G&P Review: Eustachian

Eustachian
The Sphagnum Bog
Grindcore Karaoke
The next time your ears pop on a plane, thank your Eustachian tubes for maintaining the pressure equilibrium in your ears. I wish Los Angeles/Antwerp duo Eustachian had just a tad more equilibrium between their grindcore lashings and their electronic adventurism. I wanted to like The Sphagnum Bog more than I did because Eustachian have a deft hand with each, but unlike my chocolate and my peanut butter, I’m just not enjoying them together. But I guess you have to make allowances for an album named after named after peat moss.
When Eustachian hit, they know how to furrow deep down into your lizard brain’s fight or flight functions. Opener “Martinique” sounds like a light saber duel performed by a sheet metal orchestra and clear album standout “Trichopatho Skeleton” sets an exemplary Metallica/NWOBHM riff up against electronically-augmented grindcore corkscrewing. At nearly three and a half minutes, “Martinique II” lounges around a bit more than its otherwise excellent Gigantic Brain-style psychotrip deserves.
And that’s my biggest problem with The Sphagnum Bog. Too many of these songs linger longer than necessary. Tighter songs like the relatively concise “Z,” which tips the scales at 1:46, bear up better under repeated listens, but many of the other moments feel crushed under Eustachian’s everything but the master mixing board approach to songwriting.
Boasting one thoroughly excellent song and a host of other more soundscape-oriented assaults that pay off to a lesser degree, this one is an acquired taste.

Reggae-core: Agathocles

Agathocles
This is Not a Threat, It’s a Promise
Selfmadegod
Agathocles not only groove out to reggae’s lackadaisical lope, but the mincecore institution manages to do it while paying homage to Belgian fastcore unit Ronald Ruck’s anti-Lacoste jam “God Save the Real Green Crocodile” as they slouch along like the Bad Brains on simmer. Jan Frederickx’s accent even sounds vaguely Jamaican as the song drifts from punk romp to reggae slide.

Agathocles – “God Save the Real Green Crocodile”

Unforgiveably comma spliced though it may be, This is Not a Threat, It’s a Promise finds the Flemish institution stretching the proverbial legs a little, limbering up the hamstrings and working out the old anterior cruciate ligament in the name of grind, punk, hardcore, reggae and even some noisy Neurosis clash on the abrading “Motherfucker (Swing That Axe).” It’s all tied together by mainstay Jan Frederickx’s distinctive snarl. For those who prefer their Agathocles more traditional, “Aside” rides a dive bombing whine while “Bits and Chips” could easily be the twin of Grind is Protest’s “Ministry of Arms.” Hey, let’s see you write a bazillion songs without recycling an idea or two.
At this point do you really need another Agathocles record? Probably not, but if you’re in the mood, This is Not a Threat, It’s a Promise is one of the band’s more well rounded collections of music. A quarter century on, the band can still surprise.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Punished Earth

Punished Earth
Corporate Dictatory
Self Released
2006
When I was listening to the new Circle of Dead Children album in heavy rotation, it kept tickling something in the back of my head that I just couldn’t place. That was until I slapped Punished Earth’s 2006 album Corporate Dictatory in the CD changer. The Belgians certainly exhume that same Pittsburgh vibe, especially when those hogs start squalling into the mic or when thick sided slabs of death metal get all ground up in the grind.

Punished Earth – “Parasite”

Songs vary from serial killer fascination (the narrative knife thrust of “Alterated Biosphere”) to your more accustomed political diatribes (“Dictator of a Lost Cause”). I have to admit hearing a bunch of Europeans trash talking Dubya actually made me feel irrationally defensive of the incompetent fuck. He’s our asshole. Go find your own asshole to hate. Punished Earth also manage to work in a sly sense of humor with their songs, like they way they cleverly weave The Simpsons’ themesong into the body of “Clash of the Brainless.”
Corporate Dictatory is an enjoyable on its own terms, but it does require the right headspace. The fellatio revenge fantasy of “Swallow Bitch” is juvenile and only slightly tempered by the absurd Evil Dead samples or the fact it’s immediately followed by the feminist (if you stretch and call I Spit on Your Grave feminist) revenge tale “Penis in the Pan.”
Punished Earth just released a new album that I haven’t heard yet, but giving Corporate Dictatory a few refresher listens reminded me they’re a solid band playing a somewhat overdone style. But I’ll probably end up grabbing a copy of Rhapsodies of Decay anyway. I could do a lot worse.

G&P review: Agathocles

Agathocles
Grind is Protest
Dis-Order
There are plenty of grind bands who have reached the pantheon of metal’s elite sans bass player, but it’s refreshing to hear an album like Grind is Protest that not only appreciates what four strings can bring to the fold but actively shoves them to the forefront of the mix, bludgeoning the listener with a cacophonous barrage of low end punishment.
I hope Phobia is taking copious notes because Grind is Protest is everything 22 Random Acts of Violence should have been: a gasping, relentless, bass-heavy assault on the senses with all of the subtlety of a ball peen hammer to the back of the skull in a blind alley after a night of ill advised boozing.
The mincecore is mincing and the blastbeats snap along with that same tinny snare tone I’ve come to associate with Agathocles and St. Anger. But cutting through the mix is the bass: every single strum and thrum is clearly audible. Bassist Tony’s (RIP) four string assaults really drive Grind is Protest. On their eleventy-billionth release, Agathocles once again lay into all the usual suspects, fuming and raging against militarism, fascisms and a whole host of other bad –isms with the single-mindedness that’s prerequisite to spending 20 years trying to make a career out of dozens of splits with no name bands on fly by night labels and poorly attended basement shows while giving the finger to niceties like health insurance, rent money and retirement funds. I wish Tony were still here to enjoy it.

G&P review: Agathocles/Torture Incident

Agathocles/Torture Incident
Split
Blastworks Records
A-ha! So this is where the empty Folgers can Lars Ulrich abused in lieu of a snare drum on St. Anger ended up. What sounds like absolute shit on an album that sucked millions of dollars out of the national GDP is perfectly at home anchoring the wonderfully awful production values of this grind twosome’s split.
I decide to snag this album, released way back in January, after learning Agathocles bass player Tony killed himself only to be further depressed to learn the underrated Torture Incident has likely called it a day as well (their MySpace page lists them as R.I.P. and they didn’t respond to my messages looking to confirm that). So there’s a real pall hanging over this meeting of Belgium’s leading blast squad and Malaysia’s fiercest grind dissidents that has nothing to do with the music contained herein.
If you love Agathocles, here’s more of the same. The Belgians have been banging out a delightful racket of straight ahead, crusty as fuck grind for the better part of a quarter century and band fixture Jan Frederickx is not about to tinker with his blue ribbon recipe. Drums blast, guitars scrape incoherently through the demo-quality mix and the modern world’s ills get a stern talking to, Cookie Monster style.
Aside from the slightly better production values (and slight being a relative measure, here), you’d be forgiven if you failed to catch the transition from Agathocles’ 14 lead off tunes to Torture Incident’s closing 12 tracks, which were actually recorded in 2006.
Sounding like Agathocles, Assuck, Anal Cunt and a whole slew of other prime grind bands that don’t start with the letter A, Dick Cheney’s house musicians unleash more of the ripping old school blast beat barrage that characterized their too brief existence, railing against the political and religious oppression of Malaysia, where Islamic rule is the law of the land.
While the songs’ production sounds a tad bit worse than their mini-album The Deadly Efficiency of Napalm, the songwriting and performance are just as tight, hitting and running in under 90 seconds and never overstaying its welcome.
It’s grind at its basic with no surprises lurking, but if you thought Phobia went off the rails with Cruel’s cleaner production, if you have a lo-fi jones that must be fed or if you just want to memorialize a band and a bass player that stayed true to grindcore’s original promise and premise through two decades of upheaval and stylistic changes, then Agathocles and Torture Incident will not disappoint.

Agathocles Addendum: Condolences

So as I do with everyone who was gracious enough to submit themselves to my scattershot interviewing style, I let Agathocles mainstay Jan Frederickx know the story was out, only to get this response a few hours later:

"Last thursday, Tony, our bassplayer, got cremated. He committed suicide last weekend."

If you've got a second, head over to the AG web site and drop those guys a note of support.

Mincing Words: Grind Lifers Agathocles Rule Splitsville

It’s an article of faith in the underground community that if you play in a crusty, punked out grind band, sooner or later you gotta do a split 7” with Agathocles. It’s in the friggen bylaws between black shirts (and the wearing thereof) and smiling (thou shalt not). I’ll wait while you go look it up.
For more than 20 years now the Belgian death squad has relentlessly beat out their own brand of lo-fi, stripped down grind, boasting more than 90 (!!!) split EPs and albums over their seemingly endless career with five more planned this month, according to band honcho Jan Frederickx, the sole fixed point in the ever shifting AG constellation.
Somewhere between King Leopold II’s depredation of the Congo (The horror! The horror!) and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s inexplicably ongoing career, Belgium chose to mitigate those crimes against humanity by birthing and nurturing Frederickx and his rotating band of merry men who have been kicking out killer grind (mince core in the band’s private nomenclature) for two decades.
“Doing split releases is a typical DIY punk thing. Split EP’s exists since the 70’s and some great split vinyl were made in the beginning of the 80’s such as Warfare/Upset Noise split 7”, Declino/Negazione split LP,” Frederickx said. “We like to keep that flame of cooperation alive. We like to share releases with everyone, except with those who promote macho-ism, sexism, snuff and bullshit like that. We shared vinyl with bands from all sorts of music like black metal, grind, ska punk, raw punk, anarcho folk, doom metal.”

Named for a Greek tyrant whose name became a byword for bloody conquest, AG have been banging out a bloody racket for 23 fricken years without the major label cash that has helped contemporaries such as Napalm Death pay the rent.. Instead, Agathocles have hopped from one miniscule label to another, sharing wax with a seemingly endless parade of punk, grind, metal and whatever else bands.
Despite my love of all things blast-beaty, I’ll go ahead and admit I was way late in getting to the Agathocles party simply because I was so overwhelmed by the sheer number of releases these lifers have under their belt. So big thanks to Self Made God for finally having the good sense to collect this band’s innumerable output on a series of Mincecore History discogs a few years ago.
At a time when metal seems to be determined to repeat the worst aspects of the hairspray/thrash bust of the early ’90s when big money flowed easy and bands got lazy, it’s impressive to someone steadfastly stick to a DIY ethic despite the pitfalls.
The term lifer often gets thrown out to describe someone like Lemmy Kilmister who never seems to age and has no intentions of retiring. But it’s pretty easy to be a lifer on a label’s dime.
“Grind is not about being on a big label! It’s totally the opposite,” Frederickx said. “Grind is punk and punk in its true form is DIY, autonomy, creating another way, opposing mainstream. And that’s the way we will always work. I don’t give a shit about big labels and the puppets that are signed to them. GRIND IS PROTEST!”
Which just happens to be the name of AG’s upcoming full length. When will it be out, I ask. “When it’s done,” Frederickx responds. This has been yet another instalment of obvious answers to stupid questions.
Given Agathocles’ fiercely DIY shtick, I ask Frederickx how the intertubes help or hinder a go-it-alone grind band’s attempts to connect with fans in a highly commercialized environment. In response, he sent me back the lyrics to “New (De)Generation” with its shades of Carcass circa “Polarized:”

“I don’t wanna see your face
I don’t wanna know your ‘MySpace’
I don’t wanna get your shirts
Just put all where it hurts”

Dude doesn’t mince words. But just to be safe, nobody show him this.