G&P Review: The Kill

The Kill
Make 'Em Suffer
Blastasfuk
Grindcore honor students The Kill skip a whole grade, leapfrogging the scene's wonted cynical misanthropy and nose-diving straight into abject nihilism. The Australian trio go on a killing spree, taking sharp aim at obnoxious yuppies, pump monkeys, mosh pit etiquette fails, the Olympics and local pols, all with venomous forked tongue lodged firmly in festering cheek.
The Kill's weapon of choice is a large magazine assault rifle firing off the best elements of Insect Warfare grit and Blood I Bleed hostility, hitting and running in under 20 minutes while still racking up an impressive body count that would awe Victor Zsasz. And like Zsasz, The Kill like to keep their murders up close and personal, hacking and slashing with a slicing thrashcore that surfs over the hit and run blast beats. That becomes all the more apparent when they tuck into a perfectly accelerated cover of Slayers "Necrophobic" (complete with squealing solo) and it sounds all of a piece with their original material.
Australia is very rightly making a name for itself as a grindcore haven and The Kill are elbowing their way to the top of that impressive heap. This is most definitely one of the records you need to seek out and hear this year. It's the perfect soundtrack to a hooker-slapping, taxi-bombing, cop-shooting rampage through Grand Theft Auto. Look for it on the year end countdown list for sure.

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

G&P Review: Wretch

Wretch
The Senseless Violence EP
Bandcamp
Australian quartet Wretch came to wreck everything and ruin your life with a scathing brew of misanthropic hatred, bonesaw guitar and death metal gurgles. The secret to The Senseless Violence EP is that Wretch is lying to you. This brand of sadism if thoroughly premeditated, purposely distilling the keenest killing edges from death metal and grindcore. The tempos blast but that razor across the femur guitar tone and brewing diarrhea vocals are dredged from the sleaziest septic pools of gore flecked death metal.
True to its name, "Shit Shovel" sounds like about what you'd expect from somebody who toils in human feces all day: a downtrodden death metal anthem about sickness, decay and filth. Other songs like "Purveyors of Senseless Violence" and "Gorging" slap the sickest death vox on top of Bolt Thrower chug like a cave man riding a cruise missile.
If that sounds like it's a heady brew, it is. Wretch writhe through an amazing atmosphere and their songs have character. What they don't have yet is a consistent hook. Maruta and Priapus have also plumbed the fetid depths of death metal tone and grindcore ambition, but those two outfits know how to consistently marry those elements into something that's got heft and a memorable hook. If Wretch work on that part, they'll be a seriously scary bunch of dudes.

G&P Review: thedowngoing

thedowngoing
ATHOUSANDYEARSOFDARKNESS
Bandcamp
We always boast about grind being wild and unpredictable music that thrives on chaos on spontaneity. But the shameful truth is grindcore is a highly formalized, very rigid--practically formulaic--music style. Too often grind albums fall into that comfortable lull of the familiar and predictable. Beats get blasted, larynx are stress tested and old punk riffs get sped up. You know what you're getting into in advance and plenty of bands are not ashamed to give you exactly what you expect.
And then there's thedowngoing.
The Australian duo have earned every worn out cliche like "brutal" and "overwhelming" and "unrelenting" that get far too casually tossed out by lazy ass reviewers (myself included). For their third album, ATHOUSANDYEARSOFDARKNESS, thedowngoing give lie to all of grindcore's posturing with a record that genuinely embodies the notions of chaos, aural violence and a predatory unpredictability. ATHOUSANDYEARSOFDARKNESS continues thedowngoing's single-minded pogrom against safety, sterility and comfort in grindcore with a noisy, frighteningly raw sound of incoherent screaming and musical instruments wielded as weapons.
The Australian dervishes may be a tad less frenzied than on their self-titled album, but that still puts them square in the center of the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep's domain. In 10 minutes (and even a single minute more would be overwhelming), thedowngoing put to shame most of their contemporaries and plenty of their forerunners with a continuous battery of sonic abrasions. When they do give you a five second breather between penultimate song "snakecharmer" and farewell "aching," it's just further cruelty, giving the victim long enough to process and prepare for the next torture.
ATHOUSANDYEARSOFDARKNESS forced me to really rethink what I say about albums and how I describe them to others. It's easy to break out my well thumbed thesaurus of metal-appropriate terms, but very few bands earn adjectives like "brutal" and "violent" and "unrelenting" the way this band does. There are only a handful of bands working right now that deserve to be mentioned in conjunction with that thedowngoing are bringing to the table.

[Full disclosure: the band sent me a review copy.]

G&P Review: Beyond Terror Beyond Grace

Beyond Terror Beyond Grace
Nadir
Willowtip
Beyond Terror Beyond Grace have moved far beyond simple grindcore with Nadir, a scalding wall of volcanic gases and suffocating clouds of gray ash.
The Australians once slotted neatly next to Maruta and Crowpath, but with Nadir they have abandoned any pretense at concision and driving blastbeats to experiment with girth, texture and tempo. Now they sound like Ulcerate songs reinterpreted by Circle of Dead Children with a rime of blackened frost. Eschewing the wonted grindcore brevity, the album is chock-a-bloc with nine minute death metal overtures that look beyond how many beats can be crammed into a minute. The ghost haunted lead off "Dusk" allots plenty of space for its atmospheric middle passage, which bifurcates the blastbeat opening and its screaming conclusion. The song imparts a sense of claustrophobia that coats the album like a greasy film.
That song lays out a template that a bulk of the album will follow. Nine minute bangers "Requiem for the Grey" and "Throatless Sirens" follow, riding the same churning swells and crests. Not that Nadir is a one trick gray-painted pony. The abbreviated title track is a concise instrumental that revels in melody bolstered by barely heard samples.
It's rather boggling to realize this the same band that gave us the pig-headed brawl of Extinction/Salvation just five short years ago. This doesn't sound like the same band at all (and it's not because the band slotted in a new singer and guitarist in 2010). Nadir may not be Beyond Terror Beyond Grace's zenith, but it shows a band waxing into their perihelion.

[Full disclosure: Willowtip provided me with a download.]

The Namesake Series: "H5N1"

While I've never had the pleasure of being introduced to bird flu, I have done battle with its cousin H1N1, swine flu. Maybe I'll finally get my chance because bird flu is a serious concern these days thanks to research into H5N1's ability to transmit between mammals. The findings have stirred up controversy among those who say publishing the results, while valuable for researchers seeking effective treatments for the flu strain, could be used to weaponize the virus.
Bird flu is also right in grindcore's wheelhouse because both Sweden's Gadget and Australia's Extortion have dipped into that well.

Two Man Advantage: thedowngoing Am Become Destroyers of Grind

I'm always fascinated by two-person bands. The binary unit is pretty much the smallest group you can gather together and still function as a living, performing entity. That's not to knock the isolationists like Body Hammer or Parlamentarisk Sodomi/PSUDOKU who go it alone just fine, thank you very much. However, it seems as though a two-person band combines the best elements of all worlds: a minimal number of people sleeping in the van and clamoring for a cut of the night's take with just enough human interaction to keep one person from crawling too far up his or her own asshole.
Australia's thedowngoing have taken that dynamic duo approach and have mercifully avoided any rectal detours over a pair of increasingly impressive EPs. Guitarist/vocalist Mathias Huxlex and drummer Muzz hit on what I hope will be a template for many successful albums in the future with last year's Untitled EP, 10 minutes of audio exorcism that barely tamed raw noise and rawer emotions and was subsequently snagged by Grindcore Karaoke. That should be all the endorsement you need right there.
Served on an amuse-bouche platter, Huxley said thedowngoing sought to make every excruciating, exhilarating, grinding second of the micron-concise Untitled EP count.
"We definitely embraced the chaotic aspect of our sound on the Untitled EP; it felt really jarring, and intentionally so," Huxley said. "But at the same time a cohesive whole starts to unfold, which develops through the interplay between the samples and the instruments."
While being a two-man unit may have its perquisites, that could also leave thedowngoing at a sonic disadvantage when stacked up against to their more populated contemporaries. With the Untitled EP, thedowngoing made sure you'd never notice the lack.
"Perhaps it was a reactionary thing to only being a two-piece, to create a thick a soundscape as possible to compensate? But it allows us to maintain a tension between violent outbursts throughout the EP," Huxley said. "The EP was very calculated, from song length and choice through to the final mastering process, with every individual aspect working together to create the dark aesthetic of thedowngoing, which is then all rounded out by the lyrics, which focus (as you would imagine) on the negative, ugly aspects of human and social interaction and what it means to be a part of it."
The band's growth from predecessor i am become to the Untitled EP was expansion by contraction. thedowngoing were more focused, wringing every bit of emotion out of their songs and leaving every extraneous second on the cutting room floor to ensure the mini-album would hit with maximum impact. Huxley, himself, led the way with probably the single best vocal performance of 2011; he was a man possessed (I'm still betting literally) and he left his blood, bile and :Linda Blair-worthy pea soup dripping from the microphone.
"We had a different mentality going into the recording process for the Untitled EP compared to i am become it was certainly more focused, especially during the song writing phase which felt much more deliberate, cutting a lot of the fat and emphasising the unique aspects of thedowngoing," Huxley said. "We felt more comfortable pushing our own limits this time round, which shows maybe most notably in the vocal department."
thedowngoing plan to jump back in the studio again early this year with hopes for some international dates to follow. Given the band's evolutionary curve, that immediately puts the upcoming album on my most anticipated list.

G&P Review: thedowngoing

They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.
Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.
A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

Luke 8:26-32

thedowngoing
Untitled EP
Bandcamp
In the near future, what passes for law enforcement in Australia (which I understand is mostly made up of half-naked guys with football pads and mohawks in souped up cars screaming across the desert fighting over "juice", according to a trio of documentaries I saw in the '80s) will track down duo thedowngoing to find out more about that exorcism they surreptitiously taped and tried to pass off as their Untitled EP. Because I guarantee you no healthy human can/should be able to make those kinds of noises without demonic assistance.
Guitarist/exorcisee Mathias Huxley turns in what is easily the vocal performance of the year, and his spiky, chaotic, just-short-of-random riffing seethes and swarms like a herd of suicidal Gadarene swine. Then suddenly the chaos will smooth, however briefly, and a Pig Destroyer- style hook will breach the surface of the chaotic noise soup just long enough to impale your ear holes just before diving back to the lightless depths of the id. Not to discount the drumming, which is the adrenaline-jacked beat of a full-blown fight or flight trip, but Untitled EP rides on Huxley's dynamism as a guitarist and singer.
At a tidy nine songs and 10 minutes, the adorable little 3-inch CD is perfectly proportioned. Anything more would have defeated the effect by diluting the chaos with sheer repetition. However, this is a perfect example of perfectly balanced economy in action. Previous offering I Am Become was a perfectly serviceable outing, but Untitled EP shows the band reaching new, dizzying artistic heights. There's something demonically magical going on in the land of Oz.
[Full disclosure: The band sent me a review copy.]

Demo-lition Derby: The Rabid Terror

The Rabid Terror
Demo
Is Australia secretly breeding melodic death metal bands as some sort of Blofeldian bid for world domination? Clearly, The Fevered’s secret Dark Tranquillity cloning operation was just the first phase in a much larger, more intricately twined plot that’s hatching before our eyes because The Rabid Terror may have advanced the calendar another decade, ripping out an amalgam of hummable Swede death and breakdowny hardcore, but they’re essentially swiping from the same song book as their countrymen. So now the question has to be asked: fer chrissakes, why?
The Fevered I gave a pass cuz I’m a nostalgic old fuck who remembers the first wave of melodic death with Alzheimery fondness, but I was already over the whole thing before the Kill Switch Engages and Darkest Hours et al began Xeroxing a Photostat of a Polaroid of the original. Another 10 years on, I’m just not sure how much life can be wrung from that desiccated corpse. Now far be it from me to shit on others’ sub-sub-sub-genre preferences (I’ve been listening to Napalm Death clones for 20 years), but melodic hardcore boomed so big and fell so hard, it’s almost impressively stubborn to see a young band try their hand at something so passé.
The Rabid Terror’s four song demo sounds perfectly fine, each instrument and the vocals are clear and meaty and have a nice physical presence. The songs run a tad long for my taste (the 3 to 4 minute range) and just never manage to establish a unique presence. Helen Keller could see the gigantic breakdown in the middle of opener “Eternally Enslaved” coming before the guitarist peels off the first tremolo bar squeal. Otherwise, things careen between In Flames oompah bounce and cargo pantsed circle pitting. This is not to my taste. It's one for the true melodic death/hardcore devotees only. It's free for download on their Facebook page. If that's your thing.

Demo-lition Derby: Face on Fire

Face on Fire
Mr. Cruel’s Bedtime Lullabies
About 75 percent of what you need to know about Australia’s Face on Fire you can glean from the titles of “Cum Drunk Sluts,” “My Wife in Your Cock’s Pussy” and “Lick a Dick Day.” I’m betting about half of you stopped reading right there.
But if the adventurous among you were to keep going, you’ll find a band that’s not nearly as incendiary as their name may suggest, but not as deliberately retarded as some of their song titles may lead you to believe. Face on Fire bang out inoffensive, if unoriginal, grind with a vaguely Birdflesh kind of vibe to the song structures. And that’s a problem more immediate than their sophomoric attempts at humor. The upper register screaming is so monotonous in tone, tempo and delivery that it begins to sound like Dino’s yapping. The guitars often lack tone and distinction and the drums are just a background buzz, with the exception of “God is Fake, Wrestling is Real,” which rumbles with a nice intensity.
Face on Fire haven’t been able to cohere the pieces just yet, but there are flashes that they could get it together. Saving the best for last, “William H. Macy’s Mustache” boasts some ingenuity with its whipsawing riffs and curveball beats. Some time and maturity may work wonders on this young band.
You can give it a listen for yourself here.

Demo-lition Derby: The Fevered

The Fevered
Vestige
Those of you who were crapping your Pampers at the time may not really appreciate just how revolutionary the whole Gothenberg sound was now that it’s been endlessly rehashed by eleventy-billion creatively bankrupt hardcore bands. Let me set the scene for you: Sometime around 1997 my college roommate comes flying into the dorm room gibbering incoherently about some band named In Flames and their latest album The Jester Race that I just had to hear. Keep in mind at the time brutality reigned uber alles and any hint of accessibility or a catchy tune was strictly verboten. To write albums larded with hummable melodies was almost an act of treason. We had literally heard nothing like it before and it would send us spiraling into the melodic depths of Dark Tranquillity, At the Gates and Sentenced.
I dredge up all this pointless get-off-my-lawn reminiscing because Australia’s The Fevered sound a tad like Dark Tranquillity.
Ok, they sound exactly like Dark Tranquillity.
Like if somebody was cloning Mikael Stanne and Niclas Sundin at some secret Outback facility, forcing them to write melodically-charged Swede-metal tunes as some bizarre Boys from Brazil-style experiment. While I can’t really recommend this six song EP for any other reason than pure nostalgia--the songs are defiantly 15 years out of style--the tunes are well written and performed with aplomb. “To Frailty” is a perfectly composed time capsule of the era, the growled chorus shines, the melodic leads are sterling against a bouncing rhythm. Then there’s low key eight minute kiss off “Sever the World,” which is exactly the kind of choice Dark Tranquillity would have made in the same place – and that will either be the selling point or the flashing warning signal, depending on your preferences.
You can check it out for yourself as a pay what you want download on Bandcamp (linked above). Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dig out my copies of North From Here and Whoracle.

G&P Review: Crab Smasher

Crab Smasher
Thick Mosquito Sky
Self Released
Living in the mid-Atlantic, people around here take their crabs pretty fucking seriously. In fact, my oft stated for preference for the sweeter, larger and more satisfying snow crab over the native beautiful swimmers is noted by acquaintances as just one more datum in a lifetime of local culinary apostasy.
So to have Australian audio alchemists Crab Smasher cross my musical transit had me intrigued for the name alone. Far from the musical pastures where I typically graze, Thick Mosquito Sky is choked with insectile waves slow moving electronic apocalypse, ambient astronomy and lapping waves of curlicue guitars. The album stumbles along like a heavily sedated Mogwai, the interludes between Minus the Bear songs stretched to the limits of their tensile strength or something already remixed by Justin Broadrick
The whole experience slithers around your pineal gland like hypnotic waves of an electronic ocean breaking against a faintly heard shore of traditional instrumentation. The ghost in Crab Smasher’s noise making machines is post-Barrett/pre-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd (think Meddle) being slowly spooled out like a kitten with a ball of yarn, particularly on the stunning, understated and damn near subliminal “Europa,” which creeps up on you over its seven minute running time, building just shy of rocking the fuck out. It’s absolutely the sort of piece I’d point on endless repeat right before drowsing off in a comfy chair. Whle “Deep Water Attack” reaches near-blasting speeds and “Digging a Hole in a Dried Up Lake” crackles like a theramin played with a ping pong ball, those are the exceptions in a generally sedate 40 minutes of so of musical trance induction.
Not something I’m going to be jamming on a regular basis, but definitely a cool addition to my small collection of chillout music.
Crab Smasher is Bandcamped out here if you’re intrigued.

[Full disclosure: Crab Smasher provided me with a download.]

G&P Review: thedowngoing

thedowngoing
I Am Become
Self Released
Physicist Robert Oppenheimer is what you’d call a glass half empty kinda guy. Reportedly the supervisor of the Manhattan Project during World War II turned to the Bhagavad Gita to sum up his thoughts following the first successful test of an atomic bomb, declaring: “I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds.”
Welcome to the atomic age, boys and girls. Try to wear a happy face.
Australian two piece thedowngoing am become Shiva, destroyer of stereo components on self-released noise/grind holocaust I Am Become, a 13 track walkabout through an Outback of rusted cars, burnt out radios and decayed bits of a collapsed civilization.
“Thus Spoke” is a 38 second jab of musical nihilism and lyrical dissipation, but when two out of three of your top MySpace friends are Nietzsche and Charles Bukowksi, I’m not exactly expecting sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. The vocal devastation on the electro-jolted Khanate-meets-grind amalgam “Motionless” builds a fairly convincing case for demonic possession amid its wasteland death march. However, the deadite tinge to some of the vocals is certainly what we call an acquired taste.
The only weakness I could find is the drums tend to get lost in the production on occasion, particularly during the blast beat sections, but thedowngoing show their strengths as they stretch grindcore’s tempos and boundaries as with “29:23,” a snow blind blizzard of white out noise that recalls Body Hammer, and “Sunken Deep,” the album’s most composed and engaging song with its swarming snare and cymbal strikes buzzing like hornets around a trepanning drill guitar tone.
The band has made several tracks available for download here, and it’s certainly worth giving their Mad Max gone digital roadtrip listen or two.
[Full disclosure: the band sent me a download for review.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: Beyond Terror Beyond Grace

Beyond Terror Beyond Grace
Extinction/Salvation
Grindhead
2007
There seems to have been a flowering the last couple of years of what I think of as the “Maruta sound.” Not because the Floridians were the first to conjure up swampy sludge and power violence assault with their grindcore (Crowpath has them by a few years), but simply because they are the best at it right now. Give Beyond Terror Beyond Grace a better production budget and they can take a run at the crown. Extinction/Salvation suffers from overly thin production and a few questionable songwriting choices, but it’s enough of a cheap buzz to hold you over until your next Maruta fix.
“Ultimatum” draws a line in the sand with midtempo foreshadowings of doom and post-apocalyptic quiet, like Mad Max reflecting on the mohawked, football padded lives he’s taken. While drummer Steve is no slouch at acceleration, Beyond Terror Beyond Grace as a whole are at their peak when they crouch into a power violence crush on “Surveillance,” a potent laxative of Bolt Thrower chug cross bred with Man is the Bastard glower.

Beyond Terror Beyond Grace – “Surveillance”

Not that there aren’t plenty of beautiful blasters to behold; “Defeated” will strip the siding from your house at 100 yards, and “Erosion” is mined with high, grating guitar tones that cut cross-grain against the blast beats.
And then Beyond Terror Beyond Grace have to go and squander all that accumulated goodwill with one of my least favorite quirks of grind bands: the overlong electronic close out song. “022617” is an inexcusably long, insufferably irritating blob of electronic twaddle that’s all the more excruciating for its several false ends. But bitching aside, stop Extinction/Salvation one song short and you’ve got a satisfying listening experience.