G&P Review: Nashgul/Malpractice Insurance

Nashgul/Malpractice Insurance
Split
To Live a Lie
Gore grind has pretty much been denuded of any lingering shock value by 25 years of bands happy to ape Carcass and swipe polysyllabic synonyms for death, decay and destruction from whatever medical dictionary their local library happens to stock. So just when I'm about to write off the whole movement, along comes Los Angeles duo Malpractice Insurance who cleverly twist around that paradigm by playing sly with the language of surgical mistakes, insurance forms and indemnity for doctors  by cranking out five tunes that focus less on the breakdown of the human form (though they have done plenty of that too) and more about the legalities that some from surgical slip ups.
That they pair that lyrical legerdemain with some smoking grind that draws from the same musical well as splitmates Nashgul only makes this 7-inch that much more awesome. In particular, guitarist and vocalist Ivo's delivery is worthy of being singled out for praise; his raspy Jeff Walker screech is wonderfully expressive and shapes the songs' contours where too many grind vocalists are content to play follow the leader and chase the music.
Considered alongside their recent split with P.L.F., Nashgul continue to impress me with their choice selection of musical associates. Meanwhile, the Spaniards' three songs deliver everything you've come to expect: zombified romps through Carcass and Repulsion that revel in gorehound cinema and B-movie action flicks. Faced with the limitation of half a 7-inch, Nashgul make the intriguing choice to go long with their three songs (long in this case being defined as approximately two minutes each). While only three songs feels a bit insubstantial, it's also always good to leave your audience wanting more and I've got to say the awesome chug-a-lug of "Estigma" and the way the middle passage of "Estimociver" nods back to Bolt Thrower's "World Easter" certainly had me digging out my other Nashgul albums. Mission accomplished.

[Full disclosure: Nashgul sent me a download.]

Blast(beat) from the Past: Backslider

Backslider
Backslider
To Live a Lie
2010
By now you've probably heard me mention Backslider a few times as an up and comer you need to watch closely, but I've belatedly realized I've never given them their proper due with a post of their own. Please allow me to rectify that egregious oversight.
This Philly duo staked their claim to incipient grindcore mastery right out the gate with their 2010 eponymous 7-inch. It's 13 songs of crustified, hardcore-inflected grind that puts them in good stead with contemporaries Amputee and Cellgraft at the crest of the recent wave of no bullshit, no frills, head down grind. It's like Insect Warfare's all too brief run was a system shock to young grindcore bands who picked up the torch and started blasting away at their own breed of devastating material. Where some of their peers owe deep and obvious debts to the glory of the Assuck back catalog, Backslider bring in just enough of a hardcore vibe--especially the barking vocals and micro-breakdowns that litter their songs--to give them a unique voice in their particular microgenre. When Backslider do cool things out, like on "Encroachment," the stillness is like that ominous moment when that normally chill dude you know who never really bothers anyone finally stirs himself and delivers a richly deserved ass-beating.
But there's really no point in getting too wrapped up in taxonomy and critical analysis because it's best to kick back and let Backslider's confrontational aggression get up in your face. I dare you to talk back.

These Amazing Vibrations

I am a partially reformed collector.
I imagine many of you have grappled with your own level of craphound compulsion as well. As someone who has taken the step to reject readily available pop music, you're probably someone who invests your music with a deep significance given the extra effort you've taken to explore your musical options. (That's a gross and most definitely self-serving generalization, but just go with me here.) I'm betting the Venn diagram of underground music fans and obsessive collector nerds is practically 1:1.

Pictured: Obsessive collector nerd.

While I've moderated my buying the last couple of years (hence "partially reformed" collector), having my favorite albums at hand has always been important to me. But I've been thinking about the historic preservation of underground music lately after watching the documentary These Amazing Shadows. The movie discusses the work of the National Film Registry, which was created in the wake of Ted Turner's hare-brained scheme to bastardize classics with color, to preserve the United States' cinematic heritage.


Harmony Corruption

According to preservationists, half of the films made before 1950 have been permanently lost. Eighty percent of silent films are gone because nobody recognized their historic and cultural impact and sought to preserve them for future generations That really resonates with the amateur anthropologist in me. Those are pieces of our collective human heritage that are lost forever.
It has also gotten me seriously thinking about the future of underground music and wondering how (or if) key artifacts of our musical heritage will be preserved. While the internet has made virtually everything available with a quick trip to Mediafire, is anyone taking steps to preserve important musical landmarks? I worry the ubiquity breeds complacency. Did Siege realize what they had when they recorded Drop Dead and have those valuable master recordings been preserved? I bet 90 of the people who have heard S.O.B.'s seminal Don't Be Swindle (me included) have never seen a physical copy. Are compressed MP3s going to be the best we can hope for or are the original recordings stashed away somewhere waiting to be cleaned up and reissued?
Barring a radical cultural shift, we can't count on somebody like the Smithsonian or Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame swooping in to preserve our heritage for us. The history of punk and metal has been a tale of kids with a lot of ambition but not as much know-how figuring it out as they go along. I'm betting proper archiving was not high on their list of priorities.
The digital medium has proven more durable than its tape-bound antecedents, and label bosses said it's still their go-to storage device.
"I’m pretty sure [founder Jason Tipton] keeps all of the master recording in a drawer in his desk," Willowtip media guy Vinny Karpuszka told me. "Most of the time they are kept in the same CD case that was shipped to us from the studio that did the mixing/mastering. Some of the older ones are kept in one of those CD wallets that I’m sure everyone and their mother has owned at one point."
Unlike the majors, underground labels tend to have a more cooperative relationship with their bands. That often means it's the bands who are in charge of preserving their own music.
"Hydra Head does not possess any of the reels on which our earlier releases were recorded," co-owner Aaron Turner said. "Those (I'm assuming), are all in the possession of the bands themselves. We have a good number of DATs and CDr masters, but haven't archived them in any secure fashion. There's no real safety net protecting these things, except that most of them have already been released on CDs, which is relatively stable over the long haul. I hope artists of ours who did record on reels are keeping them safe! "
Just as the internet is decimating sales of physical media, it's also proving a boon to the preservation movement, providing several layers of redundancy, To Live a Lie honcho/IT guy Will Butler said.
"I do my part and upload out of print stuff; lately I've put some stuff on Bandcamp (and duplicated it to Archive.org, because I don't trust Bandcamp lasting forever)," he said. "I also have released some albums on iTunes/Amazon...etc, so although people are buying them, it's available and the songs almost become viral. Lastly, the actual masters, I have most of them on my hard drive on my computer. I then duplicate them to my home server which has all RAIDed harddrives, so it's basically triplicated on my home network. So a multi-tier approach to keeping music alive. I mean one day I'll be forty and might not be involved in the label and will hope that I did something positive for the world, so making the music an awesome music virus around the world, living on computers and being shared on P2P networks, and keeping copies for myself is actually an interesting/worthwhile idea!"

Return to Desolation

Extreme metal is entering its third decade of existence, but institutionally, it's still in its infancy. The scrappy labels that have enshrined themselves in our experience -- Metal Blade, Earache, Relapse -- are still defined by their founders and much of our heritage is locked up in their vaults. Time will only tell how they evolve giving the changing musical landscape and their founders' plans to maybe one day call it quits.
Butler is already making plans for the day when he may fold up shop.
"I'll probably make an effort in a few years, if I stop the label, to post everything up free online with the band's permission. Seems silly to not have them on Archive.org for preservation," he said.
One aspect of punk and metal that has always struck me is the reverence for our shared heritage. There are not many fans of mainstream music reaching back 30 years to appreciate the musical canon that gave birth to their current favorites the way we do. I hope we find a way to preserve our little musical subculture. Think about how many obscurities and lost gems that have already fallen out of print and may essentially be lost. With a little luck, when I finally go deaf I'll turn over control of the Childers Memorial Grindcore Repository and Punkatorium to another generation who will appreciate its significance as a subcultural milestone much the way I do.
"I think there's enough nerds out there (myself included), protecting their collections that most of these great records will live on in some form or another," Turner said.

G&P Review: xBrainiax

xBrainiax
Hail Fastcore
625 Thrash/To Live a Lie
Oh fastcore gets hailed on this hour-long, 99-track compilation from this fleet-footed Michigan quartet. As an added bonus, power violence gets a shout out, punk gets a what’s up, hardcore high-fives, crust occasionally wakes up from its mystery pills and gutter wine stupor to mumble a friendly hello and Star Wars gets sampled liberally. Which pretty much tells you everything you need to know right there.
xBrainiax play fast punk and regardless your preferred nomenclature, they do it pretty damn well for a band that recorded most of these songs themselves in their practice space. Hail Fastcore is all frenetic drumming, indistinguishable guitars, unhinged and ranting vocals and largely indistinguishable songs that would probably rule your local VFW basement hall on a bill with Threatener (fitting given 625’s involvement) and Asshole Parade.
xBrainiax will never be accused of being mucsical visionaries, but they ably acquit themselves of a whole host of punk clichés with panache and aplomb. “Jaded, Twisted and Evil” is your classic example of the slow build intro giving way to breathless blast finish, and blink and you’ll miss it “Trekkie Killer” is the band’s equivalent of “You Suffer” (which they also cover along with Y, No Comment and Infest tunage). The band does whip out one truly unexpected WTF? moment late in the collection with “Idiot,” a five minute bit of ponderous epicus doomicus hardcore-icus that could have been swiped from St. Vitus’ cutting room floor. Unlike their brooding, oh so serious compatriots, xBrainiax prefer to let their seething sarcasm do the heavy lifting excoriating their targets on songs like “Finishing Last in the Human Race,” Lenny Kravitz is His Answer” and sly Dead Kennedys reference of “Young Republicans Fuck Off.”
You’ve probably heard a hundred other bands that sound exactly like xBrainiax but sometimes it’s nice when an old friend like fastcore comes back around to say hi or hail or whatever.