G&P Review: Ablach

Ablach
Aon
Blastworks

One summer Earl Thorfinn went raiding in the Hebrides and in various parts of Scotland. He himself lay at anchor off Galloway where Scotland borders on England, but he sent some of this troops south to raid the English coast, as the people had driven all their livestock out of his reach. When the English realized that the vikings had arrived, they gathered together, made a counter-attack, recovered all that had been stolen and killed every able-bodied man among them except for a few they sent back to tell Thorfinn this was how they discouraged the vikings from their raids and looting. The message was put in distinctly abusive terms.

Orkneyinga Saga
Circa 1200

The Icelandic saga writers had such a droll sense of humor, don’t you think?
With so many pressing problems that need to be screamed at and blastbeat into submissions, grindcore has very rarely bothered itself with the past or culture or heritage. Instead those concepts have been left to *shudder* folk metal or black metallers who have embraced their Norse heritage with a fervency that just might get them added to a Southern Poverty Law Center watch list one day.
Scots Ablach (which is Gaelic for “mangled carcass,” according to the band) are the square peg in grindcore’s round hole, crafting crusty 90 second lessons on their nation’s history from the first highland tribes to imperial era scuffles with the English.
So the sextet presents us with songs about Scottish farmers being evicted from their land to make way for sheep (“Na Fuadaichean”), apocryphal wedding night rituals (“Jus Primae Noctis”), witch trials (“Confessit & Declait Furth”), and the national love of the fruits of the grain (“Whiskey Violence”). With only 13 songs in 18 minutes, two covers (Napalm Death’s “Unchallenged Hate” and Terrorizer’s “Corporation Pull In”) feels a bit like padding, however. But the band knows its way around a catchy grindcore tune.
The wild card on Aon, however, is the production. The band seemed to be going from an old school Morrisound scooped guitar tone, but instead it all just sounds very hollow and distant, as though there’s a whole channel missing. While it’s not necessarily a deal breaker, I do think it limits Ablach’s reach. That hiccup aside, Aon is a solid debut from a band that’s actually found a unique identity with something different to say.

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.