G&P Review: Dråp

Dråp
En Naturling Dod
Embrace My Funeral
First off, there’s not much here that you probably didn’t pull out of Anti Cimex’s raped ass 30 years ago. That said, like a high calorie, low nutrition fast food fix, there’s something about Dråp (Manslaughter) that just hits the spot. En Naturling Dod is the Swedish crust punk version of drunkenly plowing through Taco Bell’s drive through window for a quesarito at 2 a.m.
Unlike a lot of their crusty contemporaries, Dråp aren’t appropriating death metal tropes to bulk up and refurbish their punk rawk. They closest these heavily bearded Viking punks come to extra-genre exploration is a nod to thrashtastic chug-a-lug and the occasional squealy guitar solo. So everything barrels along at a more or less consistent head banging nod that makes En Naturling Dod a pretty good driving record. From the black and white artwork straight through the familiarity of the music of itself, Dråp will live and die by how well they can get one more good go-round out of a style that doesn’t lend itself to musical innovation.
With that in mind, the 10 songs on En Naturling Dod are uniformly tight and uniformly ... uniform. (In a rare nod to variety, “Horstmorker” slows down and probably drags out more than is needed.) Dråp have a solid foundation to work with and injecting some solid hooks and a more commanding vocal style could have them nipping at Victims’ heels. What Dråp may lack (or simply not give a fuck about) in originality, they make up for with energy and brevity, pounding through 10 songs in under 25 minutes, playing like the world might end before they finish. It makes En Naturling Dod a head rush of a record and one that can flipped back over for repeated spins. And if you’re asking for more than that from your crust punk records, you’re probably doing it wrong.

[Full disclosure: I received a review copy.]

Into the Throat of Berserk

My "GridLink broke up" face.

Extreme metal vocals are largely just another blunt instrument – one more unintelligible weapon in a band’s arsenal of noise. For the most part, that’s all they really need to be, another tool in the mix. There’s not exactly a lot of down time in grind songs. So when the band gets rolling, singers are left to try and keep pace and fight for space in the mix.
But occasionally savvy musicians will know when and how to pull back. Putting the vocals forefront and providing a moment of clarity can really punctuate a song both lyrically and musically. Slamming the music to a halt to let the vocals stand on their own is a great attention grabber when done right.
Here’s a handful of ways it’s been put to good use.

You Scream, I Scream



Southern crust punkers Antischism were pissed off. They wanted to scream. They wanted you to know that they wanted to scream. So on the song “Scream” they built in space for vocalist Lyz to make that point readily apparent. The result is a musical pause that gives Lyz the space to “SCREAM!” She’s screaming about the need to scream which is all kinds of cathartic and meta at the same time.

Name Dropper






A Napalm Death play in one act:

“Gee, Barney, what’s the name of the next song?”

“MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIND SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE!”

“Thanks for clearing that up.”

Mother Goose vs. the Grindfather



Drugs of Faith mastermind Richard Johnson made potent use of the musical pause on Corroded’s ode to rationality over religion “Age of Reason.” To punctuate his point about the value of freethinking, the song holds its breath long enough for him to scream out his intention to live “WITHOUT. THE. FAIRY. TALES.” From there, the song chooses to slowly spool out, as though all of the rush had built up to that single, powerful moment and then gave up in exhaustion. It makes the point that much more powerful.

You’re Hot Then You’re Cold



Jesus’ favorite grinders Rehumanize turn the book of Revelation’s tale of the lukewarm church at Laodecia into a grinding nightmare of vengeance and dismay on the song “Planet Loadecia.” While the song doesn’t come to a full stop, clearly its centerpiece is the relatively clean middle section where the band, personifying God, announce that “I WILL SPIT YOU OUT OF MY MOUTH.” Taken as a tale of divine retribution, that’s the moment when the implacable deity has passed judgment and only doom will follow. There can be no appeal and no reparations. Justice from that point on is swift and merciless.

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.]

G&P Review: Massgrav

Massgrav
Still the Kings
Selfmadegod
Massgrav toss down the gauntlet to all comers with a simple warning: watch the throne, motherfuckers. The Swedish blastcore kill crew annihilate 19 songs in 18 minutes as they defend their blastbeaten crust punk throne.  Anybody who is the least bit familiar with Massgrav's M.O. already knows that Still the Kings will not be larded down with a single superfluous note, ambient digression or arty farty passage. Instead, this is the sound of pretty much every Swedish d-beat great tossed into a blender set to liquefy. At their most sedate, as with "Brallorna nere igen," Massgrav are still zapping along at clip that would get the skate park popping.
There can be a samey-ness that creeps into Massgrav's sound, but when they hit it and quit in about a quarter of an hour that's a pretty secondary complaint. As one record executive famously said of the Ramones: he would have walked out of their audition but they were done before he could get up. Massgrav probably recognize this so they do break up their punk beatings with the occasional flourish like the minced guitar solo of "Kom ihåg vad du rösta på" in a nod to actually telling the songs apart.
This is the kind of record you reach for when you just want a jolt of pure adrenaline without recourse to subtlety or pretense. Sometimes you just wanna thrash and when you do Massgrav are still the kings.

[Full disclosure: Selfmadegod sent me a download.]

G&P Review: Zodiac

Zodiac
Menschenstaub
7 Degrees
Menschenstaub is that rare album that seemingly does its job competently and with aplomb, but still leaves me feeling disappointed because it rapidly evaporates into nothingness. Crusty death punks Zodiac, musically, are custom built to tick off everything that sets my neurons a-tingle, but on Menschenstaub (People Dust) seems to slip from memory the second it's over. Is there some bizarre category of good albums that just don't quite succeed despite being perfectly acceptable?
The Germans hybridize fellow countrymen Keitzer and Audio Kollaps, pairing the former's Bolt Thrower chug with the latter's crusty grind. That forms the spine of Zodiac's attack, but then they dress it up with a patina of various metal flourishes, some successful (the early At the Gates swirl of "Genullt"), some less so (the pointless electronic twaddle at the end of "Abwesenheitsnotiz").
That protean nature means Zodiac never give themselves over fully to any particular musical impulse. But even with the myriad styles at play on Menschenstaub, Zodiac keep them all balanced and in check. For all that though, the band actually leaves very little impression. Menschenstaub is absolutely enjoyable when it's contributing to my inevitable tinnitus--the guitars are wonderfully thick, the vocals are deep and pissed and the rhythm section is tight--it seems to evaporate once the ten songs are over and nothing stands out in particular. I can't even pinpoint what makes it ephemeral (maybe it's only me), but I'm looking for something more memorable from them.

[Full disclosure: 7 Degrees sent me a download.]

G&P Review: AXT/Bluthuf

“I must admit,” Ivan began, “I have never been able to understand how it was possible to love one’s neighbors. And I mean precisely one’s neighbors, because I can conceive of the possibility of loving those who are far away. … If I must love my fellow man, he had better hide himself, for no sooner do I see his face than there’s an end to my love for him.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov
1880

AXT/Bluthuf
The Invention of Ruin
Self Released
Splits are tricky. You have to carefully pair up your bands to keep things balanced. If two bands' talents are mismatched, one will end up looking weaker by comparison. That's what happens in this tag team between German crusties AXT and Bluthuf. Think of this as the grudge rematch between the hare and that uppity tortoise. And this time that arrogant testudinae gets what's coming to it. This is a pairing that plays speed off of sloth and speed will win every time.
Bluthuf's three slow motion crust punk jams just drag in comparison to AXT's six thrashing bangers. Where AXT's side of this 7-inch is played with reckless speed, by contrast Bluthuf sound enervated and weighed down. The unhealthy girth of their songs only serve to make the side by side comparison more glaring.
Instead, AXT's fastcore is everything you ask from the genre: the guitars buzz nicely and chop up the songs like saws, the drums sound like the flailing of a madman and the vocals are all raw throated passion spit from overtaxed vocal cords. The lyrics check off all the expected boxes: war, guilt, self-loathing and society's corruption. It's none too original, but it keeps the songs moving.
Bluthuf start off strong on "Programm23," but they rapidly lose steam. The songs are looooooooong and suffer from a lack of variety. Tempo changes could have kept things fresh as they plod along one-dimensionally. The close of "Programm23" comes to shaking things up is a cool stutter step beat before an all too brief guitar solo, but then the band is back banging away at the same old riff. If they weren't paired with somebody more interesting like AXT, perhaps Bluthuf would have come off better. As it stands, they caught the short end of the pairing.

[Full disclosure: 7 Degrees, which is helping distribute the record, sent me a review copy.]

Demo-lition Derby: Acid Shark

Acid Shark
Bombs Away
Soundcloud
Acid Shark’s Amebixed punk sounds very British. At least in the way that movies have conditioned Americans to think about our colonial cousins. The Britishosity (totally a word, I swear) rests largely on the singer’s voice, which sounds like someone who routinely employs English colloquialisms like “Oi!” and “Right you are, luv” in between calling for a pint of bitter at the quaint local pub in a decidedly blue collar swath of smoke-choked London. Please none of you disabuse me of this stereotype because it makes Acid Shark that much more fun.
Reinforcing that British charm is that Acid Shark’s three songs sound like Amebix if the crusty forefathers had jettisoned all that maudlin crap about friends dying in motorcycle accidents to pen more bangers in the mold of “Arise!” Acid Shark will not overwhelm your senses with either their musical or lyrical originality (especially lyrical—songs largely consist of the title being shouted repeatedly), but it’s a fun little demo. The songs all have a propulsive vibe, like Acid Shark is rushing to the end before they collapse in on themselves. The knotty guitars have a twisty little crunch to them, though the drums occasional blur into flapping mush.
At only three songs, Acid Shark’s demo does what it should. Namely, it encapsulates a rousing football hooligan spirit not so much in a rioting down the road sense as it is kicking back an ale with a few mates after a rousing match. Essentially, Acid Shark know how to tease just enough to make you want to hear more.

G&P Review: Tragedy

Tragedy
Darker Days Ahead
Tragedy
Darker Days Ahead finds Tragedy in that awkward adolescent stage, something akin to Neurosis' transition 20 years ago from generic crust punk band to Lords of the Cosmos and All Time. Time will tell whether Tragedy's metamorphosis will be as fruitful, but Darker Days Ahead represents that acne-spotted, cracking-voiced phase everyone was so eager to leave behind.
It also continues the transition from high voltage punk toward something more sprawling and atmospheric. I thought Nerve Damage suffered from a dearth of urgency, but Darker Days Ahead is almost comatose instead. Rather than tight d-beat punk jams, this outing Tragedy spin out a series of lengthy (four to five minute) songs played through a cough syrup haze. "The Grim Infinite" sounds like Bolt Thrower played on a Walkman with dying batteries (and couldn't you just see that song title slotting nicely on War Master?).
Where previously Tragedy broke up their albums with acoustic or more ambient interludes, for their fourth album they've stretched those lulls out into full songs, turning in 40 minutes of music that teases -- but never achieves -- a cathartic crescendo. The title track comes closest to catharsis, melding the biker odes of Amebix with the gutter glam of Anti Cimex. But every time Tragedy seem on the verge of an explosive bout of fury, they pull back and sulk off in a resigned depression rather than rattling at their cage. The suffocating production does the album no favors either. Billy Anderson does to Darker Days Ahead pretty much what he did to Sounds of the Animal Kingdom, only stonier.
Ultimately, Darker Days Ahead is a frustrating listening experience. It's not the logical extension of their early d-beaten fare and they haven't evolved far enough beyond their roots to truly let their melodicism take center stage either. Instead we're left with an awkward transitional fossil that hasn't crawled beyond their roots but has yet to grow into its full potential either.

The Namesake Series: "Darker Days Ahead"

Is there something about the name Darker Days Ahead that's cursed, that causes otherwise great bands to churn out disappointing albums? Because the name has soured both Terrorizer and Tragedy. So here are the title tracks from each, which surprisingly, taken in isolation, don't make for bad songs. So maybe my curse hypothesis needs further refining.

G&P Review: Napalm Death (Post #666!)

We walked along Beaufort Avenue to the centre of the estate. The herb gardens, the cheerful children's rooms filled with sensible toys, the sounds of teenagers at violin practice, were given an odd spin by the notion of imminent revolt. Most revolutionaries in the last century had aspired to exactly this level of affluence and leisure, and it occurred to me that I was seeing the emergence of a higher kind of boredom.

J.G. Ballard
Millennium People
2003

The suburbs dream of violence. Asleep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world...

J.G. Ballard
Kingdom Come
2006

Napalm Death
Utilitarian
Century Media
When it came time for Napalm Death to record their fourteenth album, Utilitarian, apparently not a single fuck was given the day they hit the studio. After 20 years together, the current lineup has enough confidence in their grind-inflected death metal to fully indulge every musical digression that came to mind. The result, surprisingly, is their strongest album since Smear Campaign, and possibly of their post-Earache oeuvre.
From the Swans churn of opener "Circumspect," the Dimension Hatröss vocals of "The Wolf I Feed" and the saxual assault of Everyday Pox," courtesy of avant-jazz nutbar John Zorn, Napalm Death spread their musical wings further than ever. But between all of that, they've set to tape the most concise and focused death-grind tracks of their last decade. The rollicking "Collision Course," a fulminating ball of spite, is destined to be a live set standard and the 65 seconds of "Nom de Guerre" is the most pointed we've heard these Birmingham bangers have been since Lee Dorrian decided to trip back into the '70s.
Utilitarian finds Napalm Death sounding punchier than they've been in years. There's a jaunty spring to the quartet's step you wouldn't expect from a bunch of middle aged guys who still cling to death metal so tenaciously. Particularly reinvigorated is Danny Herrera whose thumping is somewhat shortchanged by a production job that stifles the snare drum, but the toms shudder with brain-rattling force. Over top him, Mitch Harris has never sounded so catchy as he bangs out one great crust-inflected riff after another. Mark "Barney" Greenway's phlegmy roar is augmented and counterpointed by new screams courtesy of his bandmates. However, Napalm Death's recent fondness for chanting gets way overused on Utilitarian in one of the few false steps.
Even if Utilitarian violates the 30 minutes or less rule, Napalm Death do their best to earn every extra second of their 48 minute runtime with an renewed intensity that makes me think they might have another 20 years in them.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Bufo

Bufo
Moderni Ja Maailman Tuho
Addiction to War
2008
Form follows function, modern architects will tell you. That means a building's shape should be linked to its purpose. Finnish crustcore hooligans Bufo invert that axiom with their 2008 album Moderni Ja Maailman Tuho (Modernity and the End of the World) because its unique double-7-inch format dictates much of your listening experience. Dividing nine songs over four sides means you'll be flipping wax about every five minutes. That leaves you very little time to do anything else other than concentrate on their Rotten Sound meets Anti Cimex shenanigans and stare at the beautiful, Jesu-style cover art. This is one of those instances where I think any other format would take away from the presentation.
And these princes among grind and crust toads deserve your undivided attention because the trilling punk riff of album opener "Suden Hetki" is a clarion call to arms. By the time the band does that brief pause gag right before erupting into a blastbeat rager you're already thrashing around the room. It's that touch of crust to Bufo's brew that gives the songs time to breathe and flow and circle back about themselves (that awesome riff from "Suden Hekti" makes more than one appearance). It really gives the impression these guys have put some serious thought into their tuneage, and Moderni Ja Maailman Tuho is packed with those little touch moments like the bass isolation on "Silpouteneita Raajoja," the filigree flair of "!Reclama!," or the fact that the mics catch the sound of the drummer setting down his drum sticks at the end of close out anthem "Tama Vie Helvettiin." That close out song, a case of longest song of the album goes last (mitigated somewhat by getting its own side of a record) is a great exclamation point on the package as it lassos an implacably moving mid-paced riff, suddenly explodes into fretboard gymnastics and then chases the exuberance with a chill out coda that eases your way out of the album.
Not everything goes so smoothly (the two songs on side C are completely forgettable), but Bufo do enough right to warrant a listen. The cocksure swagger and cock rock solos are a helpful reminder that Anti Cimex's gutter glam posing wasn't too far removed from the same Sunset Strip style they so disdained.

Demo-lition Derby: Busuk

Busuk
Beats of Rage
There’s a difference between stripping and burlesque. Indonesia’s Simpsons-sampling encrusted grinders Busuk nail a perfect musical bit of burlesque on their three song demo Beats of Rage. They taunt and tease but at the end of it all, you walk away with the sense that you haven’t seen all they have to offer. They haven’t stripped bare their full repertoire of songwriting skills, but they’ve shimmied and shaken enough that you won’t leave feeling disappointed.
Crusty and grindy in ways that may recall Resistant Culture, Busuk have the perfect blend of thick and jagged guitars and a snare that snaps with a palpable thump. Additionally, the singer, recognizing when the band is just on and raging, is smart enough to know when to just STFU and let them play, like on the first half of intro “Blow Your Mind.” That all speaks of an impressive confidence in their cheese grater grind and neither “Dance at the Freaky Circle” nor “Virus Mind” will let you down. The only negative to this demo is that it’s a scant five minutes and a mere three songs, but I haven’t been this thoroughly titillated and teased since Amputee’s two minute lap dance last year. You can download Beats of Rage here.

Demo-lition Derby: Per Capita

Per Capita
The Damage Done
Bands like Germany’s Per Capita are the reason I keep blogging. This band has its shit nicely together on demo The Damage Done. They lead with a chipped-tooth bass that rocks a distinctive, crusty Vulgar Pigeons kinda vibe. It’s a perfect pinpoint that comes flying out the gate on the Dawkins-checking “The God Delusion.” It both propels and defines Per Capita’s brash confrontation.
But what makes me happiest is that just as soon as you think you’ve got a handle on Per Capita, they start tossing in d-beat theatrics stolen from any number of bands that may have once counted Tomas Lindberg among their membership. “Resignation” liberally borrows from Skitsystem while the gang choruses of “No White Supremacy” could have been lifted from “Dead Weight” on Disfear’s Live the Storm.
Mixing up d-beat and grind is not going to win any prizes for originality, but Per Capita have a firm grasp on what makes each sub-genre work and how they can best be blended. With 10 rocking originals and a spot on Dropdead cover, The Damage Done is definitely a demo I’d recommend downloading.

Astral Projection: Dephosphorus Play With Greek Fire

The United States’ space shuttle program may have lurched to an ignominious end, but other brave souls still dare to boldly go where no infinitive has been split before, plying the furthest reaches of the cosmos in search of adventure or enlightenment.
Piloting a craft cobbled together from the remains of grindcore, crust punk, black metal and that meditative space bubble thing from Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, Greek grindonauts Dephosphorus are a three man astro(logy/nomy) seminar in a musical form they call astrogrind.
“The astrogrind philosophy doesn’t have necessarily to do with the definition of a new genre since our music style is not something totally new,” guitarist Thanos Mantas said. “There are obviously influences from other bands and genres, the only thing sure being that the aura of our music is the one that somebody would expect from a band with such a concept. Since we have an astral concept, the term ‘astrogrind’ has popped out naturally as a designation, even though it does not determine something self-luminous, born from scratch.”

In Brightest Day

Combing a unique – for grindcore, anyway – fixation on the mystical with the accustomed aggression we all crave from blastbeat purveyors, Dephosphorus served up something unexpected, unheralded and absolutely enjoyable with debut EP Axiom, which has since been pressed on a 12-inch by 7 Degrees Records and made available as a free download by the band. Along with fellow space cadets PSUDOKU, Dephosphorus ensure 2011 will be the year grindcore left many of its terrestrial concerns behind in favor of swirling new vistas and unexplored horizons. It will all get a fuller expression on pending full length Night Sky Transform, which vocalist Panos Agoros promises will be more “aggressive, memorable and intense” than Axiom.
It can be easy to become burnt out and jaded if you’re constantly gorging on all that grindcore has to offer (by that measure I feel like the Sally Struthers of grind some days). After a few too many Nasum clones, getting intergalactic planetary/planetary intergalactic with astrogrind was exactly what I needed this year. Though Thanos and Panos kept things far more traditional with prior outfit StraightHate, Dephosphorus began mining the same science fiction authors that inspired luminaries such as Jon Chang to bolster the more mystical bent of their latest outfit.
“The Dephosphorus concept is allegorical, inspired by cosmology, astrobiology and science fiction authors like Iain M. Banks,” Panos said. “Somewhere in the universe exists an ancient lifeform ‘that is not God,’ Dephosphorus. It scans the universe for other forms of intelligent life, seeks their alliance and assistance in order to pierce the mysteries of the cosmos. When it manifests itself to civilizations like the earthly, it usually gets in contact with a small group (‘those who look to the sky with the right kind of eyes’ – as go the lyrics of the homonymous track from our debut album Night Sky Transform), which provoke radical change often through turmoil and violence.”
While Dephosphorus may be setting their controls for the heart of the sun, some of the mystical inspirations to their music is far more mundane and uniquely Greek.
“The mystical elements possibly originate from my occupation with the local folk music known as ‘rebetiko’ and the melodies which possess me as a lover of traditional Greek music,” Thanos said. “Many times some of the songs have an aura of old. I incorporate those elements inside the grind philosophy or blend them to produce some more psychedelic themes. Whether the audience perceives it or not is not an end in itself. This is simply how Dephosphorus operate.”

In Blackest Night

Dephosphorus will be throwing the doors of their operation open to Thralldom/Unearthly Trance’s Ryan Lipynsky who chipped in on the new song “Unconscious Excursion.” It’s an absolutely inspired pairing because each outfit approaches the same ritualistic experience through opposite means – Dephosphorus through the power of crusty grind and Unearthly Trance through the power of crusty doom. You can see what the common ground might be, right?
“Listening to [Lipynsky’s] music for a very long time, I realized while playing the guitar that subconsciously he helped me perceive things differently,” Thanos said. “You know, it’s like when you play and sometimes your fingers move independently from your will to some positions that somehow feel familiar. That’s more or less how things turned out for ‘Unconscious Excursion.’”
Panos said he met Lipynsky through his work for Metal Hammer, where he chips in the occasional interview. The journalistic pas de deux turned into an email friendship and eventually a full blown musical collaboration as Dephosphorus began penning tunes for Night Sky Transform.
“Shortly before we entered the studio in order to record the album and being through with rehearsals at that moment of time, Thanos wrote this song with Ryan’s playing in mind since he feels connected to him as a guitarist,” Panos said. “The song was recorded as part of our album session and it was practically a jam, since Thanos and Nikos rehearsed it just a couple of times right before tracking it.”
For his part, Lipynsky said he jumped at the chance to work with the Greek up and comers as a nod to the old school tape trading style, he said.
“This is not just something that I would do for every random person that wrote me,” he said. “I knew Panos and crew were of the same mindset because of the years of friendship through mail and email.”
He took the band’s rough track, penned some lyrics and recorded his vocals at his Brooklyn recording studio, adding his own unique spin to Dephosphorus’ signature sound.
“I’ve yet to hear the final mix, but I’d like to think I brought a slightly different color to the Dephosphorus spirit from Greece,” Lipynsky said.
That “different color” sounds as though it may be bleeding through Dephosphorus’ blackened night permanently, shading Night Sky Transform.
“In general there is more space in the themes, the beats are more compact and the vocals are better too,” Thanos said. “But what really makes the difference is that the album has gone deeper into a blackened psychedelia. That’s what’s most interesting, because except the high velocities and frenetic beats there is some intellectualism going on and the tracks unfold when they are meant to. Another factor is that we have worked intensely on the material over a short period of time and that has contributed in making it sound more professional and complete. You’ll realize for yourself when you’ll listen to it!”

Demo-lition Derby: Mushroom Star

Mushroom Star
1/11 Demo
The purported mystical properties of mushrooms and stars should come as no surprise to anyone weaned on the exploits of the world’s most famous pixilated plumber. Having their mystical powers turned to the service of blackened crust punk makes sense by comparison.
Sporting a completely illegible logo, Mushroom Star channel the frigid ferocity and necro vibes of … OK… coastal Florida. While geographically smack in the center of surf and sun, spiritually and sonically the band is out exploring the inky emptiness between stars where unwholesome Old Ones lurk. Mushroom Star calls it “mystic punk metal.” To these old ears, its sounds like Dephosphorus’ punkier brother or Infernal Stronghold’s less frosty cousin amidst crust punk clamor and black metalled wailing and groaning (but also a band smart enough to know when to STFU and let the music carry the mystical message).
The seven songs are uplifting, transcendent and often inspired. Obviously recorded live in a rehearsal space, Mushroom Star’s demo turns in a blackened crust equivalent of “The Trooper” on the galloping “Snow” or the revels in the martial march of “Magus.” One of the demo’s better efforts, “From Womb to Tomb” lifts off from a trance-inducing spiraling riff at its core, going intergalactic. A high point of the whole effort is the drumming, which, on first glance, is not overly flashy but always seems slide in with a timely fill or a perfectly punctuated cymbal crash.
While, on the whole, this is pretty solid demo from a promising band, there is one very glaring exception. There is no polite way to say this, but the attempt at clean vocals and mystical chanting that ruin the first minute of “Truth of the Sword” are just awful. But if you can gut your way through the first 60 seconds, everything quickly rights itself and proceeds merrily along its black metallic way.
You can give it a listen for yourself here.

This is Their Community: Showing Resistant Culture Reverence and Respect

You can’t dip your metatarsals in the pool of punk and metal anymore without coming across someone blathering about how corporate rock really sucks. But for all the DIY posturing is it really any different? Basement origins aside, aren’t Century Media, Relapse and Earache just the corporate media model writ small? When your newest, professionally shot video was being introduced on MTV2 by Jamey Jasta, just how underground were you really?
However, the same digital demons that are flaying the professional recording industry alive have also democratized the means of production (if you want to be textbook Marxist about it) for bands, meaning going the DIY route is easier than ever.
In their nearly two decade existence trolling the seedy underside of Los Angeles’ punk and metal scene, Resistant Culture have picked up a trick or two about doing it themselves while honing their grinding crust and crusty grind. They run their own label to release their own records as part of their commitment to keeping everything in-house.
“We all come from DIY backgrounds and have a strong DIY ethic,” the band said (questions were answered collectively, they told me). “It goes back to the punk ethic of taking responsibility to make your dreams come true, whatever they may be. It also resonates with the modern multimedia technology landscape. Now that the tools exist, there's no excuse for a band that's passionate to share their music with the world not to take full advantage. We do our own recording, art, web development, e-commerce, booking, promotion, accounting, and we've developed partnerships with other indie labels for global distribution.”
Sounds like fun, right? Don’t forget the band slipped the word “responsibility” in there as well. That means nobody’s going to be able to blame label meddling if things go wrong either.
“Because we record ourselves, it can be hard to let the final mix go as you're always trying to keep tweaking the tracks to make them better, but the triumph is that by the time you're finally done, you're happy with the product,” they said.
What struck me recently during a Resistant Culture binge is just how damn positive the band remains, particularly on All One Struggle, despite drawing on several centuries of European oppression of indigenous culture for lyrical inspiration. And while that’s certainly a focus, the band said, their vision is far more inclusive than you may first imagine.
“What shaped the vision for the album was the idea that all life in today's world is engaged in the struggle to survive,” according to Resistant Culture. “The illusion of separateness makes it easy for people to ignore the voices of different ethnicities, species, genders, etc., while at a deeper level of being, we're all connected and we all require the same clean air, food, water, etc. to survive on this Earth. Our intention is to promote the idea that in order to survive in this toxic world, we don't all have to become homogeneous and lose our identities and subscribe to a single ideology or carry the same flag, rather as Subcomandante Marcos said, we'd like to see 'a world where many worlds fit.' In other words, we can recognize and respect our differences, but work together when/where ever possible to create a better future. By recognizing that all struggles for liberation, autonomy, self-determination, justice, rights, etc. are one, we can foster an attitude of solidarity that will strengthen all movements.”
I’ll not deny my early interest in Resistant Culture was driven at least partly by Jesse Pintado’s participation post-Napalm Death. Whether as a guitarist on Welcome to Reality or drafting Resistant Culture’s Tony Rezhawk to front a reunited Terrorizer, Pintado — just by virtue of who he was — helped raise the band’s profile significantly.
“Jesse's style blended well with the direction of the band,” Resistant Culture said. “He was stoked to be doing some d-beat, crust, and punk mixed with brutal grindcore and metal. And of course, he added his signature style of guitar playing to the some of the songs. Unfortunately for the most part, all the work we did with Jesse including the live shows went unnoticed by the metal establishment, but for some reason all this is being unearthed now, which is a good thing.”
According to the band, Pintado also melded well with Resistant Culture’s unique take on indigenous issues that undergirds the grind.
“We also shared a spiritual bond as he was able to connect with and express his indigenous roots through the tribal aspects of the band. We actually got to talking about bringing him into RC at a traditional native bear dance ceremony. After playing a few gigs we actually did a tribal ‘unplugged’ set with him at an anti-war protest. It was awesome to bring the spirit of metal into the spirit of community and social/cultural consciousness. It was an honor to work with him, and he'll always be with us in spirit and heart.”
It's all one struggle. Reverence and respect.

Demo-lition Derby: Satellite Sleep

Satellite Sleep
Demo
I have been obsessively listening to this for weeks. Need I say more?
Satellite Sleep’s three song demo pornographically tingles the same cerebral nodules that make me excited for Christopher Nolan’s Inception. It’s a twisty bit of emotionally draining crusty punk transcendence that serves damning notice to all the lesser punk bands out there content to lazily Xerox hardcore clichés that they’re about to get lapped.
Through three songs of deliberately paced crust in the vein of Trap Them, completely with desperately howled vocals and the claustrophobic atmosphere of Amebix or Damad, Satellite Sleep reminded this cynical fuck of why he loved punk so much as wee laddie.
The watery, somnambulistic production on the demo gives Satellite Sleep a hypnagogic vibe that’s wonderfully surreal and stunningly evocative. “Empty” rings out from the precipice of some emotionally devastating abyss as the guitars and cymbals crash through a barren musical wasteland. The naked anguish and emotional violence of “Cold Womb” builds to a blastbeaten catharsis and a wasted, spent and, moreover, inevitable entropic breakdown in an emotionally taxing 4:43. Bringing up the rear, the band’s eponymous final track clangs with a resigned air, raging against a cage the band seems intent on refusing to even acknowledge, drillbit bass hacking at the lock in a display of willful, impotent defiance.
Download. Now. And bother every label person you know until somebody signs these kids.

G&P Review: Blood I Bleed/Massgrav

Blood I Bleed/Massgrav
Split
Selfmadegod
What happens when you strike when you strike Swedes Massgrav’s flinty crust grind off of Dutch masters Blood I Bleed’s steely grindcore chops? You’re going to cast enough sparks to set Northern Europe ablaze.
Though constrained by a more muffled production job than on Gods Out of Monsters, Blood I Bleed still circle a carcass like a school of starved bull sharks. Shantia’s songwriting is still leagues ahead of his peers and the white noise scrawls I immediately associate with his work are deployed to devastating effect. “Slow Motion Apocalypse” detonates 30 opening seconds of atonal feedback that screws the song’s tension until it vibrates like a single twanging nerve that has to explode or burst into flame. And “Downfall of the Common Man” bleeds out on the pavement in an arterial spurt of amplifier anguish.

Blood I Bleed – “Downfall of the Common Man”

The band also drills down into their prior incarnation as My Minds Mine, exhuming a trio of oldies but goodies to brutalize all over again.
Over the second half of the 20 minute confab, Sweden’s Massgrav unleash another round of napalm over Stureplan with a multi-throated crust-grind rampage aimed at people who though Anti Cimex were just too damn slow as harrow through hell on “Vagan Till Helvetet.”

Massgrav – “Vagan Till Helvetet”

Courtesy of a slightly more animated production job, Massgrav actually come off a touch more desperate and frenzied than even Blood I Bleed, raving like the Tasmanian Devil on a weeklong crack bender.
While they’re generally more comfortable cruising along at sub-Mick Harris speeds, the blasted, blighted and bastardized 16 seconds of “Lonesamtal – Legal Valdtakt” suggest the band recently pillaged a Stockholm dentist’s office and decided a drill bit would make a valuable addition to their musical repertoire.
Selfmadegod really outdid themselves roping together these two paragons for this split. This is where the 1337 m337 to blastb347.

[Full disclosure: Blood I Bleed 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: Infernal Stronghold

Infernal Stronghold

Godless Noise

Forcefield

Otto: Don't call me stupid.

Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it.

A Fish Called Wanda

1988

Where else other than black metal would you find a swath of humanity that simultaneously claims to possess the sole true embodiment of Nietzche’s will to power, triumphing over the slave morality of conformist society, while loudly decrying any other of the armchair ubermenschen with the temerity to flaunt their ever so rigid rules?

On the rare occasions I’ve looking for something blackened, a couple spins of Hellhammer or reservations at Acadiana are generally enough to set me straight. So Infernal Stronghold’s second long player (vinyl!) of blackened crust charred flesh is not the kind of thing I would have picked for myself. Infernal Stronghold’s second full length is a freezer burnt batch of horror punk with wall of ice vocal screeches that sound like they were recorded a county over from the rest of the band. It’s a distillation and celebration of the crusty Amebix punk grime that soots the inner linings of black metal’s soul. The

Everything on the Christ-punching Godless Noise (check out songs like “Crashing Trucks into Churches” and “Fuck ‘Thou Shalt Culture’”) chugs along at the speed of Satan with heaps of malevolent feedback shearing at the double picked guitars distant drums and howled vocals, but Philadelphians sport no corpse paint and wear nary a spiked bracelet in band photos. In fact, their bedhair and ragged shirts would pass unremarked if they were your run of the mill Assuck cover band.

Infernal Stronghold’s one nod to being kvlt seems to be their unwillingness to label side A and B on their LP, so I have no clue which song is which. That said, there’s a Conan-core tinged riff during a slow song in the middle of one of the sides that Crom would sell their autographed Robert E. Howard originals to have written. Fenriz probably approves, but there’s enough of that squatter soul to Godless Noise that even an unrepentant black metal mocker such as myself actually had the urge to throw the goat and go running shirtless through the forest on a moonlit night.

[Full Disclosure: Forcefield kindly provided me with a copy.]