Grindcore Bracketology: Quarterfinals 2

Here’s the second half of the quarterfinals. You’ll have until Tuesday to make your case in the comments.

North America
GridLink (2) v. Kill the Client (3)
A battle of aesthetics. GridLink are sleek, emotional and oddly positive for the normally grumpy world of grind. They’re like magically finding one of Japan’s legendary vending machines outside of your local 7-Eleven. Kill the Client just want you to die. Preferably exploded into little pieces. Subtle is one thing they’re not with their violent brew of blast beats and punk riffs.

Asia and Australia
324 (2) v. Magnicide (3)
Like Obi Wan and Darth Vader, this is a meeting of master and student. Has the circle been completed? Are Magnicide now the masters while 324 has laid idle due to lineup instability? Who wears the Asia crust grind crown at the moment?

Scandinavia
Sayyadina (2) v. Afgrund (3)
There’s no need to rehash old territory. We’ve had this argument before. I think Sayyadina represent the best of post-Nasum Swedish grind. Many of you offered up Afgrund instead. Now it’s time to make your case in the comments. May the better band win.

Continental Europe and the United Kingdom
Blood I Bleed (2) v. Nashgul (5)
Two of Europe’s most promising bands offer a fairly stark contrast. Holland’s Blood I Bleed embody the finest aspects of modern grind songwriting. Everything’s spiky and frenetic, strangled by deliberately placed static. Spain’s Nashgul, on the other hand, think grind peaked with Horrified and are content to keep it traditional. So do you prefer Coke Classic or New Coke. Wait, bad analogy.

G&P review: Khann

Khann
Tofutopia
Blackmarket Activities
KHAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!
This intriguing but alternately infuriating slab o' metal is enough to send any listener into Shatnerian paroxysms.
Former Bodies in the Gears of the Apparatus vocalist Joshua Vitale returns from that band’s premature demise with Khann on debut Tofutopia.
Instead of BitGotA’s spazzy grind, these veggie heads emulate the sludge and grind smoothie of another gone-too-soon member of the metal family, Ohio’s Rune.
This Khann’s wrath throws Neurosis heft and Isis throb into a blender with crunchy Napalm Death, walking the middle course between knuckle dragging sludge and meth-ed out metal.
The grind to sludge and back slide of “Quarantined” and follow up track “Silver Mouth” show a band confident in its use of dynamics.
Clear picked notes slash through the opening of the appropriately titled “Squall,” one of the album’s clear highlights. The burly maelstrom that follows as Vitale wails “I am a powerless waste” is the album’s clear emotional peak.
But the young band does stumble occasionally as well.
Despite its stonerrific coda, overlong two part album centerpiece, “Volcanic Lungs” drags just when the album should be peaking, particularly during the 6 minute-plus first half. And closer “The Lone Hum,” a torrent of electric squeals and squonks is overlong at more than 8 minutes followed by a handful of untitled tracks with pointless noise and studio fuckery.
Tofutopia could stand to lose the soy filler. But there is a killer half an hour album buried beneath the unnecessary detours, and in the hands of a ruthless editor, this could have been one of the best releases of the year. Despite the rough edges, Khann’s debut has marked them as a band to watch.