G&P Review: Blockheads

Blockheads
The World is Dead
Relapse
Calling Blockheads an old school grindcore band doesn't do them justice. Ye olde timey one room schoolhouse full of repurposed punk riffs and unrelenting blastbeats is the only matriculation these French lifers have ever known. Though The World is Dead is only their fourth album, the band formed before Barney Greenway got his shot at Napalm Death's mic but without racking up the same name recognition and cache. Relapse's might and wallet might be able to power them to a late career surge by broadening their footprint.
With all their accumulated years of experience, Blockheads make the most of The World is Dead. True to their vintage, they turn in 40 minutes of early-style grind that slots comfortably between Extreme Noise Terror and the earliest Phobia material. It’s not flashy or revolutionary, but Blockheads bring craftsmanship and temperament born of time and patience to the plate. The result is rip snorting ride through 25 songs of unrepentant agitprop boiled down to shoutable 90 second slogans (“Be a Thorn to Power,” “Follow the Bombs”) that, sadly, would be relevant to any political era in grindcore’s three decade lifespan.  Anyone who enjoyed Blockheads’ split with Mumakil (actually the second pairing for those two bands in the space of three years) knows there’s more than a little bit of overlap in their sound. Blockheads may have a touch more of Rotten Sound’s gear shifting clank about them, but The World is Dead comes off as a more focused and intense take of Mumakil’s Behold the Failure (Mumakil’s vocalist Thomas guests on the record as well).
The World is Dead is a little on the long side and the plodding seven minutes of “Trail of the Dead” could have been shoved down the memory hole without too many tears shed. But when you go the better part of a decade between albums, you have to wring every second out of records when you get the chance.

G&P Review: Warfuck

Warfuck
The Weak & the Wicked
Mediafire
Warfuck are as grim and unforgiving as a battlefield amputation, but the French duo have just about mastered that hooky breed of grind that made Mieszko Talarczyk the patron saint of modern blastbeats. That makes perfect sense when you recall "Warfuck" was an early Nasum tune. Other reference points might include Insect Warfare and Wormrot, but the Nasum influences come through the strongest to my ears, and Warfuck are strong enough on their game that they could really live up to that comparison with time.
Eleven sample happy songs (Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet makes multiple appearances) in 22 minutes finds these Frenchmen in fine fettle. "Modern Disease" exemplifies Warfuck's flair for grind tunes with actually riffs and hooks. "Innocence" is yet another two minutes of headbanging goodness. Even when the Nasum influences are their most overt (the noodling middle of "Straight to the Aim" nods back to the bass break of "Scoop") it's never outright theft so much as a high fiving fuck yeah.
The only knock is that Warfuck drag somewhat when their songs exceed about 80 seconds. But by "drag" I mean become a lot more average because everything else is spot on raging to perfection. This is absolutely one of the best upstarts I've heard all year.

[Full disclosure: The band sent me a download.]

G&P Review: Coche Bomba

Coche Bomba
Vectores de la Muerte
Revulsion
Whatever evolutionary detour hardcore has taken throughout its existence, polyglot French punks Coche Bomba were happy to come along for the ride. Their discography record, collecting all of the band's output from 1995 through 1997, is an explosion of screaming, fastcore-to-grindcore beats, mic-passing choruses, the occasional whoa-oh-oh ("TRBNG") and even some halfassed reggae ("Le Sangre de Christo") just for good measure. These audio automotive explosives even reach back deep into punk's history when it was still recognizably anchored in swinging rock 'n' roll ("La Patria Es") and Ramones-style buzzsaw ("Tout de Suite").
That's a lot of different elements coming through Coche Bomba's corpus over 45 songs recorded over a three year period, and, ultimately, those elements are notable for how they accent the band's fairly standard Heresy-core. So don't expect them to explode your notions of hardcore/proto-grind despite their admonition to take these 45 songs and "annoy people//play loud." I'd be lying if I didn't say a million other bands were playing this exact same style, and Coche Bomba sit comfortably in the middle of the pack.
However, Revulsion did a nice job putting this package together, which features artwork like They Live glasses gone horribly wrong or a photo essay on Neo Tokyo after Akira came back to town. It's a nice cartoonish post-apocalyptic vibe when so many of their contemporaries are still ripping off Discharge's nuclear test and war zone style. So overall it's a cool wrapping around a fairly average band, but Coche Bomba can scratch that hardcore itch if you come across a copy somewhere.

[Full disclosure: Revulsion sent me a review copy.]

G&P Review: Blockheads/Mumakil

Blockheads/Mumakil
Split
Relapse
Put me in front of a keyboard and I’m normally a pretty verbose dude, but I’ve been sitting on this second meeting between these two evenly matched Eurogrind pulverizers for about four months now trying to figure out what to say about an album that’s serviceable, a nice snapshot of two decent bands doing what they do decently and is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from them with no frills or frippery. Can you see why I’ve been stumped? What do you say about that? So thanks to Impure Lard for prodding me up off my ass.
It’s seven inches of France’s Blockheads colliding with Switzerland’s Mumakil. They play fairly similar styles of straight ahead grind. They both do it pretty well. Relapse put their coin behind this EP so the sound is clear without being pristine and sterile.
I don’t know who pissed in Xav’s ratatouille but dude sounds like he’s ready to cram Freedom Fries under your finger nails as rails his way through Blockheads’ “Famin,” bellowing until his lungs damn near burst. Where the French institution really shines, however, is on the anthemic “Follow the Bombs,” which rocks martial tempos and triumphant guitar arrangements.
Flipside, Mumakil have once again been chugging the blastahol on their three selections, like the scathing “Wish You the Worst.” For anyone who was disappointed in Behold the Failure’s lack of songwriting variety, unrelenting blasts of “No Warning” and “Doomed” work much better in this limited format.
Of the two, I’d definitely score Blockheads as the better band, but over all this is a perfectly enjoyable split. If you’re unfamiliar with either, this makes a great taster platter to familiarize yourself.

G&P Review: Gorod

Gorod
Process of a New Decline
Willowtip
According to French metallions Gorod’s cosmology, an advanced extra-terrestrial species known as the Chaosmongers the Minarians come to Earth with the intention of bursting through Dimension Hatross enslaving and exploiting humanity after first guiding them through an evolutionary “autodestruction phase.” Somewhere in all that an alien ambassador named Soracle, the shadowy Obsequim Minaris society and some guy named Adam play prominent parts. Are you lost? Yeah, me too. I’ll just assume in the end we find out it’s a cookbook!!1! (Fun random fact, Richard Kiel of James Bond Jaws fame played one of the aliens in that episode.)
Mockery aside, Gorod’s third album of sci fi encrusted technical metal shenanigans hits all the right calculus-core equations required of the genre. The songs skitter like a chunk of butter dropped into a ripping hot skillet, refusing to settle on any single riff or movement for long but rather slide and splatter around you. A song like “Programmers of Decline” hops about between fragments of riffs like nanoscale robot fleas.
Gorod are at their best when they blithely skip away from tech metal convention. Opener “Disavow Your God” busts out a transcendent melody right before the two minute mark that glances off the song’ more protein packed sections is easily Process of a New Decline’s highlight. After your obligatory Martian invader of the Theremin-style opening, “The Path” veers into almost gothic and *gasp* poppy bridge that bounces cleaner vocals off of FXed ad astra guitars in a pairing that harkens back to Dark Tranquility circa Haven. Ditto with “Watershed,” which warps into delicate alien arias that highlight not only Gorod’s obvious technical mastery but the always elusive songwriting craft as well. That may be Gorod’s strongest point. Tech metal is custom crafted for self indulgence but Process of a New Decline shows Gorod know how to ruthlessly edit out the frippery when a song like the relatively straightforward “Splinters of Life.”
Tech metal isn’t my thing but I can appreciate the craft and artistry that went into Process of a New Decline. While it will definitely set the graphing calculator set aflame with passion, I just don’t see it converting outsiders like me.

[Full disclosure: Willowtip provided me with a review copy.]

Blast(beat) From the Past: Blockheads

Blockheads
Shapes of Misery
Overcome
2006
I dare you to call France’s Blockheads cheese eating surrender monkeys. Go ahead. When you do, I’ll be standing about 20 feet off to the side so the blood doesn’t splash on my shoes.
Like Mumakil, with whom they’ve shared a split, Blockheads only come with one setting: scorched earth assault. Shapes of Misery, their fourth long player, is molar-cracking blasts and implacable dentist drill riffing from opening juggernaut “Bow Down” straight through the pulled grenade pin closing of “Business Intelligence.” What it may lack in songwriting variety, Shapes of Misery more than compensates with pure shrapnel. It’s 30 minutes of medical experiment guitar scrapings, septic tank bass, .50-caliber on the perimeter drumming and Holocaust survivor worthy rage.
“Silent” is a watertight 36 seconds of jaw jacking stop/start drumming while “Fuck off and Die!” is a roiling cauldron of beneath the surface bass concussion. The guitars get their moment to shine on “I’ve Been,” refracting off splintered glass guitar solo.
Like Mumakil, don’t be surprised if this very deserving French outfit finds a home on Relapse in the future as well.