You Grind...But Why?: Hip Cops

Will BSP is a grindcore renaissance man, juggling the (sadly defunct) Hip Cops, awesome Extreme Noise Terror name-checking Bullshit Propaganda Records and the excellent Don't Be Swindle blog/zine. It's an intense schedule for an intense guy. But Will's the kinda dude whose whole life seems to be caught up in a mosh.

"There's something different about me from most people I know," Will said. "I don't know if it's a problem or a benefit. Most people would feel good to be relaxed or well-rested, but I never stop. I purposely sleep less hours per night than the average person, and leap out of bed ready to do 10 things at once before the sun rises. I like to listen to different music on multiple stereos at the same time. I work three jobs. Everything is in my face, all of the time with the volume on life cranked to the max. When I discovered grindcore, everything clicked. The usual punk and hardcore was never quite fast enough, so that it was on par with the speed that I approached life. Sometimes the music just keeps up with me, and other times it's like a mental bulldozer while I stare at the wall without a thought on my mind five minutes before falling asleep. A slate-cleaner, if you will. I just got lucky that the lyrics that often accompany grindcore also fit the worldview that I already have in regards to social and political issues, sweetening the pie. That's why I grind."

G&P Review: Dispepsiaa/Violent Gorge

Dispepsiaa/Violent Gorge
Split
Bullshit Propaganda
I can’t remember where or when I read it, but several years ago I read a review that said two things can just ruin an album: the vocals or the snare because they’re ubiquitous throughout. That insight has stuck with me ever since. I won’t say Winnepeg’s Violent Gorge ruin their half of the split with their vocals, but they’re wrapped in enough layers of reverb to stay toasty through the harshest Manitoba winter. And because they’re shoved so far to fore, it detracts from what is otherwise a tidy little grindcore racket. Sounding like the first Black Sabbath record played by a horde of necro crust punks, Violent Gorge, musically, is a fairly satisfying experience. The clear ringleader is “Repulsive Apparatus,” which best exemplifies their frosted punk take on grind, but the croaking, echoing vocals just overwhelm the remaining songs. What the band lacks in recording chops, however, they make up for with a whole thesaurus full of song titles like “Labrynthine Plica Polonica” and “Mephitic Bromhidrosis.”
Flipside, Brazils’ Dispepsiaa just bring the noise. With roots tracing back to the semi-legendary Rot, the band expertly hits that sweet stride between lofi energy and perfect clarity. The guitars, in particularly, are raw and aggressive while also being amazingly clear. You can practically hear each string vibrate in isolation. Aside from a quick introductory flash of jazz to one of their six songs, Dispepsiaa best exemplify the Brazillian approach to grindcore: don’t look for innovation; just try to keep your teeth in your face as they work you over with a sphincter clenching ferocity.
Sadly, Dispepsiaa have called it a day, but their half of the split more than serves as a quality epitaph. Violent Gorge are more atmospheric than their grinding kindred, but they don’t yet know how to make that work to their advantage.

[Full disclosure: BS Propaganda sent me a review copy.]

G&P Review: Hip Cops

Hip Cops
In the Shadow of a Grinding Death
Bullshit Propaganda
Hip Cops’ In the Shadow of a Grinding Death has been floating around the interwebs for quite a while now after their relationship with a prior label soured. But the quality folks at Bullshit Propaganda have stepped in to give craphounds like me another 7-inch slab of lovely wax to clutter our lives.
These spunky young gutter punks like to pretend music hasn’t stumbled a step forward since From Enslavement to Obliteration as they worship at the altar of Lee Dorian’s screechy scream and guttural gurgle and Bill Steer’s repurposed punk riffs played at a quick time march. In a testament to songwriting economy, Hip Cops hit it and quit it (with one exception) in a respectful 60 seconds or less. They’ve sheared off any extraneous protuberances that might cut down the music’s aerodynamic sheen, leaving behind a lean baker’s dozen hits of blasting shrapnel that are out the door in nine minutes. There’s plenty of ambient guitar noise; crispy, crunchy bass buzz; squealing, squalling leads and subliminally tattooing snare drum thuggery to fill up that 15 percent of an hour.
Like a leaner version of Suffering Mind, with whom they’ve shared a label, Hip Cops are an unpretentious distillation of nearly 30 years of grindcore history, a tribute to the simplicity that has stood it in good stead for all that time. This is not the flashiest band in the world, though the pyromaniacal shred of “Grind Life” is a welcome multichromatic moment, but Hip Cops encapsulate the frenetic, free form energy that keeps the style plugging along.

[Full disclosure: BS Propaganda sent me a review copy.]

G&P Review: Infernal Stronghold/Gatt

Infernal Stronghold/Gatt
Pests
Bullshit Propaganda
I admittedly don’t know much about black metal, but anybody who wants to drive trucks into churches while raging to ice pelted crust has got to be invited to my next party. After Godless Noise made me feel a little bad about all the shit I’ve talked about black metal, Infernal Stronghold strike back with an even more unhinged cross-section of crusted blackness that sounds like the distilled audio essence of Jack’s fate in The Shining. What’s most interesting about the three new songs is how they dip in and out of various genres, recycling their tropes for Infernal Stronghold’s only nefarious purposes..
The ever so polite “Excuse All the Blood” brilliantly works a pretty traditional hardcore riff until the miles away rasping reverbed vocals and blastbeats kick in. It’s a high protein prime cut of punk goodness that would have people grabbing change in another context. “They Let Their Guard Down” slips ’80s thrash a mickey on a slippery, serpentine mite of guitar noodling I think I remember from an old Sacred Reich album.
And then there’s Indonesia’s Gatt, who work pretty much the same shtick as Infernal Stronghold, only slightly slower and without as much grace. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Gatt, per se, but when you’re the flip side of your style’s apotheosis, you tend to look a tad tinsel in comparison. Unlike Infernal Stronghold, Gatt actually allowed their singer to be in the same time zone during recording so there’s no echo, and in a concession to frail human flesh, they also turned the temperature up in the studio to keep their blood from coagulating in their arteries. But their songs are serviceable bits of blacked crust. The guitars are all snarly and indistinct, the drums are lost somewhere beneath a pond scum of distortion and the vocals are croaky and grim.
While Gatt are still out of their league, anything new from Infernal Stronghold makes this a worthwhile split to snag.

[Full disclosure: BS Propaganda sent me a review copy.]

G&P Review: Suffering Mind/Lycanthropy

Suffering Mind/Lycanthropy
Cycle of Extinction/Too Late to Survive
Bullshit Propaganda
Not to jack Cosmo Lee’s shtick, but Napalm Death’s Scum turns 23 in March and we’re no closer to answering the band’s eternal (though possibly, rhetorical) question: You suffer, but why?
Scoffing at such existentialist piffle, Poland’s Suffering Mind would probably blithely retort that it’s all in your head and then grind all over your face with gutter punk brutality. The band boasts their half of this split was “100% DIY recorded” and it shows. It’s a staticky, near incoherent, beautiful mess. Cycle of Extinction is one of those recordings that’s so low fi and unpolished it’s explosive. Suffering Mind surge off the vinyl with screeching, screaming grind that revs like a dental drill boring into a rotten molar sans anesthesia while Ula rips the plaque out of your ears vocally. There is absolutely no definition to any instrument on this atavistic little treasure, but it all works.
On paper there’s so many ways that Czech grinders Lycanthropy could have gone bad: a cutesy boy/girl band that evokes werewolves easily could have been a steaming slab of indefensible symphonic black metal that would have sent the Twihards swooning. These pitfalls would swooped over Indiana Jones style in favor of knuckledusting grind that, name aside, doesn’t really shift shapes. And that’s still cool.
“Two Sides to a Coin” is a snappy start/stop blast with a drum that sounds like an early machine gun clearing a trench in All Quiet on the Western Front while frontlady Zdisha works up a plausible strep throat excuse for work the next day. The remaining four songs are just as tight. Drummer Ondra is a real star here and the band smartly shoves his metronomic performance to the fore with a snappy, dry snare sound like a krav maga bone strike. Vosuck (guitar) and Supin (bass) are no slouches, but they clearly know their spot, providing seething, scarred foundation for the drums and scathing vocals to land the finer body blows.
Suffering Mind and Lyncanthropy are an inspired pairing, probably the best I’ve heard from Bullshit Propaganda so far. How good is this? I just ordered Suffering Mind’s full length and I’m on the hunt for anything else by Lycanthropy.
[Full disclosure: BS Propaganda sent me a review copy.]

G&P Review: Bangsat/Archagathus

Bangsat/Archagathus
World of Starvation/Split
Bullshit Propaganda
Being a lazy, self-absorbed American, I’ve come to accept it as a given just how large a chunk of my life is either being outsourced to or imported from the Orient all so I can save an extra 30 cents on beef jerky at 7-Eleven. Living with that reality, somebody please tell me why I’m continually surprised at just how good the grind being pumped out by Southeast Asia has been the last couple of years. Still reeling from Wormrot’s heretofore unacknowledged Manhattan Project, Indonesia also apparently has its own weapons grade grind initiative going on behind the scenes, as evidenced by Bangsat.
More Torture Incident than Wormrot, Bangsat is a testicle crushing if flawed slab of meaty, guttural grindcore that functions best when the band throttles down the speed. The band’s real standout is actually the slower paced “World of Starvation” a visceral, looming monster stomping over the landscape before a brief sprinting finish. Ditto “Gears of Death,” which also features enough punk tempo passages that drummer Yope can concentrate on his patterns and fills. Because when the band goes all out grind, as on “Kingdom of Hypocrisy,” Yope’s drumming fades into a dull featureless blur that pulls the attention away from Toan’s enjoyable, chunky riffs and Agus’ wails. Slow down please.
On the flip side, everyone’s favorite Agathocles tribute band, Archagathus, sound, well, a lot like Agothocles with more upper register screams. The Canadians will ever be accused of being innovators as they mince their way through four songs, but their side of this 7-inch is serviceable and enjoyable. “Land of Filth” features some unexpected tempo changes and it’s hard to quibble with a catchy blastfest like “No Help.” The guttural roar becomes a tad monotonous during long intervals between screams on a song like “Vomiting Idiocy” but that’s far from a fatal flaw.

[Full disclosure: BS Propaganda sent me a review copy.]