G&P Review: Jesus Cröst

Jesus Cröst
1986
Bones Brigade
The worst aspect of the quadrennial World Cup feets-ball tournament is suffering through that one coworker who has suddenly declared him- or herself grand poobah of all soccer, loudly pontificating on the arcane advancement rules gleaned from Wikipedia. I’ll never understand how the United States was able to lose its way into each round. (And quite honestly I don’t care because, duh, it’s soccer and I’m an American [USA! USA! USA! USA!]). But for those of you with fond memories of Paul the Octopus and a quarter hour to kill, Rotterdam soccer hooligans Jesus Cröst penned an ode to the 1986 World Cup on their third album.
Musically, the dynamic Dutch duo has not advanced the powerviolent arts significantly with 1986. In fact, there’s a monochromatic quality to writing on the 22 songs that blurs them into a somewhat long and confusing whole (Hey, just like a soccer match! Perhaps it’s a meta commentary on the experience of watching the game?).
Taking a cue from Macabre, each song is dedicated to a different footballer of yore, shining 50 second spotlights on players that give the album a strong narrative quality even if the music is frustratingly lacking in diversity. It’s a great idea, but one similar song careens into another. It’s like watching a game from way up in the nosebleeds where you can’t see jersey numbers, so the action all becomes a formless smudge of people milling about way down on the field. Jesus Cröst’s past two albums were hacked from the same blast, pause, scream, blast foundation but they felt more invigorated and propulsive than 1986. So it kind of sucks that this is their farewell effort knowing that they have so much more to give.
America’s periodic, herpes-like flare up of soccer fever has passed, but if you’re a football fan with a passion for powerviolence then Jesus Cröst have the (oddly specific) cultural crossover you’ve been waiting for. 1986 is not a bad album, but you’ve heard this done better, even by this band. 

[Full disclosure: I received a download for review.]

They Scream Protest: F.U.B.A.R. Shake the Seven Year Itch

It's been a long seven years since Justification of Criminal Behaviour, but F.U.B.A.R. made it seem like time was flying this year when they dropped the absolutely crushing Lead Us to War. It's a Large Hadron Collider of an album that slams together particles of grindcore and power violence into a universe-shattering big bang of sonic violence. The band never intended to wait this long between albums, but it's a paltry price to pay for an album this crushing.
And it's not like F.U.B.A.R. have been sitting at home twiddling their thumbs for the better part of a decade either. The Dutch band has been steadily dropping split releases, jumping in the van for the occasional tour and generally just taking life as it comes.
"Well … working on a full length got pushed back a couple of times over the last years," bassist Bas said. "It seemed like there were always offers and ideas for split releases. We did a couple of  tours, some kids were born, some physical wear and tear here and there (we don’t get any younger you know). We had  some delay."
Part of the delay  was that F.U.B.A.R. make a clear distinction between how they write to fill a single side of a 7-inch and how they pace and plan a full length record. And anyone who's put on Lead Us to War will appreciate their thoughtfulness.
"To do splits is much easier," Bas said. "For a split 7-inch you need, well, five to seven songs. For a split LP you need 10 to 15 song. But for a full length you need up to 20 or 25 songs depending on the running time. Also we hold on to the belief that a 7-inch is meant for seven minutes of all or nothing. These songs are more easy to write compared to longer songs with different structures etc., which we think we need on a full length with a running time of, well, close to half an hour to keep things interesting."
The current crappy state of the world gave F.U.B.A.R. plenty of lyrical fodder to fill that half an hour as well, Bas said. While F.U.B.A.R.  plot firmly in the middle of the current wave of political grindcore, there's something about the way the band divvies up the lyrics between three vocalists that gives them an honesty and a sincerity that's lacking in a lot of other bands that puke out pro forma political rants.
Speaking of ranting: "We write about what keeps us busy, worries us, what makes our minds boil with rage and fury and make us spew our anger in big chucks to those who try to force their sugar coated happy colored lies and  hatred and prejudices down our throats every day in TV commercials, and happy faced game shows hosted by perfectly shaped females who try to sell us what we don’t need in the name of consumption and give insecure children a reason to start developing eating disorders, lying politicians, soap stars and other scum that should be dismantled," Bas said. "And we try to translate this into sound."
One of the things I love most about Lead Us to War is just how freaking gigantic it sounds. It's a throwback to the mid-90s when I was really getting into grind and bands like Phobia and Excruciating Terror were dropping albums with huge guitar tones. To get that titanic sound, F.U.B.A.R. turned to producer  J.B. Van der Wal, bassist for Dr. Doom, another band that knows something about sounding gigantic. Bas said F.U.B.A.R.  knew he would be someone who could make sure the album didn't come out "too controlled."
"We really wanted to record with JB," he said. "We  all know the productions JB did and,  we were looking forward to record with him. He does the job very well. [F.U.B.A.R.  vocalist] Luc is a good friend of JB, so it was an easy set up. The whole recording process was very relaxed. For us it could not have been better and were more than happy with the result. JB is a dude who knows his craft and knows how to make a record sound the way it should sound."
While seven years may have been a bit of a wait for Lead Us to War, Bas said the band is already working on follow up material, but nothing has been pinned down for sure yet. Until then, we'll just have to wait patiently to see where F.U.B.A.R. lead us next.

G&P Review: F.U.B.A.R.

Mongo only pawn... in game of life.
Blazing Saddles
1974

F.U.B.A.R.
Lead Us to War
Hammerheart
The sagacious assortment of anonymous eminences we collectively refer to as "they" assure us that absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Accepting that, ad arguendo, as a truism, my ventricles must be near to bursting with joy (or Five Guys bacon cheese dogs) because it's been seven years since F.U.B.A.R. graced us with Justification of Criminal Behaviour. Sure, they've popped a squat and dropped a bucket full of splits in the long years since, but there's something special about getting a full 30 minute experience from the Dutch power violence-inflected grindcore gang.
F.U.B.A.R. albums always sound wonderfully huge, and Lead us to War is another apatosaurus-sized stomp through 21st century sickness and malaise, courtesy of Dr. Doom bassist J.B. Van der Wal's production job. It also showcases a band in consummate control of their art. While they're not shattering any molds (though "Misplaced Faith" sneaks in some apocalyptic pschedelia and hip hop delivery), F.U.B.A.R. know how to play with time and tempo to generate the largest impact and they're not shy about swiping tidbits from every branch of the speedy punk family tree to make their point.
And they'd really appreciate if you pay attention to that point. Fourth track "I Scream Protest" is the best key to unlocking F.U.B.A.R.'s Cerberus-headed vocal assault on the eroding foundations of civilization. Faced with the iniquity and inequality of a globalized world, the song is a rallying cry to cast down the demons of avarice, violence and intolerance. Those themes may be familiar to the point of tired cliche, but F.U.B.A.R. manage to convey a sincerity that earns them a pass even from my cynical, shrunken Grinch heart.
In another wonderful touch, Lead Us to War feels like it was sequenced for vinyl, with the title track in the middle providing a satisfying emotional closer to what would be Side A before taking a deep breath, flipping the platter and diving back into the grind. F.U.B.A.R. won't lead you to war, but give them a chance and they'll lead you somewhere awesome.

G&P Review: Yama

By the water of Leman I sat down and wept...
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear

T.S. Eliot
The Waste Land
III. The Fire Sermon
1922

Yama
Seaquake
Mind Flare
For all of Seaquake's nautical themes, Yama's three song stoner dude excursion to Hindu hell is desert dry. Rather than billowing swells crashing against mossy rocks covered in seagull shit, Seaquake sounds more like a parched sirocco scraping through an arid sagebrush plain. Like a scorching summer, Seaquake starts out seasonably pleasant, but it grows a bit more suffocating as Yama drag on. With only three songs and 20 minutes of baked doom, that causes a bit of a problem in spots.
First off, the Dutch quartet's influences nod to the obvious: Master of Reality, later Sleep and the sunbaked Sky Valley where Kyuss would hang out taking drunken pot shots at gila monsters. Everything starts off strong enough. Lead track "Hollow" is the best of the bunch, a head nodding jam that thrums with a nicely throbbing rhythm that will cradle and comfort whatever recreational pharmacopia you choose to augment your musical experience. Vocalist Alex's stab at a Layne Straley croon is at its loosest and most vibrant even when he's yowling nothing more complex than a prolonged "Hey, yeah."
The subsequent two songs, "Seaquake" and "Synergy," are a bit spottier. The title track's dusty blues (you can practically see the grit blowing out the rusty harmonica) becomes increasingly desiccated, teetering on the verge of inertia. "Synergy," a seven minute seminar on a single riff, tumbles straight over into stasis. Sleep proved with Dopesmoker that a single riff could be transcendent, but "Synergy" is less than the sum of its parts. The monotonous vocals and unidirectional riff don't cohere into something that elevates your brainwaves through warping reptition.
"Hollow" proves Yama can pen a quality tune when they have half a mind. Now they need to work on crafting a coherent album experience. As strong as Seaquake started, it withered rather than flourished under the scorching noonday sun.

[Full disclosure: Mind Flare sent me a review copy.]

You Grind…But Why?: Shantia

Shantia, six string anchor to Dutch grinders My Minds Mine and Blood I Bleed, is easily one of my favorite songwriters working these days. He’s got a stripped down punk quality to his playing that careens between catchy and aggressive amid strangling squalls of delicious guitar feedback. It turns out for Shantia grind wasn’t so much a choice as a calling.

“I was into hardcore/punk right after I was into (speed/thrash/any) metal and discovered this beautiful mix of both with even more speed and anger,” he said. “My band at the time quit in '95. As I had some friends who are/were on the same level as me music-wise, it wasn't even a discussion; we had to start a grindcore band.”

G&P Review: Jesus Crost

Jesus Crost
010
Bones Brigade
If I’d been more organized (or frankly given a half nickel whorefuck) I’d probably gotten off my ass sooner to have this post coincide with that soccer thingy (scuze me, football for all you dirty foreigners) that had people sending death threats to a harmless mollusk. But America sucked (like usual) and we stopped caring quickly (like usual – USA! USA! USA!). Anyway, I was too busy gloating about the Blues landing Jaroslav Halak for the price of an empty puckbag to a former coworker of Canadien extraction.
So more importantly, power violent Dutch soccer hooligans Jesus Crost, who have a pending split with Phobia, upped their game on second album 010, which nicely continues the themes of previous album Tot. The only major difference is the band does tend to fall slightly more on the side of power violence than the grind this outing. Though the blasting rarely takes a break, Jesus Crost know just when to drop a musical changeup into the mix, whether it’s the chugalug of “Ungehever,” the cocksure strut of “Parasit” or the brain-rending screech of “Fickpisse.”

Jesus Crost – “Fickpisse”

The band even throws a vocal curve ball on “Gonorrhea” and “Battisa,” mixing in some pig squeals with the screeches just to keep things interesting. So if blasting grindy, violency noise is your thing, 010 will ably achieve that GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

Blood In, Blood Out: Dutch Grinders Ask, What’s In a Name?

You know that Shakespeare quote about names and roses? Yeah, that one. Well, I will not be breaking that out because it’s trite and overused, and that would just be fucking lame on my part. Because for the last 15 years Shantia, Rosco and Bert have consistently been banging out music so awesome – no matter under what appellation or backed by what drummer – that they deserve something better than a tired cliché.
Whether the beats were blasted by Ype or Henk under the name My Minds Mine or Blood I Bleed, the Dutch outfit(s?) have been playing some of my favorite grind, especially of late. In fact, the growth and continuity between the bands is no coincidence, guitarist Shantia said.
“To start this off, I must say that MMM consisted of four mates with no important jobs, no kids or other time consuming factors. This led to lots of practicing, gigs, some tours and some recordings,” he said. “At the time we were quite close and all I can say about MMM quitting is that in a later stage there were tensions between some people which led to disbanding MMM. Also Rosco was out of the picture for a while as he had problems with his vocal cords (what a coincidence, heh?), which led to a temporary break for him. We continued MMM under a new name and with a new drummer. As you will understand this was all out of respect of our old drummer Ype, who we've known since we were 15 years old. For me BIB is basically the same band with the same ideas and plans and I wonder that if we have to make this decision ever again we will do the name change again or stick to the old name.”
Considering the musician carousel that characterizes Napalm Death or Extreme Noise Terror in most people’s minds, that’s an amazing act of loyalty in the face of a single changing member.
Whatever they choose to call themselves, like Nasum before them and Wormrot after, Blood I Bleed have that rare gift of crafting actual grindcore songs. You know, songs that actually stand out, have memorable hooks, definable characteristics rather than just a 20 minute blur of blasting noise. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Again, Shantia said that’s by design.
“The riff, hook, bridge, start, ending are all looked closely at to make one song ‘different’ from another,” he said. “Indeed this is tricky, as we are just playing grind/hardcore, right? And I don’t think people expect too much experimental shit from a band like us. Lately we try to bring in Bert's vocals as well to make things a bit more hectic. As far as the hit-score; you never know until you play songs live or get feedback after you made recordings. From crowd reactions we understood that a song like ‘Bring Me His Head’ is quite popular. You know, slow starting, 1,2,3,4! and all hell breaks loose.”
Given the clear craft involved, I was surprised to learn that one of my favorite aspects of My Minds Mind/Blood I Bleed songs – the use of feedback as a songwriting tool – was not as deliberate as I imagined given how much it complements a tune like “Insensible We Are.”
“I love this squeaking tone and it just fits good in some songs,” Shantia said. “If it was up to me I would start one song with feedback and let it run all through a 30 second song. It is not a deliberate part of the songwriting, it just happens/gets added when we rehearse new songs.”
Shantia might get his 30 second feedback song chance in the near future because Blood I Bleed are steadily writing new music for a slew of upcoming releases.
“At this point we are writing new songs and lyrics,” he said. “We have 9 or 10 songs ready and the intension is to record about 20 songs again after summer. We have been asked to do a split record with Lycanthropy and we will probably do that after the new record.”

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.]

Going Dutch: Shapes of Misery

Shapes of Misery
Rise Above Oppression
I Hate Humanity
2008
I assume most of you are familiar with the reverse cowgirl, but Shapes of Misery bassist and I Hate Humanity Records proprietor Geert pulls a move on Rise Above Oppression I have dubbed the Reverse Newsted.
The guitars on Rise Above Oppression, the band’s sole full length to date, are laughably, tissue paper thin (“Something to Believe” foolishly gives the guitar its own space in a song to bathetic effect). However, the entire outing is saved from drowning in the suck swamp by Geert’s sledgehammer on songs like “Fire in Your Eyes,” a pyromaniacal blast that flares and snaps like a gas station going up.
Songwriting wise, Shapes of Misery are not altogether dissimilar to mid-era Phobia or even another grind collective that is also well acquainted with the morphology of discomfort. The band works the golden grind oldie of slow build tension and orgasmic blast release driven by thudding bass and stomping heart beat bass drumming.
While guitarist Glenn may want to savagely beat the album’s engineers, he does earn a spot in grindcore Valhalla as a vocalist who’s largely, surprisingly intelligible as he growls his ways through 27 slashes of traditional grind, including a cover of hometown heroes My Minds Mine’s “Drop Fascists Not Bombs” for good measure. In the hands of a competent producer, Rise Above Oppression could have been a ripper. Instead it’s a passable, enjoyable half an hour from a country that’s on the cusp of grindcore dominance.

Going Dutch: Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom

Scrotum Jus

2007

“Doom.”

And the word hangs dully in the air of the cell. It is a moment before Fury realises that he is being told a name. And even as he does … it is already too late.

Neil Gaiman

Marvel 1602

2003

I’m more of a Vertigo guy anyway, but I’ve always been a little vague on where Marvel’s fictional despotic principality of Latveria is actually supposed to be, but I really doubt the Dutch national character was the inspiration for one of comics’ most iconic villains. Those people are just too chill to get all wrapped up in the whole global domination trip.

Unlike the devious genius of the comic pages, this Dr. Doom, who previously shared a split with Collision, crushes with a death metal ponderousness and scattershot grindcore acceleration. This is Clandestine-era Entombed tunes pared down and given a hardcore work ethic for grind attention spans. Blue collar firebrand “Working Class Crusade” might be the only marriage of Bruce Springsteen’s earthy idealism and Repulsion’s danse macabre in the metal lexicon. The breakdown-laden “My Life as a Teenage Materialist” is a sly piss take on religion wrapped in inchoate, near-suicidal adolescent rebellion.” Keys to My Heart” rides the kind of hardcore knuckleduster like Trap Them or Black Ships routinely crank out.

Simple tunes cross-pollinated by hardcore and grind, Dr. Doom are not the flashiest of bands, but they’re solid and enjoyable and worth the occasional listen.

Going Dutch: D-Compose

D-Compose
Ancestral Inhuman Thoughtless
Extreme Terror
2004
Ancestral Inhuman Thoughtless is a slow burn of an album. D-Compose don’t really hit their stride until the latter half of this EP, which rocks the same pestilential low end that festers under Maruta. “Redemption” and “Kill Yourself Now” work the same blood splattered back alleys prowled by Crowpath with sludgey undertow riffs that suck you into a soup of filth and disease. “Redemption,” in particular, ends with the sound of a torture session that makes you question just how D-Compose expect you to be redeemed.
Unlike many of their hit it and quit it countrymen, these Holland-based multinational collective bring longer songs with an American hardcore vibe akin to Phobia’s Return to Desolation. While not as strong as that stone classic, D-Compose are not afraid to stretch grind’s attention-starved strictures in favor of lengthier tunes and quirky treatments like the almost industrial electro-beast stalking of “Maltreat Yourself” or Voivodian astral projection of “Insanity of Mankind,” which buzzes like nest of hornets with PMS. As a bonus, D-Compose throws in an almost unrecognizable deconstruction of the Ramones’ “I Am Not Jesus” that’s reassembled as a rolling death metal monstrosity that blends perfectly with D-Compose’s own corpus.
Ancestral Inhuman Thoughtless is by no means a perfect album. It’s plagued by a rather over-loud snare that goes at your temples like Woody Woodpecker on bathtub meth, for one thing, but even when they explode in their face, D-Compose’s experiments are consistently intriguing.

Going Dutch: F.U.B.A.R.

F.U.B.A.R.

Justification of Criminal Behaviour

Bones Brigade

2005

F.U.B.A.R. sound like pissed off (pissed on?) hornets clanging about in a soup pot while Scott Carlson rehearses in the garage next door. More brutal and direct than their countrymen, F.U.B.A.R. blast like a grindcore Man is the Bastard on 2005 album Justification of Criminal Behaviour. Prominent power violence influences and subterranean bass tones are the bulwark to F.U.B.A.R.’s sound on songs like “Behavior” and “Disappear.”

For all their Neanderthal proclivities, these Lascaux cavemen are also capable of staggering moments of beauty and clarity. The triumphant punk contours of “Buy This” mold themselves to a chassis of Converge-style stretch, particularly the You Fail Me-era Jacob Bannon yowling. Not every experiment is as successful thought. “Fucked Up Beyond 7C” is the kind of electronic pounding synth drone beat doom J. Randall stuffs around ANb songs. Seemingly reinterpreting a line from “Hate Filled Screens,” it pretty much brings what you’d expected for some studio frippery tacked on to the end of an album (read: nothing).

Easily ignored misstep aside, the bulk of Justification of Criminal Behaviour pitches to F.U.B.A.R.’s punk wheelhouse. A standout tune like “The National Fear Campaign 2004” hits all the classic punk and grind notes, ticking off the boxes next to driving, ragged guitars, howled vocal phrasings and slamming drum breaks. They’ve shared vinyl with Catheter (and are just as split-happy), which is actually a fairly good comparison point – a more power violence-fueled Preamble to Oblivion. Cliched but true: brutal.

Going Dutch: Collision

Collision
Roadkiller
Bones Brigade
2006

Unable to discriminate clearly between words and things, the savage commonly fancies that the link between a name and the person or thing denominated by it is not a mere arbitrary and ideal association, but a real and substantial bond which unites the two in such a way that magic may be wrought on a man just as easily through his name as through his hair, his nails, or any other material part of himself and takes care of it accordingly.

Sir James George Frazer
The Golden Bough
1922

Names have power, according to our primitive ancestors. If true, I’ve always thought the single most powerful name in all of hardcore or grind had to go to Boston’s Siege. It’s just an explosive monosyllabic burst that perfectly summarizes the mindset and power of the band. Just saying it invokes an impressive feat of linguistic legerdemain, with the seething sibilant of the S and the full stop affricative G. You’re practically forced to grit your teeth in rage as you say it.
With Siege as the Platonic ideal, I’d have to say Holland’s Collision come pretty damn close to achieving that same transcendence through nomenclature. Collision pretty must sums up not only the band’s body bomb assault on second album Roadkiller but also their musical pedigree, which rests securely at the nexus where grind sideswiped the circle pit punk that birthed it. Look no further than the band’s bull in a Faberge shop cover of Bad Brains’ “Attitude.”
Despite being Dutch, Collision have a singular focus on the excesses of American popular and political culture as they mercilessly mock our questionable subcultures (“Oh My Goth), our colorful peasant class (“Redneck Rampage”), our self help obsession (“Kill Phil”) and even our propensity for expecting bloated, aging action film stars to cleave our political morasses with the same ease with which they dispatched any number of low rent Columbian mercenaries (“Body Building Blowout”). Pop culture gets punk’d by a series of fluid punk beat to blast transitions, foam flecked gang vocals (“Drama Queen”), ominous building chug interludes and punk rock solos (“On the Loose to Reproduce”).
The only crack in Collision’s grind edifice would be the questionable dual vocalists. Bjorn and Wouter both bring an impressive pitbull bark, but their styles are so similar as to be redundant. But that’s a quibble against a backdrop of enjoyable punk madness.

Going Dutch: Blood I Bleed

Blood I Bleed

Gods Out of Monsters

Selfmadegod

2009

The blood this Dutch grind quartet bleeds is 75 percent identical to the sanguinary core of My Minds Mine. Reveling in a misanthropic disappointment with humanity’s failings, Blood I Bleed delivers battery acid-splashed grind and rotgut punk front with heartworm infested Rottweiler for a frontman. A new name and a drummer transfusion were all Blood I Bleed needed to vault themselves into their nation’s elite, particularly on face punching second album Gods Out of Monsters.

Shantia not only wrings rusted crust from his guitar but his plays his amp as an accompanying instrument as well, festooning “Insensible We Are,” “Pent up Rage” and “God Fear” with spangled garland of deliberate feedback like a Satanic Christmas tree. It’s a skill he’s mastered since his days in My Minds Mine. “Insensible We Are,” in particular is a highlight, immaculately manipulated feedback and a serpentine bass slither reenact the Garden of Eden fable in 30 second grindcore form. Bert’s bass has a vintage ’80s clunk to it, particularly on the cracked knuckled closer “Theorising Utopia,” and Henk smacks the drums with a substantial thump on the song’s inevitable blastbeat coda.

Gods Out of Monsters also rips a retrofitted DeLoreon ride through punk and grind history. “Scene Pool is Closed” nods back to crossover punk and “Bumper Sticker Analysis” condenses and repurposes the ever-spiraling central riff from Napalm Death’s “When All is Said and Done,” knocking off some altitude in favor of amped up rage. The band also brutalizes a cover of Enemy Soil’s “Lost,” which is a tightly compacted, contracted spiral against the rangy, random violence of Blood I Bleed’s own catalogue.

At a tight 18 minutes, Gods of Out Monsters is a ferocious, atheistic beast that pairs nicely with Attack of the Mad Axeman. Misanthropy rarely sounded so awesome.