G&P Review: P.L.F.

P.L.F.
Ultimate Whirlwind of Incineration
RSR/Blastasfuk
Growing up in Tornado Alley, storms were a form of entertainment. I remember sitting on the porch with my dad as a kid watching the sky turn a queasy green right before a really ripping front would tear through the town. Black clouds would build over the horizon and we’d sit there as long as possible, waiting to catch a glimpse of a twister touching down before running inside for shelter.
P.L.F.’s Ultimate Whirlwind of Incineration channels some of that onrushing Great Plains thunderstorm vibe as the guitars brew up whirlwind riffs that chart dangerously high on the Fujita scale. “Rejection of Pathos” lashes and snarls with the playful, arbitrary malevolence of a tornado, the way it flays about at random destroyed some neighborhoods and leaving other blocks untouched. Paired with the high winds of guitars, the drums rain hail down in icy, pelting chunks. But once the initial welts fade, the drums will occasionally fade into the murky production, becoming the background patter of a thunderstorm on the roof.
And if Ultimate Whirlwind of Incineration has one flaw (and that’s a rare misstep for a P.L.F. who have consistently delighted), it’s that in nearly 25 minutes, the band doesn’t make room for any variety. Anybody who’s ever hunkered down in a storm cellar to wait out a tornado can tell you that eventually that frisson of danger from the storm sirens fades into a gray monotony as the wind’s unceasingly shrill howl becomes more background noise straining to capture a childhood imagination. A good peal of thunder and a flash of nearby lightning every now and again (the Assuck cover is a good start) would have could have foisted Ultimate Whirlwind of Incineration into storm of the century contention. Instead, it’s just one more good thundershower that spices up a hazy, humid summer and fades like a crack of heat lightning.

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

Blast(beat) From the Past: Attack of the Mad Axeman

"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. Our labour tills the soil, our dung fertilizes it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin."

George Orwell
Animal Farm
1956

Attack of the Mad Axeman
Systematic Death Slaughter
RSR Records
2011
We could probably argue ad infinitum about the desirability, artistic merit, cultural implications and ironic intentions behind a grindcore cover of "Who Let the Dogs Out" (yes, that "Who Let the Dogs Out"), but, accepting as a baseline the infinite monkeys model of the multiverse, it was bound to happen. Inevitable even. So with that as a precondition, who better to tackle that questionable bit of grindcore infamy than Germany's Attack of the Mad Axeman. So yes, a grindcore version of "Who Let the Dogs Out" does exist, Attack of the Mad Axeman did include it on latest album Systematic Death Slaughter and it took me a good half dozen listens before I even realized what those while blastbeat furries had done. So all in all, it's about the best outcome that we could all hope for from the situation.
I must be slipping because Attack of the Mad Axeman managed to slip their third album past me late last year and I'm pissed because it's another corker. Like an old fashioned spring-driven clock wound too tight, Systematic Death Slaughter is permanently poised on that cusp where the tension becomes too much and various gears and clockworks go exploding into temporal shrapnel. But they deny you that combustible release. Instead, they keep you on your tiptoes the entire 20 minute runtime.
Otherwise Axeman's lyrical preoccupations remain unchanged, launching with the mauled by bears tale of Timothy Treadwell (he of Grizzly Man ... fame [is that really the right word?]) with "Don't Mess with Mr. Chocolate." From there Systematic Death Slaughter is all anti-Disneyfied tales of animal uprisings, Knut the bear, survivalist revolutionaries and other stories of chattering beasts. Sonically, Systematic Death Slaughter represents a further refinement from Scumdogs of the Forest, but Attack of the Mad Axeman still err on the side of the grim and grisly. Two legs bad; four legs grind.

G&P Review: Amputee

Amputee
Convulsions
RSR Records
Chasing their three song dick tease demo from 2010, Amputee go for the full release massage on Convulsions, a 13 song guerrilla grind assault from late 2011 that's filled with tunes that hit it and quit it in 80 seconds or less. The New Jersey grinders don't stray too far from the rampant Assuck-isms that made their demo so enticing with this EP, but Amputee have started to grow into their own and take better command of their sound. The slithery sounding songs allow a little bit of daylight between the band and their most obvious influence.
The most representative and probably strongest of the lot is "Gather to Persecute," a late EP entrant that best displays Amputee's new found proficiency with varying tempo and tone. The song best balances the human metronome drumming with the blurred-no-time-for-nuance guitars, which grasp just enough emotion to convey the thrust and drive of the pounding songs. Each song is pared to a single point and pounds it to sand and then moves on. Even as Amputee branch out into longer compositions on songs like the epic 1:22 "Ass Gen" or the slow-building 1:08 of "Repetition" they make sure they never overstay their welcome.
Amputee still lack that intangible something that gives contemporaries like the similarly-minded Cellgraft that added zing, but this is clearly a band on the rise. Everything I've heard from them has been consistent, concise and played to the point. Amputee are one short step from dropping that excellent album that will garner them the praise they're so gonna deserve.

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

Blast(beat) from the Past: Thousandswilldie

Thousandswilldie
A Carcass is Only Dead Once
RSR
2008
Now this shit is why I love grindcore. In most contexts, 25 songs would be a double album, probably some lame conceptual piece about the plight of Honduran coffee farmers or some other stupid shit. But this Rhode Island trio crammed all that on to a single 7-inch of early Anal Cunt-style blastcore goodness. Are there actual lyrics? Are there breaks between songs? Does any of that even matter? Fuck if I know, and I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to this. What I do know is A Carcass is Only Dead Once is a loving shout out to a time when Seth Putnam was still funny and those kinds of questions just didn’t matter.
Thousandswilldie is all gnashing tooth bass grumble and poorly soldered fuse box guitar crackle for its scant runtime. A slavering madman flicks spittle all over your mug as he gnaws his way through 21st Century decay and decadence. Shit, the frontman’s band photo is like a bald, shirtless anthropomorphic throbbing vein screaming a litany of your myriad sins at you for an eternity [See also: PKD's A Scanner Darkly]. With songs like “Bleeding Venom,” “Betrayer,” “Abandoner” and “Sister Gomorrah” you could be forgiven for mistakenly assuming you’d wandered into another tired hardcore finger point fest where some self righteous douche does his best (worst?) Ian MacKaye impersonation. Luckily, first impressions are furthest from the truth.
The tactical nuke up Thousandswilldie’s hoodie sleeve is their classic Agoraphobic Nosebleed grade sense of maximum outrage and sarcasm paired with musical concision. A sampler, the totality of “Hive Mind’s” lyrical observations: “It’s all a big pissing contest. Why don’t you just 69 it and gag each other?”
Ridiculously short songs that are well conceived, strongly executed and slathered with biting, ironic social observation – sure you can beat that dead horse a few thousand times, but A Carcass is Only Dead Once.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Slaughter of the Innocents/Endless Demise

Slaughter of the Innocents/Endless Demise
The Awakening/Split
RSR
2007
I loved Excruciating Terror. They were a staple of my formative grind listening, and because of that I’m tireless in my advocacy for Jerry Flores’ latest project, Bloody Phoenix, as well. In fact if I could date myself with a hilariously out of touch cultural reference, I’d like to paraphrase the Brendan Fraser/Steve Buscemi/Adam Sandler meathead metal montage Airheads: Jerry Flores could record half an hour of himself farting on a snare drum, and I’d probably buy it just to complete my collection.
But even with that level of slavish devotion, I had a little trouble orienting my head around Endless Demise, the most recent band by Victor Garcia, ExTx’s gravel gargling motor mouth. The Terror just sounded so fricken massive. Even today they’re one of the largest sounding grind bands to ever stomp the terra. So it’s probably more than 15 years of nostalgia that clouded my initial reaction to Endless Demise, who make a glorious racket in their own right. Drummer Sam Ramirez beats his snare, in particular, like it owes him money over the space of three songs and Garcia’s shrill banshee shriek can only be the product of some sort of self-inflicted testicular trauma. String section Vito Tagliente and Fred Gutierrez acquit themselves admirably, but their monochrome wall tends to be obscured by memories of bigger, burlier sounds.
But being the Mirror, Mirror (you can tell cuz I’m the one with the goatee) Mark Antony of grindcore (how is that for pairing two totally unrelated cultural touchstones?), I come to praise this split not to bury it because whatever unfair hang-ups I may have had about Endless Demise, they get sandblasted into oblivion by German marauders Slaughter of the Innocents who nicked more than their name from Repulsion. With double the number of songs as their split-mates and a truly putrid pre-suck Slayer guitar tone, the pseudonymous quartet (Shadow Blade – since departed, Big Ape, Inquisitor 666 and The Bertilizer, complete with portraits that would do Bolt Thrower proud) barely pause to separate the guilty from the innocent before slaughtering everyone present, assuming everyone’s respective deities will recognize their own. Inquisitor 666’s snare hand must be pneumatic to be that tight, that fast and still hit that fucking hard. Low fi, irreverent and scabbed over Slaughter of the Innocents pretty much defines grindcore greatness. This band needs to get out of the split EP backwater and get working on full length now. There are plenty more innocents out there.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Brutal Death

Brutal Death
Brutal Death
RSR
2006
Seriously? Do I have to go through the whole rigmarole of even bothering to describe what a 7-inch by a band called Brutal Death sounds like? If you can’t figure it out, please raise your hands so we all know who can’t be trusted with sharp objects. But since their internet presence is nil (and their name is woefully Google-proof) and I’m not set up to rip vinyl yet, let’s go through the motions.
Named … ahem … Brutal Death and swiping the Napalm Death font, the trio’s repertoire extends all the way from enslavement to extreme responses. Though as raw as an open, suppurating wound, the production gives the guitar, drums and vocals their own space, making this one of the better balanced of all the underproduced EPs I’ve heard. Drummer Sean has that same creepy crawly reverb to his drums – especially the floor toms – that made early Bad Brains demos so awesome (seriously, go give Black Dots a close listen). And there is no need for a bass with Mike’s low-slung, crusty guitar ripping and gnawing like a hippo with an impacted tusk on a tooth-grinding coke bender. Covering all the bases from Frankensteined power violence lurch through white knuckled grind frenzy and boasting an urban tagger graffiti style for the interior art, Brutal Death actually remind me quite a bit of a rawer Magrudergrind.
Definitely not to be confused with another grindcore Brutal Death that apparently bangs out nothing but songs about the Backstreet Boys. There’s a reason that atrocity’s MySpace page only has four friends – including Tom. But I’d count this Brutal Death a friend any day.

G&P Review: Weekend Nachos

Weekend Nachos
Punish and Destroy/Torture
RSR
With a new album due to drop on Relapse, I belatedly turn my attention to Punish and Destroy/Torture, a collection of Weekend Nachos’ early stabs of second wave power violence. It’s the sonic equivalent of wiping out on your skateboard into a gravel pit.
Burlier and more refined than Spoonful of Vicodin, Weekend Nachos work the same territory as their fellow Empire Staters, cobbled together from shrapnel labeled Man is the Bastard and Apartment 213.
While the strained hardcore vocals trend a tad too monotonous, powers through that sole drawback with violence. Paired together, the EPs (Torture is the heavier of the two) practically present a survey course of every subgenre ever suffixed by –violence or –core. “Punish and Destroy” spends four minutes crawling through Winter’s back catalogue and “Intro” devolves from meticulously plotted electronic blorp to ominously ringing guitar chimes from transitional era Neurosis. But Weekend Nachos also draw in the Dismember-ed death opening of “Dimension X,” rocked cock swing of “American Hardcore” or slow noise rock dissolution of closer “Sludge.” Every couple of songs finds the Nachos appropriating another shard of the fragmented punk and metal scene, holding them up to the light and marveling at the refractions. While that may not initially sound cohesive, Weekend Nachos manage to make all of it their own. From one more interesting This Comp Kills Fascists alum, I’m now officially curious to see what the band can do on Relapse’s dime.