000 years that is often settled at the hockey rink. I now propose we lay it to rest permanently on the vaunted grindcore pitch. Rotten Sound versus Sayyadina: whose country will be taking the bragging rights home?

Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Napalm Death (1) v. Nashgul (5)
Napalm Death continue to surprise me. Given the antipathy to the current incarnation in some corners, I secretly expected them to nosedive in the first round when matched with Agathocles, but like the actual band, they just keep grinding it out. If Napalm Death are surprising me, in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was by the passionate following Nashgul have engendered on the strength of their steadfastly classic approach to grind. Nashgul embody the same drive that Napalm Death shepherded into being but have since abandoned. Do you honor a legacy band still willing to take a chance or the young bucks who lay it on the line for heritage?

G&P Review: Comparative Anatomy

Comparative Anatomy
Mammalian
Mind Flare Media
Just when you thought Hatebeak and Caninus were enough to get PETA’s fair trade, animal product-free panties all bunched, Virginia’s Comparative Anatomy stitch together an entire album of experimental electronics from the tortured bleats of defenseless animals and abused machinery. Fair warning off the top: this is not grindcore. Instead, Comparative Anatomy wield a pastiche of funk bass, industrial drum machining and audio loops into a sometimes coherent ruckus all while sporting animal costumes that would make Attack of the Mad Axeman blush from shame.
Largely instrumental, the two manimal band lets the animal noises stand in the stead of vocals on songs that are looping and slowly mutating with repetition. It’s like listening to Swans’ Soundtracks for the Blind as remixed by an autistic kid with a Fisher Price See ‘n Say. Each song gets its own animal avatar guiding development of the noise. “Peter Rabbit the Great’s Carrot Phalanx” rings with martial horns, sending up military engagement in the tradition of the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup. “Puppy Hatred” blends ’50s crooning with Red Harvest industrial glower in an intentionally jarring juxtaposition. Among the most involved and layered songs, “Swarm of Camels” manages to stitch together samples of Indian vocals and melodies, funk bass, industrial beats and cell phone ringtones into something that stops just short of unified.

Comparative Anatomy – “Swarm of Camels”

When things don’t jell, like the screeching, monotonous “A Car Full of Seals in the Mall on the Day After Thanksgiving,” Comparative Anatomy begins to look less serious about their craft.
And that’s the crux. A lot of the compositions tend to be clever and can engage on an intellectual level, but I’m not getting any kind of visceral or emotional jolt from the songs. I’m left wondering how much further Comparative Anatomy can take a concept many (most?) people will write off as a one-note joke.

[Full disclosure: MindFlare sent me a review copy.]

Grindcore Bracketology: Quarterfinals 2 Winners

Despite one turd in the pool, I’m absolutely enjoying sitting on the sidelines watching you guys (respectfully) argue this one out. Quarterfinals 2 has been another brutal round and there are some heart wrenching eliminations coming. But it had to happen sooner or later. Here’s who you said should advance to fight it out for regional mastery. As always, updated brackets can be reviewed here. Well get back to voting again on Monday.

North America
Was that a hint of an anti-GridLink backlash I was picking up in the comments? Though some of you remain unimpressed by Chang and Matsurbara’s collabo, the Jersey-Japanese amalgamation powered passed Texas heroes Kill the Client by 13-9 in a thoroughly grueling matchup. No matter who won that one, I kinda feel like we all lost.

Asia and Australia
Luckily, Gamefaced will not be hunting each of you down to devour your souls because 324 cruised past Singapore acolytes Mangnicide by either 16-1 or a perfect 17-0. (Sorry, Amalgamated, I wasn’t sure where you’re going with that. If you’d care to clarify that in the comments, we may just have our very first shutout.)
[Addendum: Amalgamated said it was a vote for Magnicide. So the official final count will stand as 16-1 even though he/she/it/they will bow the majority. Either way, look out for Gamefaced, my friend.]

Scandinavia
I fear the Afgrund v. Sayyadina rivalry will never be satisfactorily resolved. Though Sayyadina eventually won out by 11-6, this was the closest call of the lot and the quality arguments offered for both suggest a convincing case could have been made to overturn the will of the people. Too bad I’m on Team Sayyadina.

Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Upsets have been vanishingly rare so far, but Dutch crushers Blood I Bleed will be hitting the showers early after getting thoroughly pummeled by Nashgul 12-4. The Spanish band was probably the hardest ranking decision I had to make initially, and they’re quickly proving themselves to be a dark horse to watch with a second upset to their credit.