Thursday, December 30, 2010

Grind in Rewind in 2010: The Top 10 of 2010

Looking back on another year of grind, I’ve got to share Flesh Monolith’s general sense of disappointment. This was a year that lacked a clear, breakout star. Instead, we were treated to a lot of good albums and a whole lotta meh. Keep in mind, though, my discretionary music buying budget took a brutal hit so things like the new Suffering Mind, Bloody Phoenix and even the fucking Wormrot/I Abhor split have eluded me. So I feel a little funny even doing a list since I don’t really feel like I can pull together a list as authoritative as I would prefer. But fuck it. Up front, I’m also gonna cop to padding the list so bring it to a nice round 10 to fulfill some bizarre numerological compulsion I can’t quite explain.

Before we get down to it, though, I want to briefly ruminate on a couple of positive trends I saw this year: the rise of the tidy EP (if you don’t have the material for a full length, don’t waste people’s time with filler) and bands eschewing the traditional label structure to throw their music out to survive on the Darwinian internet.

As always, feel free to call me an idiot, point out gems I may have missed, hash out the order and berate me for bands I foolishly left off.


10. Selfhate

Debasement

Self Released

The veteran Poles’ return to the grind scene after a lengthy hiatus was a welcome surprise in 2010. Nearly a decade older and consequently a step or two slower, Selfhate still bring quality riffs and perfectly poised dynamics in place of setting new land speed records. The band also stand out in an area where grind is usually deficient: emotional weight. The song “Dajesz Zycle/You Give Life,” which tells the true story of a murdered child, is chillingly grounded without giving way to typical metal posturing. Selfhate were a landmark band in the 1990s and they still have a lot to share with a new generation.


9. Unholy Grave

Grind Killers

Selfmadegod

Grind Killers was not one of the best albums of the year from a song writing standpoint and it could definitely stand to lose three or four songs to make it a tighter experience, but Unholy Grave’s live in the studio romp had a sense of spontaneity and just plain old fashioned fun that’s missing all too often. Fun? You guys remember that? Amid all the bitchnig and screaming and howling about powers that should be seiged and our extreme response to extreme conditions, it’s nice to occasionally see a band bust out a Ramones cover and just have a good fucking time.


8. Jesus Crost

010

Bones Brigade

Given the art on pseudonymous Dutch power violence/grind twosome Jesus Crost’s second album, soccer hooliganism is the easy, go-to metaphor for their boisterous brand of blast beaten noise. But I prefer to reference a far more refined, dignified and ultimately understandable sports moment: the 1994 Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver. That’s pretty much what 010 sounds like: rioting punters caught on tape as they blast, huff, puff and chuff their way through blasty-violency tunes that know just when to throw in a tempo change up or an unexpected vocal flourish like the occasional pig squeals. It makes you want to smash a window front and shit talk some cops after your hometown team blows the championship round.


7. Rotten Sound

Napalm

Relapse

I almost feel bad for including the six song EP, half of which is Napalm Death covers, but if Napalm is any kind of precursor to Rotten Sound’s impending full length, the Finns have found their footing again. Napalm was a gnarly, snarling, underproduced bit of racket that reminded me of the kind of noise Rotten Sound used to bring back during their Murderworks prime. Though it may be more gimmick than honest expression of Rotten Sound’s own ouvre, Napalm is still a fun listen that sees them reconnecting with what made grind great originally.


6. Circle of Dead Children

Psalm of the Grand Destroyer

Willowtip

That Circle of Dead Children frontman Jon Hovarth is still alive to make albums after contracting a near-fatal infection is enough to make me smile. That Circle of Dead Children recovered from the false step that was Zero Comfort Margin and barged back with the crushing, multifaceted Psalm of the Grand Destroyer is almost more than we all deserve. But there it was, that perfectly pitched blend of blasting snarl, deathly crush and sludgy misanthropy that was just as bleak and hopeless as Hovarth’s lyrical outlook. Given a light production touch courtesy of Scott Hull (thank you for dumping Steve Austin, guys), studio trickery took a back seat to a pack of guys with a handful of crushing songs that were perfectly performed.


5. Cellgraft

External Habitation

Self Released

Cellgraft got all up in your guts in 2010 with their self released, biologically tinged 11 track album External Habitation. The Floridians channel Assuck attack and visual tropes by way of Jouhou acceleration and refinement for a 21st century brand of science-minded aggression. Intelligent, articulate, fiercely DIY, and most importantly, armed to the bicuspids with a passel of quality songs, Cellgraft are a young band with brilliant future ahead.


4. Gigantic Brain

They Did this to Me

Self Released

To call the final Gigantic Brain album “grindcore” would not only be woefully inaccurate but would also trivialize the one man band’s affecting space opera of twisted electronica and drum machine stuttering. Yes, there are still grind elements, but Gigantic Brain has evolved so far beyond ordinary grind since the Mars Attacks/Nintendo-core days of The Invasion Discography. Now the grind elements serve as a substrata to emotionally churning layers of affecting keyboard swaths and plaintive yowling. The paranoia is palpable and the moments of transcendence and even joy are fleeting, making They Did This to Me an emotionally suffocating workout and the perfect capstone to an adventurous outfit.


3. Wake

Surrounded by Human Filth

Hearing Aids

Canadian crushers Wake got their Carl Sagan worship on with a nail studded grindcore bat on the Surrounded by Human Filth EP. Think of it as the musical equivalent of Nietzsche’s philosophizing with a hammer. Taking all the best, ugliest components from grindcore, death metal and power violence, Wake set their sonic phasers to stun (they could probably lecture on why phasers wouldn’t work according to phsyics). Not overstaying their welcome at a tidy 11 minutes, it’s the perfect grind amuse-bouche (to radically change metaphors) that leaves me craving a full course of their sonic smorgasbord.


2. Kill the Client

Set for Extinction

Relapse

That client has done been killed good and dead by the Texans on third full length and Relapse debut Set for Extinction. Though it’s not much of an advancement over Cleptocracy, don’t underestimate a band like Kill the Client that does all the small things relentlessly well. Grind is not about singles or standout tracks and Set for Extinction is a ferocious blur of madman howling backed by the tightest – and probably most overlooked – rhythm section working in grind. Everything just clicks into psychotic place like an Ed Gein jigsaw puzzle carved from human flesh.


1. “The reason that people sing songs for other people is because they want to have the power to arouse empathy, to break free of the narrow shell of the self and share their pain and joy with others. This is not an easy thing to do, of course. And so tonight, as a kind of experiment, I want you to experience a simpler, more physical kind of empathy.”

Everyone in the place was hushed now, all eyes fixed on the stage. Amid the silence, the man stared off into space, as if to insert a pause or to reach a state of mental concentration. Then, without a word, he held his left hand over the lighted candle. Little by little, he brought the palm closer and closer to the flame. Someone in the audience made a sound like a sigh or moan. You could see the tip of the flame burning the man’s palm. You could almost hear the sizzle of the flesh. A woman released a hard little scream. Everyone else just watched in frozen horror. The man endured the pain, his face distorted in agony. What the hell was this? Why did he have to do such a stupid, senseless thing? I felt my mouth going dry. After five or six seconds of this, he slowly removed his hand from the flame and set the dish with the candle in it on the floor. Then he clapped his hands together, the right and left palms pressed against each other.

Haruki Murakami

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

1997


Grind is the ultimate expression of emotion played with every fiber of the player's being straining until it literally tears the people apart who make it. I think this is one of the reason true grind bands can never last. You are literally tearing yourself down and rebuilding yourself everytime you play those songs - practice or live. There's only so much of that you can endure as a creator, challenging yourself to raise the bar every day. Believe me it takes a toll...

Jon Chang in a comment here

Hayaino Daisuki

Invincible Gate Mind of the Infernal Fire Hell… Or Did You Mean Hawaii Daisuki

Hydra Head

Invincible Gate Mind of the Infernal Fire Hell… Or Did You Mean Hawaii Daisuki may be a rounding error short of actual grindcore BPMs, but the thrashtastic alter ego of the almighty GridLink is not some side project goof. The band brought every bit of the passion and urgency you would expect from the grind collective on their second EP. Packing four times the energy of Reign in Blood in half the time, Invincible Gate Mind is an exhausting, exhaustive expression of pure sonic abandon. I said it then and I’ll repeat it here: when Jon fucking Chang is the most improved aspect of an album, you know you’re performing in front of a world-beating collection of musical bad asses. Hayaino Daisuki pretty much shamed everyone else who set a blastbeat to tape or byte in 2010 with four body-rending songs of screaming catharsis.

Now about Orphan

…and my sexroids…

66 comments:

Vinnie said...

The sure sign of an excellent list? There are a few with which I'm familiar and some I need to investigate.

Hayaino Daisuki was an early 2010 purchase and remains a once-a-week listen.

Grab that Wormrot / I Abhor split when time & finances permit. Good stuff.

DesiccatedVeins said...

I definitely thought Suffering Mind's self-titled was in the top 10, and that's not just because I love women in grind bands.

Luke Oram said...

NOT THAT I want to start another argument, but what do people think of the whole Magrudergrind/scion thing?

Andrew Childers said...

i haven't really given it much thought, luke. but i thought orthodoxyn pretty much gave it a thorough working over.

http://grindtodeath.blogspot.com/2010/11/bitching-to-oldies.html

on the one hand, i'm old enough to remember when columbia was snapping up carcass, cathedral, napalm death and entombed and i remember how awful that turned out. but i haven't heard that scion has fucked with magrudergrind's sound that much. mostly, i'm must kinda puzzled what scion thinks they're getting out of it.

Alex Layzell said...

Fantastic Choices, although I feel pity for you for not having heard Suffering Mind, nor new Wormrot split nor new Bloody Phoenix, however there certainly are some releases on this list I have to check out like Wake and Unholy Grave.

@LukeOram
I have written on this subject matter, at the end of the day I personally feel that as long as they write good music then no problem exists.

brutalex said...

Glaring omission=

Worlds - Unforeseen Paths


Besides that and the fact you haven't heard the new Suffering Mind, I have no objections whatsoever besides the two previously mentioned objections.

2010 was a mostly weak year for music but it seems 2011 is going to more than make up for it.

leeharvey43 said...

"Ghosts of Purgatory" might be my favorite song of the year. Nice list.

eva05 said...

If Scion wants to sponsor grind core bands, honestly that's a good thing at a time when there's no $ for music to by selling CDs and whatnot. Knowing a little about the Scion artist program, I can say they are very cool people and not looking to change the band's sound to fit their brand.

It's more about matching their stuff with young people...and seeing extreme music get some limelight is a good thing. I still remember the first time I saw a Sonic the Hedgehog commercial powered by Naked City. I bought a Genesis the next day LOL

Andrew, when that Columbia - Earache thing happened, it's important to know, nobody made Carcass or Napalm write those crappy records. Those were the records those bands wanted to make. I was at a college radio station at the time and we had a good relationship with Earache in those days....

j

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

Re: Magrudergrind

I don't see a problem with it, myself. Can't really see how it's any different than having a label front the cash for a recording. Hell, it might be better since labels sometimes nudge a band into a different sound (or bands nudge themselves to please a lable, see above).

So long as this relationship goes no further than, "Scion pays for recording, band makes music it wants to with no changes," I think it's all fine. If they start including lyrics about how you need to go buy a Scion, cry foul.

The cover is lame, but it's a digital release. I just used a different image, haha.

Da5e said...

Of course, the best thing about the HD EP was that handsome fellow in the booklet. Truly a sexroid made flesh.

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

Oh, on topic:

I really need to check out Jesus Crost, fo sho.

Glad HD took the top spot. I think I actually like the HD EP's more than "Amber Gray."

Not really much of a slight, is it?

Back when I actually updated the blog my buddy did, I jerked it raw to HD and just sort of treated the two as one album.

http://tentaclesofham-fistedbludgeonry.tumblr.com/post/626153978/hayaino-daisukis-speed-metal-dojo

Andrew Childers said...

i didn't mean to imply columbia did any kind of overt messing with the albums (i was a college dj shortly after that era), but it does seem like once the money started dangling, people, even subconsciously started to suck. but if it can be done in an honest way, i'm glad to see a worthy band profit off of some other jackass's wallet.

i come at this from the journalism realm and i know people who have left straight reporting for industry associations and newsletters and a sort of stockholm syndrome sets in, even subconsciously. i just want bands to keep that in perspective. there's no such thing as a free lunch. everything has its cost.

Luke Oram said...

Thanks for all the response, but I was thinking more about the weird fallout that happened after MgG's ep came out (of which I had no problem with, musically) and the various bitchy responses from various other bands.
ANb especially.

Andrew Childers said...

i haven't really been paying attention, but i heard twelfth hand j. randall said something. what exactly did he say?

TheThirdChildren said...

@Andrew

http://www.agoraphobicnosebleed.net/2010/11/grinding-to-halt.html

and

http://www.agoraphobicnosebleed.net/2010/11/cash-2-burn.html

P.S. Good choice for top spot :)

Luke Oram said...

Also this: http://www.metalsucks.net/2010/11/19/the-austerity-programs-justin-foley-weighs-in-on-magrudergrindscion-controversy/

Whilst the detractors certainly have some solid points, there's a general deluded holier-than-thou attitude going down around this.

eva05 said...

Wow, this blog is bringing out the hate in me. I really forgot what a bunch of douche bags make up the "scene". I guess that's why I never go to shows. Or talk to people and listen to their shitty bands. For a bunch of tool bags who are on the original tool bag label for "extreme" music, these people sure have some pretty loud opinions about a band getting their music out.

I don't even like MG but there is not one bit of sell out or compromise in what they did as far as I can tell. They got an offer to release some tracks and they took it. Fuck yeah, grind core on MTV burning down the Jersey Shore for all I care. I hope it inspires people to buy Scions, blast the first Repulsion record while abducting teenage girls and forcing them to leave the cult of Bieber, Glee and Jermey Scahill(who is also a douche bag).

Shit, if Toyota called me up and said, we love that song where you go, "Blerag Arrghh Brrrrraaaaa and the drummer is hitting the drum like a machinegun. We want to pack it in with our new Tacoma trucks that are being sold to Blackwater to go out and waste motherfuckers around the world." I would be all over that shit. Money or no.

As for Scion, at least they're not putting shit like "underground" and "extreme" all over their cookie cutter packaged bullshit products (yes I'm talking to you Relapse tool bags and every band on that label except Repulsion who get a past because they invented the genre). In case that wasn't nasty enough, fuck Pig Destroyer and ANb. Both bands are over rated garbage wannabe shit. Not one person in either band has the first clue about writing extreme music. 1991 death metal called Pig Destroyer, and it called you fucking losers. Hah! Fucking quote that Internet.

j

eva05 said...

BTW that last comment was written in a moment of anger. I did mean everything I said, but I probably could have been more polite. Rather than deleting and writing something a bit more civilized, I am going to take pictures of my cats and chinchillas and post them on Facebook.

BTW my cats and chinchillas are way cooler than anything ever released by Relapse :P

j

Andrew Childers said...

don't make jon angry. you wouldn't like jon when he's angry.

while i'd be leery of it, personally. there's enough shades of gray involved that i'm surprised there's that kind of vociferous hate, especially from people who are signed to major labels. no, relapse may not be accountable to share holders, but who the hell are we kidding? that's nothing indie about it at all any more.

also, if i ever heard gridlink blasting from blackwater (they go by XE these days) SUVs, i would be ... disturbed. in fact, more disturbed than when levi's wanted to use "holiday in cambodia" to sell jeans... and 75 percent of the dead kennedys being totally cool with it.

Luke Oram said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
eva05 said...

Wait, if you heard GridLink blasting from Xe Services SUVs you would become a rap metal band? Sorry, could not resist. No, not the punk band.

Andrew Childers said...

let's just say i'd be stupefied.

(two can play that game.)

DesiccatedVeins said...

I personally don't have a huge problem with bands partnering with Scion; there are much worse companies they could partner with, and they're not forcing any of them to change their sound at all. At the of the day, it's the band's choice, both in their sound and in terms of their partnerships. Also, remind me to NEVER make Jon Chang angry.

P.S. The Worlds record and Cellgraft's 'External Habitation' also ruled, by the way.

Andrew Childers said...

uhhh nigel, my friend....

cellgraft's on the list already.

Anonymous said...

The year did suck quite hard, but were you able to listen to new Archagathus, Embalming Theatre, Quattro Stagioni, Mesrine or the Plutocracy 7 inch?

All definitely made my grind top 10 for the year.

Hayaino Daisuki was the tits, worthy of the number one spot all the way.

Andrew Childers said...

unfortunately not. i think the only new album actually bought in the last five months was kill the client. it's just been that kinda fucked up year for my music budget. but now i'm definitely gonna hunt those down. dunno how a new plutacracy release snuck past me.

eva05 said...

I've been all over Deathspell Omega's latest record and their past few EPs. Not too into their back catalog beyond that.

j

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

I haven't heard their latest, but I dig Kenose better than any of their LP's so far.

The Kill's live-to-radio bit was a monster.

New Trash Talk was wicked. Ramesses released a killer stoner/doom metal album. Black Breath kicked my butthole. Stench's In Putrescence has been getting heavy rotation.

Hm, only one of those releases was a grind album. Jeeze. I'll track down that Wormrot/I Abhor split sometime soon.

Alex Layzell said...

I have to admit that my non-grinding guilty pleasure has also been Deathspell Omega, I was bullied into listening to it, but now have no regrets about it.

DesiccatedVeins said...

Whooops. Probably should've re-read your list before I posted that.

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

I'm going to let Swarrrm's Nise Kyuseishu Domo count for this year, since I just found a reasonably price stateside copy.

BONAR

Luke Oram said...

Trash talk? No thanks dude...

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

I wasn't going to burn you a copy or anything.

Zmaj said...

To be honest, I expected a bit more of the list. I know, I know - the year wasn't THAT interesting, but stuff like Self Hate, Wake, even Rotten Sound, still feel like filler. Gigantic Brain is cool and I like what the guy's doing; you could say that it's much more than grind, but you could also say that it's much less - I just think They Did This To Me doesn't have anything to do with GRINDCORE (don't call me an elitist, bro).

I absolutely love Hayaino Daisuki, and I get what you meant by including Hayaino Daisuki, but it's still, well, thrash metal, no matter how excellent, and not that different from the first EP (sound production? meh. the first one had such a wonderfully rich, raw punch to it, so condensed that it feels like it might blow up at any moment, although Invincible Gate Mind could be said to contain somewhat more modern songwriting).

Cellgraft and Worlds kick ass.

Magrudergrind obviously did nothing wrong if signing to any other corp is considered alright. They still get a Fuck you from me, without a holier-than-thou attitude. It is Magrudergrind who are singing lyrics that imply certain things beyond the music, and for this they are now to grind what Manowar is to heavy metal, only pretentious. Ulterior motives or not, it is what it is.

Bill: Thee Imitation Messiahs aside, hat ATKA / Swarrrm split is 2010 news.

P.S. Sorry if I'm being an ass this comment.

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

And also Maruta and Noisear!

Luke Oram said...

@Bill w:
Heh, for sure. It's just that I saw them not so long ago and felt kinda let down, thought they were PV-lite etc.

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

Ha, I saw them about a year ago and thought they were totally badass. Diff'rent strokes, I suppose. To be honest, I'm very far from being an expert on PV, so you may have a point.

or:

FINE I'LL JUST SEND SOMEONE ELSE THAT SPECIAL MIXTAPE ONLY IT'LL HAVE YOUR NAME CROSSED OUT AND SOMEONE ELSE'S WRITTEN OVER IT

Luke Oram said...

Aw now I wish that existed for reals ;_;

Andrew Childers said...

oh yeah and noisear and maruta (i was rattling names off the top of my head)

DesiccatedVeins said...

Aw dip, Swarrrm/ATKA split? Why did I forget about that? Also, the Noisear track from the new Relapse sampler is sweet (but I hope that the rest of the new record is faster and noisier.)

PatrickDM said...

@andrew childers

if purchasing albums is an issue, you should just download from mediafire(or wherever)for review. Purchase it later.

Andrew Childers said...

wet nightmare, i just really don't feel comfortable doing that. i'll review a download the band has authorized, but i'd much rather have the whole package in my hands so i can experience the music as it was intended. it's just an ethical line i don't feel comfortable crossing. so every album i've posted on so far, it's something i own (i'll admit to a pirated track or two showing up on a mixtape when i'm trying to make a thematic point, though.)

PatrickDM said...

i understand.

Anonymous said...

I'm way too broke to give a shit about being ethical and about people making a living off of art, but I totally respect the stance.

Also, superjail invasion!

PatrickDM said...

AWESOME!

I only buy select albums from bands i truly love. flesh parade is the most recent album i bought and before that it was converge's new one.

If i ever get an album out, it's totally free.

Ryan Page said...

Mr. Chang, what I'm about to say is a bit difficult for a number of reasons. I really like DA, HD and GL. I've written music that has been called, for lack of a better term, a rip-off of D.A. Hell, I'm sure we'd get along, considering the whole grindcore/japanese film/slightly insane thing we have in common... That and number of borderline ass-kissing things I could say.

Regardless, I have to say I think there's a point where what you've said is overly broad. First off, while relapse has put out some shit lately, comparing it's press negatively to a car company logo on the front of an album is total bullshit. Regardless of the politics, it's fucking annoying and ugly. As someone who puts his music in the best packaging in underground music, I'm not really sure why you wouldn't see this as suspect.

Also, Pig Destroyer, and ANB have put out some debatable material in the last few years, but I'd hardly characterize them as dicks. Granted, you have had different experiences, but I know that Richard Johnson has been nothing but insanely nice and down to earth anytime I've messaged him. I definitely dislike a lot of what jay randall says in general, but I don't think that his opinion of magrudergrind has a lot to do with the quality of ANB of Pig Destroyer. Granted that may not have been your point.

In general I'd be interested to hear what your concept of true grindcore is (this was explained somewhat in a earlier post I think, but it seemed more related to process than end result). I honestly think it would be pretty interesting, especially if you think almost everyone is doing it wrong.

Please don't hate me... I have bought 3 copies of the "I will liver forever, alone" shirt (lost 2), I've read all your liner notes, I would probably play your videogame if I still had a facebook, and I am listening to discordance axis as I post this...

No dickishness intended-Ryan

I, Monarch said...

Ryan, I bought that shirt once on the hydrahead website and the shirt came without that quote...Most of my reason I wanted it. >:(

PatrickDM said...

i concur with ryans statement.

gridlink is too technical to be considered true grind in my opinion. Even discordance axis is more expirimental grind bc of the guitar work and timing. I enjoy DA & gridlink, but there's more than just grind there.

I, Monarch said...

I thought the only requirements for grind were to be fucking fast and sound like someone's kicking your head and balls in simultaneously with guitars, vocals, and drums.

Zmaj said...

Hey, I'll chime in. I think I kinda agree on Chang's notions of strictly GRINDCORE and all; ANb being overrated as fuck (Agoraphocalypse? meh) and Pig Destroyer always being pretty much... catchy metal (mind, I enjoy both a lot, and seriously). Somewhat of a difference being that I don't really care much about sound production.

GridLink's Amber Gray isn't that technical - it's just about speed. E.g. I got down The Jenova and it is what it is: perfect death-grind, 'cause it's taken to the extreme. Discordance Axis, my favorite band ever, is more than grind the same way that Napalm Death was with Scum, Siege with Drop Dead, S.O.B., Repulsion, etc. I mean - a lot of the time - Discordance Axis pre-TID sounds like a pretty much insanely sped-up Black Flag intertwined with Napalm Death, whereas TID was where they finally condensed the explosion that grind is into its near-perfection, barely subdued into non-noise for most people, or completely understandable systematic destruction for "essential grind" enthusiasts. I consider the essence of grindcore to be bands such as those. IMHO, currently (i.e. for me) grind is the imminent explosion of attempted expression, a self-destructive release, and it must be free of kitsch and, by this very notion, "progressive" (DxAx? Assück?).

But the relative subjectivity of all this should be taken for granted.

Unknown said...

Playing FETO on 45 is EXACTLY like listening to DxAx. It's crazy. And I love it.

Ryan Page said...

I enjoy all of his band's quite a bit, and I consider them all grind, but then again my definition of grind is pretty loose.

Anyway, it was all meant to sound much less confrontational than it did. I just like to know what someone's definition of a genre is when they are stating a particular band is not that. It can easily devolve into "because i say so", but I'd honestly be interested to hear Jon Chang's opinion because musically his ideas are pretty clearly articulated.

Alex Layzell said...

Call it youthful naivety or plain ignorance if you will, but for me Grindcore goes far beyond what was described by Mr.Chang. Perhaps that is due to the fact I was never there when the scene was defining itself, I am one who has learnt about the scene in retrospect.

Andrew Childers said...

ahem zmaj...TID is "near perfection?" them's fighting words because i don't know what could be more perfect... unless it's orphan....

wait, when i talk about orphan... does that mean?.... am i implying?.... could it be....?

orfee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
orfee said...

of course you do, Andrew, you already been exposed.

"sality"

GrindNinja said...

There is a lot of dick riding going on here, why don't you just say what you mean? I'm sure Jon is smart enough to see that everyone respects him for his contribution to the scene and will respect you back for having your own opinion.

Magrudergrind fucked up, they may as well change there name to McGrudergrind for an album and slap a big picture of Ronald on the front cover. Corporations have no place in underground music, period. I agree the scene needs to get out and support each other a lot more, showing up to each others shows and buying merch would be a good start.

As for AnB and Pig Destroyer, they are both fantastic bands in their own right and Scott Hull is a fantastic song writer. Who cares if someone is a wanker? You listen to their music, not sit down and have dinner with them when you pull a record out.

Not bad choices for albums Andrew, I think you left a few good ones out but totally understand about lack of budget! Times are hard and things are not cheap, hopefully 2011 will be a lot better. New Fuck I'm Dead (With a drummer), The Kill/Captain Cleanoff split, a new Agents Of Abhorrence and Infamous Butcher/Trench Sisters split is what I am looking forward too from out my way.

Luke Oram said...

OK here's what I think about all this arguing:
People involved in this music are passionate, and that's no bad thing at all. Sometimes it means their views will be in sharp contrast, but grind is big enough a concept to encompass it all.
In many ways I think DxAx and ANb are two sides of the same grind coin; one a Knight atop shimmering artistic heights, the other a grimacing and cackling demiurge that laughs as it befouls the place and smashes shit up.
Neither can be taken seriously in the semiotic world of the other and that's what makes it fun.
I genuinely love both bands :D

Andrew Childers said...

and this is why i love music nerds. did luke just bust out semiotics? damn, i if i hadn't purged all that lacan and descartes i'd learned in college in favor of hockey trivia, we could get down to some serious deconstruction of grindcore as both an art and commercial construct. i'll leave that to you young guys.

and grindninja, like i said, my first impulse would have been against it. but i'm not in the band, i don't know their rationale and frankly i just haven't given it that much thought. however, 17 year old me totally woulda been shrieking about sellouts. i'm just not that sure mid-30s me can work up the energy to really get bothered.

so i guess that circles back to what i said about art v. consumerism. sure, you can say you only make records to please yourself, but if nobody's buying it, you're just jerking off. i guess the question is what are the limits to reaching that audience and how accountable are you to your fans and their (appropriate or not) expectations of what's considered appropriate behavior in that particular social situation.

again, i'll leave that to you guys to hash out.

Luke Oram said...

Oh, I busted it, busted it right out :)
I just think that it's the task of an artform's leaders to decide how these issues pan out, and sometimes the way in which they do this will take the form of bitching bout bollocks.

P.s. I am recently sodding 30 myself so much sympathy :D

GrindNinja said...

its a very interesting topic I think and it will be something that will divide the scene till the end of time and we are long gone. I will be interested too see how the obscene extreme crowd reacts to them this year since its filled with the biggest music snobs in the world! I think it would be nice if they released something like extortions terminal cancer for us lo-fi grind freaks however. But as we all know these are just my personal opinions and in the scheme of things, they dont mean much, haha.

Andrew Childers said...

god dammit we must keep arguing because someone on the internet is wrong!

http://xkcd.com/386/

ha. "untru" how very... true. and appropriate

Zmaj said...

"damn, if i hadn't purged all that lacan and descartes i'd learned in college in favor of hockey trivia, we could..."

Thankfully, I wasn't drinking anything while reading. ;D

[twable]

Obscene Extreme's snobbishness makes me sneer. Kudos for McGrudergrind.

Peepeehed said...

long time reader, first time comment, well rounded list, had no idea rotten sound did the napalm thing, hope they ditch the overproduction too.....

two for 2010 that got missed,
weekend nachos- punish and destroy LP

voetsek- infernal command LP

Andrew Childers said...

both excellent choices but infernal command actually came out in 2008

http://grindandpunishment.blogspot.com/2008/10/g-review-voetsek.html

and punish and destroy was reissued in 2009
http://grindandpunishment.blogspot.com/2009/08/g-review-weekend-nachos.html

but i'm not gonna fault you for having good taste.