Blast(beat) From the Past: Vulgar Pigeons

Vulgar Pigeons
Burning Episode
Deepsend
2004
I wish they call could be California... grind.
OK, lame, I know. But the Golden State may be known for surf, sun and silicon(e), and you’d never know it after listening to just about any grind disc out of L.A. Almost to a band (Terrorizer being an obvious exception), California grind is bass heavy, punked out and scummy as all hell. Bass typically gets short shrift in a scene more interested in speed than heft, but Excruciating Terror, Benumb, Phobia and Bloody Phoenix have all cherished their romance with the lower registers.
Born from Benumb (bassist Paul Pontikoff and drummer John Gotelli), Vulgar Pigeons carry over the same four string tom foolery from that band. And though the band’s debut, Summary Execution, has been swallowed by the memory hole that was the great Deathvomit catastrophuck, their vulgar disply of power Burning Episode is still readily available. Summary was a tad overlong and dragged in spots, but Burning Episode goes down smoother with a more varied songwriting repertoire crammed into 18 minutes.
Harking back to Phobia’s debut, Return to Desolation, Vulgar Pigeons don’t look askance as pushing grind’s notoriously short attention spans, pushing songs into the three, four, occasionally even five minute range in between 30 second blasters like “Coffin Honeymoon.” The Pigeons also aren’t afraid to monkey around with tempos as with the Anthrax mosh break of “Compartmentalize.”
If you, like me, have a Benumb fetish (and if you don’t, seriously, WTF?), Vulgar Pigeons should have pride of place in your collection.

Blast(beat) From the Past: Exitium

Exitium
Outsourcing Morality
Deepsend
2006
Imagine, if you can, a world where Dying Fetus’ John Gallagher could actually hold together a line up and deliver on all that band’s squandered potential, and instead of playing retread death metal, Gallagher and Co. poured all of that technical ferocity into two and three minute cluster bombs of death/grind. If you can picture that, you’ve got a pretty good idea of where Exitium are coming from.
Not to be confused with a pair of similarly named Scandinavian black metal bands, Texas/Oklahoma’s Exitium (formerly known as Diabolus Et Amicae) retain all the technical legerdemain of their deathly cousins – sweep picking, pinch harmonics, honest to Satan lead guitar, even the occasional tremolo dive bomb, but grafted on to a death/grind exoskeleton that huffs and churns along like the pissed off, anthropomorphic pile junk from Tetsuo the Iron Man. If the thought Decapitated decapitating Circle of Dead Children appeals to you, meet you new favorite band.
Though Outsourcing Morality can become a tad repetitive even at a slight 25 minutes long, guitarists Justin Jones and Kirk Kirkwood (who’s also responsible for the album art), frontload their sole album to date with the cream of their technical chops. The lead off title track and follow up “Enshrined” in particular deliver on every bit of songwriting chicanery the duo could commit to tape. On the vocal front Brandon Carrigan coughs up lung butter all over the mic, occasionally alternating his death gurgles with pig squeals.
Produced by Kill the Client’s James Delgado (whose cohort Champ Morgan grabs a guest mic spot) and mastered by Scott Hull, Outsourcing Morality throbs with a pleasantly unholy, subterranean malignance.
Since this came out in 2006, Exitium has undergone a massive lineup overhaul, with Kirkwood and bassist/new vocalist Andy Beard as the sole original members, recruiting Suture/Devourment drummer Erik Park to round out the trio. The band announced plans to record again in 2007 but so far nothing has been forthcoming. This is one to watch.