Wadge Grindcore Lu’au
Grindcore Karaoke
Wadge’s tiki-tickling Grindcore Lu’au is covered in as many layers of deliberately lofi noise and scuzz and Dick Dale’s surfboard was covered in layers of Sex Wax. For all its colorful art and goofball conceits, Grindcore Lu’au is not an overproduced bit of throwaway fluff. Grindcore’s Don Ho starts with a hilarious rip on Napalm Death’s “Multinational Corporations” that extols the virtues of Hawaiian vacations and starts surfing 40 minutes of double picked surf rock grind. The Hawaiian elements and aquatic surf style guitar are organically blended into the grind in a way that makes perfect sense on “Extremity Jet-Planed/Eyes of Crust/Obstinate Erection” and “Drink for a Minute (Suffer the Distilled Men).” Proving the lofi scratch of the sound is purely deliberate, “Frenzied Suffocation” builds to an ear-bleeding static tsunami before the waves crest and break over the sudden clarity of surf-death hybrid “Demon Dogs of Waikiki.”
At nearly 40 minutes, the only criticism of the album is this is a hefty listen. In fact, Wadge could have easily pulled a Solomon and halved Grindcore Lu’au and passed it off as two full lengths of Slayer-approved proportions. I don’t see myself pulling this one out on a regular basis, but there’s no point in bitching about too much of a good thing. Pass the poi.
