G&P Review: Kratzer/Kvazar

Kratzer/Kvazar
Split
7 Degrees/Blastbeat Mailmurder
There’s a gray-scale anti-rainbow that haunts the periphery of the visible spectrum and Kratzer and Kvazar divide its hues between them on their fog-colored split effort. The effect is like a reverse Wizard of Oz where all of the color and joy are leached out of a broken and disappointing world.
German crusties Kratzer dwell at the center of a bizarre Goode homolosine projection of the punk rock world in which the sneaky melodicism of Scandinavian d-beat somehow abuts raging Japanese hardcore. Kratzer chip their seven crusted cries from the cracking cement of abandoned playgrounds, ruptured highways and crumbling brutalist highrises, choked in the ash of industrial smog and sickened by the pestilential runoff of industrial waste. It’s the gray grime of our own claustrophobic modernity as its plaster veneer chips away, exposing the flimsy foundation beneath. The moody, mercurial “?/!” glooms its way through the broken landscape, the pivot point of Kratzer’s contribution, a murky slow motion encapsulation of their dimmed horizons and pervasive hopelessness.
After Kratzer managed to paint so evocative a portrait using only monochromatic tools, it’s kind of a bummer that Kvazar’s side is also bogged down in gray. Only this time it is the uniform mush of a bowl of oatmeal.  Apparently the band has been lurking in the Greek grind scene since time immemorial and these, their final songs, were trapped in cryostasis until they recruited Dephosphorus’ Panos Agoros to come in add the missing vocals. Unfortunately, the murky, mushy production that squashes everything together doesn’t play to the astro-grinder’s strengths, burying his distinctive yelp behind flat sounding drums and guitars. The endless gray horizons of one anonymous song after another only makes things worse as Kvazar just slog their way along colorlessly. Where Kratzer’s grays are an accurate snapshot of a black and white world, Kvazar’s contribution is a despondent drone through a missed opportunity. After the intriguing opening half, it’s a shame the second side of this promising split doesn’t live up to its amazing gray art.

[Full disclosure: 7 Degrees sent me a review copy.]

Minute Men

If you haven't availed yourself already, Blastbeat Mailmurder Records (aka Panos Agoros of Dephosphorus fame) is up with the first volume of the Monomaniac 7-inch series. The concept is Panos rounded up a handful of kickass bands and gave them one minute each to do what thou wilt. Volume one features forehead crushing contributions from 10 bangers including Cloud Rat, Sete Star Sept, Detroit, Body Hammer, Head Cleaner and three(!!!)  contributions from Australian dervishes thedowngoing in 60 seconds or less.
Panos has done a fabulous job putting this package together and I'm already drooling at the thought of volume two. I played a small role hooking Panos up with a few of the participants, so I won't be giving it a full review (but seriously, it kicks all kinds of ass). However, I just wanted to shove this one under your noses  if you haven't checked it out already. The 7-inch is gorgeously done, but you can also check it out as a pay-what-you-want download at Blastbeat Mailmurder's Bandcamp page. Do yourself a favor and give this one a listen.

G&P Review: Mutant Supremacy

Mutant Supremacy
Rotting Season
Blastbeat Mailmurder
Death Metal grave robbers Mutant Supremacy have looted a whole cemetery stocked with festering corpses named Bolt Thrower, Entombed and Cannibal Corpse. They're redolent of their obvious influences' stench just in case you couldn't seem them printed on their longsleeves. Mutant Supremacy's morbid tales and everflowing streams of aggression are not going to blow away anybody who's been paying attention to death metal at any point in the last two decades, but the performances are spot on and Rotting Season nails the scrappy, maggoty ambiance of a bygone era.
The four song EP, which was actually recorded back in 2010, states its intention off the bat with "Kill Without Question." The song divebombs onto the scene with full whammy bar abuse before chugging along in familiar Entombed mode. Mutant Supremacy ride that wave of retro classic death that puts more emphasis on hook and sepulchral atmosphere than the ability to play a gazillion notes a minute. "Memento Mori," which, naturally, closes out the proceedings, pulls that morbid creepy crawly opening before blasting up the remainders of the song. You can tell the tempo shift is coming, but it's still a fun moment when it happens.
While (judging solely by their promo photos) most of Mutant Supremacy where probably pooping their Pampers back when Death, Morbid Angel and Dismember were pooping out classic records, the quartet innately understood what made that era of metal special and do their best to recapture that vibe. While your nostalgia could probably be more adequately addressed by playing those classic records, Rotting Season is an adequate stopgap in a pinch.

[Full disclosure: Blastbeat Mailmurder sent me a review copy.]

One Track Mind

If you're a fan of short songs like myself and Mr. Biafra, you're going to be in luck this summer. Blastbeat Mailmurder proprietor Panos Agoros (a.k.a. the Dephosphorus/Straighthate vocalist) just announced the first iteration of his new Monomaniac series of 7-inchers, collecting 25 bands of various metallic stripes each spitting out a single minute of their trademark noise.

The first volume is expected sometime this summer with (hopefully) more to follow. I mention this because I (humbly) played a middle man role by running through my grindcore Rolodex and hooking Panos up with a handful of bands I thought would jibe with his vibe. Given my participation, I won't be giving this one a full review when it comes out, but I'm definitely excited by the roster he's pulled together.
Click on over to the Monomaniac link to stream first track "Traitors Gallow" by New Zealand black/death metal band Diocletian to get a sense of the kind of mind numbing monstrosities in the offing. If that's enough to tease your palette, here's a complete list of participants.

* DIOCLETIAN — bestial black/death apotheosis — New Zealand
* NECROMANTIA — black metal cult — Greece
* ROBOCOP and/or BODY HAMMER — grindcore — U.S.A.
* END — black metal — Greece
* THE ONE — unorthodox black metal — UK
* CONAN — doom/sludge — U.K.
* BILL KOULIGAS — electronics/noise — Greece/Germany
* SETE STAR SEPT — avantgarde grinding noise — Japan
* MUTANT SUPREMACY — death metal — USA
* RAVENCULT — black thrashing metal — Greece
* WAKE — grinding hardcore — Canada
* PRIAPUS — grindcore — USA
* DETROIT — powerviolence — Canada
* AMNIS NIHILI — harsh & mesmerizing metal — Greece
* THEDOWNGOING — grindcore — Australia
* CLOUD RAT — hardcore/grind — USA
* HEAD CLEANER — death/grind — Greece
* THE COMMUNION — blood metal slut grind — USA
* HAPPOJA — blackened metal/hardcore — Finland
* THE SENSELESS (ex-The Berzerker, ex-Mithras) — progressive grind, heavy mental — Australia
* THE OILY MENACE — grindcore — USA
* GRIPE — grindcore — USA
* BURIAL HORDES — violent black metal — Greece
* ATAVISM — brutal death/grind — Greece
* PROGRESS OF INHUMANITY — grindcore — Greece

Blast(beat) from the Past: Nuclear Winter

Nuclear Winter
Abomination Virginborn
Blastbeat Mailmurder
2003
Greek duo Nuclear Winter sound like they’ve been slinking up the same left hand path and chanting the same ultimate incantations that have long driven Entombed and Vader on this 7-inch of old style death murkiness. Another shoot growing off the StraightHate/Dephosphorus family tree, Nuclear Winter paid tribute to the past masters of dismal death over the course of three songs.
Unlike a lot of death metal, which insists on unremitting brutality and technical acumen, Nuclear Winter recognized that atmosphere was often a more important component. The band is perfectly comfortable cranking along at cruising speeds with the top down, enjoying the feel of the wind in their hair. They up the tempo to an organic blastbeat only as an accent rather than the spine of the song. That means they rely on the authentically charnel old school guitar tones to carry the songs. However, there’s a thinness that make the lack of a second guitar or bass palpable. With the added texture additional instrumentation would have provided, these three songs would really crush. But Nuclear Winter make do with what they have available. There are no drum triggers, the blastbeats sound human, the riffs chainsaw, the art is suitably Hellhammered and the guitars are full of those pinched squealy sounds. This is death metal the way I remember it.

[Full disclosure: Blastbeat Mailmurder sent me a review copy.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: Mumakil

Mumakil
The Stop Whining EP
Blastbeat Mailmurder
2006
Ponder the following analogy, if you will:

The Stop Whining EP: Customized Warfare :: Obscured By Clouds: Dark Side of the Moon.

Not only is Mumakil’s awesomely titled debut slab o’wax, The Stop Whining EP, one of the best named releases ever conceived, it is a near-perfect dry run of the subsequent grindcore smartbomb, Customized Warfare. Plus song titles (for the most part)! Early on it bears all the hallmarks of the band’s later development into a Euro-grind powerhouse.
This artifact from the Swiss Misters’ Neolithic past is carved from 12 giant blocks of super-dense granite grind that lacks the rounded edges of niceties of some of their later efforts. In fact, it sounds a tad like Circle of Dead Children’s pigsquealed death/grind brawl in spots. From the very first, Mumakil were compositionally gifted. “Tavernik Growl” bucks a groove like a pony that’s never been broken to the saddle. It paces and lopes with a rush of exhilaration and combative attitude.
However, Mumakil were still a young band and there was the occasional misstep. “Breu Breu,” which kicks off the second side is a thudding dud that threatens to bring the whole EP to a dead stop. It’s a poorly thought out doorstop of a tune that mopes in place without going anywhere in particular. But those are exactly the kind of growing pains to be expected before a band hits it stride. They got all of that out of their system before hitting the studio for Customized Warfare. So, if Behold the Failure wasn’t your thing, stop yer damn whining and give Mumakil’s earliest efforts a spin.

[Full disclosure: Blastbeat Mailmurder sent me a review copy.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: Forgardur Helvitis

There was a man by the name of Thorvarld who was the son of Asvald Ulfsson. Thorvald’s son was called Eirik the Red, and both father and son left Jadri in Norway for Iceland because of some killings.

The Saga of Eirik the Red
Circa 1300

Forgardur Helvetis
Gerningavedur
Blastbeat Mailmurder
2002 [Re-released in 2007]
Of the all the things you, the faithful listener, have come to expect from card carrying members of the grindcore musicians’ union, stopping an album for nearly two minutes of gravely chanted poetry is probably not one of them. But there it is on Icelanders Forgardur Helvetis’s 2002 album Gerningavedur: penultimate track “Heljarslod” is deliberately-paced poetry, read in the lilting accents and stern cadences I’ve come to associate with Ingmar Bergman’s stoic black and white meditations on human alienation and the absence of God.
While my Icelandic may not be sufficient to decipher what the tiny Atlantic isle’s sole grindcore ambassadors are raving about on their 21 other songs, I’ve spent enough time studying the sagas and Eddas to have a small glimpse of the importance of poetry in Norse culture. Egil Skallagrimsson retained his head thanks to the felicity of his words. While “Heljarslod” felt awkward at first, its place and importance grew on me with subsequent listens. Now I think it needs to be there, an emotional anchor to the blood eagle brutality of the music.
Musically, Forgardur Helvetis hit all the expected notes: the blastbeats are on point, the riffs have a distinctive Scandinavian air as though the earliest At the Gates material were being reinterpreted by Creation is Crucifixion and the vocals are impassioned. But there’s also a breasting dragon ship bravado to their song construction that suggests they have Viking-era Bathory albums lurking in their plundered record collection (They also cover Dark Throne’s “Undir Utfarartungli” aka "Under A Funeral Moon"). The songs won’t win many awards for memorability, but they serve their purpose. However, though it’s only 31 minutes long, Gerningavedur just feels longer. There’s definitely about 10 minutes worth of fluff that could have been given a Viking funeral before release. Despite that, it’s entertaining to get an album from a rarely heard from corner of the Scandi-grind community.

[Full disclosure: Blastbeat Mailmurder sent me a review copy.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: StraightHate

StraightHate
Indigenous
Blastbeat Mailmurder
2007
Nicking a name from a great song from the last album Sepultura ever recorded before breaking up forever is a great way to weasel your way into my good graces. If one of you so much as whispers the name “Derrick Green” I will gut you and feast on your raw spleen. Go ahead. I dare you.
Anyway.
Prior to their involvement in Greek grindonauts Dephosphorus, vocalist Panos Agoros and guitarist Thanos Mantas were the backbone of the more traditionally grinding StraightHate. (On a somewhat related tangent, Dephosphorus have hooked up with 7 Degrees records [run by Keitzer bassist Simon] for a vinyl pressing of the incredible Axiom EP. Get that shit.)
Indigenous is not nearly as unmoored from terrestrial concerns as Axiom. In fact, its mundane grievances about church and state are certainly familiar (but bonus points for “You’ll Never See Heaven,” which purports to relate a private conversation with “that motherfucker Jesus”), and the music slots comfortably within the mainstream of contemporary Euro-grind with flashes of the Scandi-sound (the thorny prickle of the Nasum-ish “Isolator”) and more continental fare. The screeches border on black metal’s demesne and tag out to guttural grunts.
It’s all very comfortable and very enjoyable, a warm, rough-edged production cradles the songs, but then there’s the nearly 12 minute, half acoustic closer “Which One of Us Dies First.” That’s where things get interesting. Closing an album with the longest, slowest song of the album, typically a half assed attempted at dirgey doom, seems to be an irresistible compulsion for grinders (seriously, what's the deal with that?), but StraightHate’s indulgence hints at the unhinged majesty that would follow four years later. At its heart, yes, it’s another grind band playing a slow song, but “Which One of Us Dies First” smashes together Amebix crust and Neurosis atmosphere in a crust punk super collider before giving with to an acoustic halflife
Indigenous is a cool enough album on its own, but StraightHate is far more interesting for its hints of what was to come with Panos and Thanos’ next endeavor.

[Full disclosure: Panos, who runs Blastbeat Mailmurder, sent me a review copy.]