Panic! At the Discography: Gasp

There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.

Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
1971

Gasp
An Earwig's Guide to Traveling: Collected Vinyl and Unreleased Tracks 1996-1999
Avant Garde Farm
2005
Gasp were fuckin' weird. That's the first thing you need to know. Like Melvins-level weird. They had an album called Drome Triler of Puzzle Zoo People and stage names like Professor Cantaloupe, ferfuckssake. You try to tell me what that's even supposed to mean. But their very weirdness was this SoCal "psychedelic power violence" band's greatest asset: an outre attitude that set them far (FAR!) outside the musical boxes erected by their mid-90s contemporaries (bassist Cynthia got more conventional when she went on to Despise You). Unlike the lightspeed hardcore of the day, Gasp brought a more brooding brand of sludgy noise to the power violence plate and they took their goddamned time about getting there. They mixed up Man is the Bastards bass bludgeoning with weird burbling noises, random jazz freakouts, manipulated tape insanity and other oddities. If Swans had been a power violence band then Soundtracks for the Blind probably would have sounded something like this retrospective. The most beautiful part of An Earwig's Guide to Traveling is that it doesn't feel like a discography record. There's a seamlessness and an intention to Gasp's oddity that stitches together all 65 minutes into a single psychedelic trip, making it the rare discography that feels like a unified album experience. Where Man is the Bastard tried to reconcile man and nature through low slung bass and screeching effects, Gasp were on a trip straight to your pineal gland and if their weird samples and soothing tape loops couldn't lull you into a trance, they would break on through to the other side using brute force. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to hear that The Endless Blockade have Gasp records stashed in their collection because the Canadian power violence revivalists see to be operating on the same cosmic wavelength. While An Earwig's Guide to Traveling is a slow starter, those with the patience to synch to its vibe will find themselves transported, as though all of the songs were written and recorded of a piece rather than trickled out as splits and 7-inches over the course of half a decade. Too weird to live at the time, Gasp's power violence excursions have survived the band's death as new generation's connoisseurs turn on, tune in and freak out.

G&P Review: D.E.R./Aberrant

D.E.R./Aberrant
Split
Karasu Killer/Criminal Attack/Everyday Hate/Give Praise
D.E.R. have been having quite a little moment for themselves recently because their 2008 album Quando a Esperanca Desaba has been given not one but two ass kicking reissues. But lest you think that's all these Brazilian blastbeat-mongers have to purvey, they're back again with another 10 songs, sharing wax with Colorado's Aberrant (who got into the reissue action themselves with a 2010 discography record). What they're dropping on your turntable is a Thunderdome of straight grind nastiness.
Four years removed from their last record and D.E.R. haven't bothered to learn any new tricks, and that's probably a good thing. Once again, they grind like From Enslavement to Obliteration is the only record ever made. They're content to keep kicking out jam after jam of unremitting blastbeats and nasty table saw injury guitars without getting too fancy. If Quando a Esperanca Desaba lit up your cortex, these new songs will jolt you another fix. Otherwise, don't expect to be blown away by originality. You'll come out of their half of this psychedelically-flecked periwinkle 12-inch with your socks safely unrocked, but you still have to admire D.E.R.'s ferocious energy.
Meanwhile Aberrant, which features an ex-member of Catheter, is a touch thrashier in spots, but clearly these are two bands that have been prepping from the same playbook. Aberrant's riffs have a tad more complexity and innovation to them than D.E.R., but they whip by at such a clip that it demands close listening to really excavate every interesting nugget that's buried behind the blast beats. And speaking of blasting, the drums are fine when they're going full tilt, but the drummer lacks that sense of timing when it comes to fills and tempo changes. The result is the explosive climax of their songs could have been even more pyrotechnic. (But good news, everyone! Aberrant is in the hunt for a new drummer.)
The split is a cool face off between two bands that share a similar genetic root but have taken alternate paths. It's a great example of divergent evolution in music.

G&P Review: Catheter

Catheter
Southwest Doom Violence
Selfmadegod
Unlike forerunners/contemporaries Phobia, mile high grind trio Catheter have never given into the sheeny, shiny modern production impulse. Southwest Doom Violence, their first full length since 2005's Dimension 303, is a time capsule of that big, burly '90s grind sound, before everything became sleek and overcompressed.
There are still potholes and jagged edges to Catheter's sound that serve their appropriately titled album well. Grindcore, doom and power violence get frapped into 17 songs of dismal, gray misery laced with occasional crimson skeins of vein popping outrage. Perhaps the one nod to the 21st century is the fantastic snare drum sound, a nice, solid snap gets its moment to shine on "No Harvest," which briefly spotlights the percussion. With "Doom to Grind" Catheter also snag one of the greatest samples to ever kick off a grind tune.
Catheter are one of the few grind bands that know how to dig into a good down tempo tune without making it sound like a half-assed afterthought too (hence the "doom" in their Southwest Doom Violence). Part of their prowess is that they keep their dreary impulses in check rather than dragging the album to a drug stumble halt (though they do succumb to the five minute doom closer cliche). At their best, Catheter give us great songs like the 90 second "Can't Change Existence," which blasts in the front and then wiggles like a sidewinder on the way out. It's like a grindcore/doom mullet.
Overall, Southwest Doom Violence is a stubborn reminder of what grindcore used to sound like back in an era when its conventions were first being solidified.

[Full disclosure: SMG sent me a download.]

G&P Review: Liberteer

Liberteer
Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees
Relapse
There's a spectre haunting grindcore -- the spectre of revolutionary fervor. All the powers of Old Grindcore have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: tradition and inertia, blastbeats and punk riffs, a cowering fear of banjos and flutes.
Yes, banjos.
In grindcore.
From the Red Badge of Courage-approved banjos and flutes opening straight through the star spangled fireworks conclusion, Liberteer is out to incite a political uprising among the blastbeaten-down populace. Matt Widener (aka Liberteer) has previously flirted with a stateless notion of patriotism in his short-lived prior band Citizen, but with Liberteer he has cast off the last vestiges of king and country and is rabble rousing for the ubiquitous fellowship of humanity.
To that end, Widener has sculpted an operatic sweep of a grindcore album, an ambitious monument to music replete with uplifting themes and recurring motifs that point to its generation as a single, cohesive musical movement. This is an ambitious bit of grinding and it's not going to yield itself easily to casual listeners who may be turned off my swelling synth symphonies and unconventional instrumentation. When it does grind, Liberteer twists Terrorizer into something positive and uplifting versus scathing and downtrodden. "Rise Like Lions After Slumber" is particularly triumphant, and Widener lays out his platform on "99 to 1" when he screams the he wants "to be happy goddamn it."
The revolution, however, does stumble a bit out the gate. For one there's that mouthful title, Better to Live on Your Feet Than Die on Your Knees, which has been permanently denuded of any cache from constant repetition by every wannabe revolutionary from Tea Partiers demanding the federal government keep its mitts off their Medicare straight through that kid in the mall-bought Che Guevara shirt spouting half-understood Chomskyisms. There's also the melting layer of gouda that is the full on power metal bombast of "Sweat for Blood," which will likely be an obstacle to some in Liberteer's target demographic. Also, Widener may want you to stop bitching and start a revolution, but his vocals are monotone and just don't have the urgency to drive your ass to the barricades. In the hands... err mouth of a more skilled orator, Liberteer may have provided the "I am Spartacus!" cheer necessary to drive the masses from their complacency.
For all of that, the ambition and vision of Liberteer cannot be dismissed lightly. You may not jibe with Widener's vision for revolutionary grindcore, but I guarantee you've not heard anything like this before. Grinders of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your shackles and a world to gain!

G&P Review: Triac

"You. One live body, brains still somewhat intact. Molly, Case. My name's Molly. I'm collecting you for a man I work for. Just wants to talk, is all. Nobody wants to hurt you."
"That's good."
" 'Cept I do hurt people sometimes, Case. I guess it's just the way I'm wired."

William Gibson
Neuromancer
1984

Triac
...Always Meant to Hurt You
A389 Recordings
Delightfully atavistic, Triac dispense with any pretense of mild-mannered Bruce Bannerisms on ...Always Meant to Hurt You and careen face first into HULK SMASH! This four-song 7-inch (which comes a complimentary download for you digiterati) is refreshing in its unpretentious shot to your spinal column.
Originally released as a tour-only cassette in 2010, the good folks at A389 have brought Triac's latest to the masses on a sweet vinyl platter that definitely would have bumped somebody off the best of 2011 list had I gotten my copy in time.
For their follow up to the impressive Blue Room, Triac have gotten leaner and more nasty in disposition. Second sider "Halo" swings with that urban hardcore swagger previously incarnated by Unsane. Here it gets riddled with a grind sense of nasty nihilism and punk seethe. It's driven to ever more reckless tempos by Jake Cregger's frantic drumming only to slide into ringing guitar feedback and clotted amp noise. The guitars of opener "Child Thief " flail with abandon, running body-first into whatever obstacle foolishly stumbles into their transit. Then there's the just-short-of-a-whine vocal sneer taunting you, daring you to punch back, knowing you're probably too much of a pussy to try.
...Always Meant to Hurt You is a lithe animal, poorly caged ferocity slimmed down to a lean jungle predator. Where Blue Room was big and boisterous, this outing finds Triac far more focused and enraged. Shedding the extra pounds really suits them. Come feel the pain.

G&P Review: Brutal Truth

Brutal Truth
End Time
Relapse
The Official Brutal Truth Album Reviewers' Guide (TM), a cheat sheet for lazy fucks like me, lists plenty of adjectives I can mindlessly bleat out for any new Brutal Truth album: innovative, unconventional, challenging, idiosyncratic, unorthodox. One you're not likely to see too often is formulaic, but that may be the most apt for End Time.
Formulaic is not inherently a bad thing, but we should at least acknowledge when the template is being followed and End Time certainly feels very familiar. Like Evolution Through Revolution before it, it's an amalgam of everything that made Need to Control and Sounds of the Animal Kingdom click, just distilled and smooshed together. You start with your lead-soled album opener "Malice" (see also: "Collapse"), blast a bit before you get a midpoint noisefucker in "Warm Embrace of Poverty" (recommended for fans of the first half of "Blue World," "Iron Lung" and "Semi Automatic Carnation"), grind a bit more and close it out with not one but two more doomed out farewells "Drink Up" and the superfluous, overly long "Control Room" (familiar to connoisseurs of "Prey," "Crawlspace" and "Grind Fidelity").
While that may sound negative initially, Brutal Truth rise above their self-imposed constraints to deliver what is easily the best sounding album of their career, regardless of era and lineup. End Time is all gnarled whorls and canines cracking gristle, powered by Erik Burke's dynamic Lethargian riffing style, which may be more engaging than Gurn's (there, I said it). He brings all new dynamics and shadings to Brutal Truth, fractal pools rather than jagged edges. And when the band does blast their way through comfort food grinders "All Work and No Play," "20 Bag" or "Addicted" it's with the assurance of veterans who don't have time to fuck around with half assed efforts.
Overall, I think I really enjoy End Time, but it would be nice to bust out those familiar adjectives again. Maybe next album if we all survive the end times.

Blast(beat) from the Past: Bloody Phoenix

Bloody Phoenix
Death to Everyone
625 Thrash
2010
A spunky epigeneticist looking for an inside track on next year's Nobel Prize could throw the competition a curveball by sequencing drummer Michael Rarubin's DNA. Cuz I'm pretty sure dude is toting an extra arm tucked somewhere on his body or some other drumming-related mutation. That's the only reasonable explanation I can see for a guy who can roll a snare drum and smash a cymbal at the same time.
And Death to Everyone, Bloody Phoenix's second album (which eluded me all through 2010) is Rarubin's time to shine as he dominates songs like "No Conscience," which makes the case that maybe the dude's name should pop up in casual conversation more often when you're bandying around the best drummers in grindcore.
Not that the rest of the quartet is phoning it in. Two decades into a career that started with Excruciating Terror, I was floored to see Jerry Flores mix up the deck by stirring in bits of Neurosis, d-beat, Today is the Day and even some Killing Joke to his repertoire. The confluence makes this probably the strongest album in his unfuckwithable career. "Mast of Deception" is practically uplifting for all of its violence as it twines its way up an escalator guitar riff akin to Napalm Death's "When All is Said and Done."
Quivering vocal cord delivery system Aaron Ramos gets his Steve Austin on with the closing, eponymous song as he rants about the death of god with a single-mindedness you'd expect from one of Today is the Day's more violent revenge tracks.
This may have slipped through my fingers last year, but it's never too late to pay Bloody Phoenix their proper respect.

You Grind...But Why?: Rehumanize

Florida duo Rehumanize formed with a simple mission: kick ass for the Lord. Singer/drummer Felipe may have been a grind novice, but he scored a winner with his first crack at it, Resident Apostasy. Weaned on death and black metal, he said grindcore's direct, pugnacious nature freed him up to address his Christian faith in avenues other musical styles foreclosed.

"I was introduced to grindcore in the late '90s," Felipe said. "Since I was a death / black metal fan, I loved its speed, aggressiveness, and brutality. I had already played in death and black metal bands, and thrash, so I started Rehumanize to vary and to be able to express myself differently. I am more of a death metal fan, but grind is awesome, the sonic chaos attracts me, so I wanted to play my own. My death metal lyrics did not allow me to express myself in the way I wanted to express myself with grindcore, and that was also a good release. I'm a retired musician but maybe in the future I can continue with grindcore."

G&P Review: Defeatist

Defeatist
Tyranny of Decay
Bandcamp/Nerve Altar
Tyranny of Decay is a hedgehog's dilemma of a record. Defeatist have scaled back the acceleration enough that mere mortals can really appreciate just how crafty this New York City trio is, but the angular aggression (that recalls the band's Anodyne roots) is abrasive enough to keep all comers at an emotional arm's length. This is a prickly little beast that leaves an impression even if it won't be taking gold in the 100 meter any time soon.
Once again, Joel Stallings is a fucking monster behind the drums. He just naturally elevates the performance of everyone around him. This outing it's guitarist/vocalist Aaron Nichols who steps it up, finally expanding his vocal repertoire to match the intensity brought by the backline players. While they sacrificed speed to do it, that makes Tyranny of Decay probably Defeatist's strongest and most dynamic record. Of course, once Defeatist found their perfect balance that's when they decide to break up. But this pay-what-you-want download is a fine farewell for the gatekeepers of old school New York City grind.
"Mantle Retractor" is a waddling ankylosaurus of a tune; it's a squat bastard that revels in its own earthiness while "World Left Behind" seems intent on drilling its way through space-time and into the next universe by implacable force of will alone. One of the things I really loved about Tyranny of Decay is the way the lumbering "Mantle Retractor" obliterates the album's midpoint before being scythed away by the savagery of "Nameless Graves," giving the impression the whole album was sequenced for a vinyl release that, unfortunately, probably won't come. [Whoops, it is available on vinyl; thanks for the catch, Anon.] Defeatist were always consummate pessimists predicting apocalypse and catastrophe. They just got there before the rest of us.

You Grind...But Why?: Ryan Page

Ryan Page is one of the most exciting of the young guns slinging a guitar (or sometimes an electric toothbrush or bedframe) these days. Whether it's marrying Italian horror soundtracks with faulty electronics and grindcore in Body Hammer or revitalizing power violence for the 21st Century in Robocop, Page is consistently several steps ahead of his peers. He's been so successful (musically if not necessarily financially) because his compositions are carefully considered. Grind and power violence are no lark for him, and he approaches his music as would any other serious composer. Even if his methods are...unconventional.

"I've been trying to think of an answer that's a bit more personal than 'I've always been into extremes and grindcore is the most extreme blah blah blah,' unfortunately I think that's ultimately pretty close to what I was thinking at the time. Drone and grind are the spaces where tempo, perceptually and conceptually, begins to fall apart. There's a quote from Stockhausen somewhere about the point at which rhythm ceases to be perceived as such. Essentially the idea is that if a rhythm is slow enough (the sun coming up everyday for example) it loses its rhythmic character and becomes something more systemic, similarly extremely fast rhythms essentially become tonal, or in the case of Body Hammer, a noise band. Anyway, at the time I was interested in the barriers for speed and the fastest possible music, and eventually I wanted to take things further, beyond what Agoraphobic Nosebleed was doing, which was my benchmark for grindcore at the time (and to a certain extent it still is). This was around age 15 or 16. I was playing in a hardcore/grind band, and becoming somewhat frustrated with the limitations of that.
"I guess the other element of the narrative is that I also developed an interest in noise; an interest that only grew when my bandmates protested ('that's stupid, you can't have a separate track just for feedback,' 'it needs to become a song eventually'). Interestingly, the sound I hoped to achieve with this band was a lot like how Robocop II ended up. So out of the frustrations of feeling limited by playing with other people, I started the recordings that became Jigoku.
"Many of the songs on that album came from improvisations, using microphone feedback or prepared guitar. I was interested in using limited means (guitars, microphones, and drum machines, no synthesizers) to create a fairly broad sound. I wanted to remove myself from music as much as possible. I would detune my guitars to the point where they were no longer producing pitch, and use a wrench I found like a bow (and arrow, although sometimes in the musical sense as well) or create rhythms by hitting my pickups. On one track I used a giant reverb on the a recording I made of scraping on a bedframe."

You Grind…But Why?: Resistant Culture

While many of us can claim Terrorizer introduced us to grindcore, I doubt you can say Jesse Pintado gave his imprimatur to your racket. But that’s how L.A.’s resident indigenous-core grinders Resistant Culture (which Pintado joined post-Napalm Death) found out their punk and metal racket had a name.

“Grindcore wasn't so much a choice for Resistant Culture, it was more of an evolution,” the band said. “Originally the band was called Resistant Militia founded in the late 1980s. At that time, grindcore was just barely starting to emerge. We were synthesizing punk and metal as crossover. At one point the late Jesse Pintado (RIP) described the new heavier types of crossover as ‘grind.’ He said it was like putting the sound of punk and the sound of metal into a grinder and cranking it out!”

Panic! at the Discography: Pig Destroyer

Pig Destroyer
38 Counts of Battery
Relapse
2000
Pig Destroyer achieved the nigh-unthinkable on early career compilation 38 Counts of Battery: it's a discography record that easily stands on its own as a contained album experience. That's largely because the first 18 of the eponymous 38 tracks come from Pig Destroyer's debut album Explosion in Ward 6. When you tack on an extra 20 songs corralled from the band's various splits and demos it still feels seamless and coherent. Even with all that, 38 Counts of Battery still comes in at a hair under 40 minutes (a tad long maybe), which keeps everything listenably concise. Despite being culled from disparate sources, the production remains largely uniform. Pig Destroyer's trademark heavy and overblown sound feels seamless and coherent.
Scott Hull probably ranks as the single best grindcore songsmith active right now. Every song is anchored in a distinctive hook. Every riff serves a purpose to advance the theme. Pig Destroyer's choice covers of The Melvins, Carcass and Dark Angel are a nice summation of the various influences that have driven Pig Destroyer creatively (add in covers of The Dwarves, Stooges and Helmet from Painter of Dead Girls and everything the band has done suddenly snaps into perfect focus). So 38 Counts is a wonderful peak behind the Great and Powerful Oz's curtain, letting you see how he grew and experimented as a songwriter, leading up to the perfection that is Prowler in the Yard.
38 Counts also represents vocalist J.R. Hayes' larval stage before he'd explode from the cocoon as a venomous, carrion-yellow butterfly on Prowler as one of the most intelligent and evocative lyricists in grindcore. Songs like "Yellow Line Transfer" and "Unwitting Valentine" are early examples of his obsession with obsession, stalking, toxic relationships and aloof, casually violent women. Others, the warped pro-choice savagery of "Treblinka," show Hayes being far more political than maybe we've come to expect from him.
I always enjoy when compilations include explanatory liner notes to fill in a band's history or illuminate where they're coming from musically, and that's lacking here. However, 38 Counts of Battery is so astonishingly coherent despite being Frankensteined together that it's easy to forget it even is a compilation. Instead, it just serves as another great album in Pig Destroyer's legendary career.

G&P Review: Guilty as Sin

Guilty as Sin
Psychotronic
Self Released
Guilty as Sin commit subtraction by addition on latest effort Psychotronic. Their reliance on really bad hardcore barking for the first half of the album distracts from the Massachusetts trio's otherwise thrashing blend of DRI and Voivod. Guilty as Sin lives or dies on the strength of their twisty instrumental mystique and the vocals do nothing to contribute to the music's effect. Luckily, by the stronger second half they shut up and just let you enjoy the expansive weirdness. The rhythmic tension and release of "Addicted to Cyanide," with its dark night of the soul introspective interlude and its spiraling toward enlightenment conclusion, shows just how effective Guilty as Sin can be at conjuring emotion without the crutch of vocals.
Otherwise, Psychotronic is like a curated museum of the last 30 years of punk and metal evolution, revolution and convolution. "Frothing at the Cunt," as its deliberately stupid name may suggest, could have been slapped into the set of just about any of the bands on the infamous Rock Against Reagan tour while the horn section of "Into Dust" would go unremarked on a Total Fucking Destruction record.
Vocals aside, there are a couple of other clunkers that distract from Psychotronic's better moments. The Middle Eastern shuffle of "Godekli Tepe" is too much of a rehash of the similarly-inflected "Before the Flood" from prior album III and the 12 minute title track, which shuts down the album, is meandering to the point of being inert.
So once again, as with III and Led to the Slaughter, Guilty as Sin show flashes of inspired thrashy genius but fail to deliver a concise, complete album. However, editing the best parts of all three records into a single album would make a tidy little experimental thrash extravaganza.

[Full disclosure: The band sent me a review copy.]

G&P Review: Vipe/Cat Massacre

Vipe/Cat Massacre
Split
Control Force
I am the petrified forest of punk rock: my tastes calcified somewhere around 1997 and I doubt there's any flexibility left. So that may explain why I've had such a hard time sorting out my feelings about this Idaho twosome's split album.
Neither band strays far from the hardcore reservation over their combined 19 songs. In fact, Vipe could have written "Imposter" virtually any time in the last 30 years were it not for their penchant for croaking vocals that seem to work against the traditional punk aesthetic at times. I found it jarring, but younger punks weaned on modern hardcore may accept it as natural.
Cat Massacre specialize in short, direct songs that occasionally vary in tempo but remain largely consistent in shape and approach. So it's a pleasure when they bust out the inflatable bouncy castle riffing of "Jay Pfiffer," which hops on a hook that spirals throughout the song.
There are also nods to the classics, though, that make me smile. The intro to Cat Massacre's eponymous song reminds me a tad of Bad Brains' "Big Takeover" and Vipe pay tribute to the forefathers of the guitar buzzsaw with "Joey, Johnny, Tommy, Dee, Dee, Joel-Peter."
Wise Karlo, who is far more attuned to these things than I, really seemed to dig this one, and you know that guy has taste. You can also check it out at Control Force's Bandcamp page.

[Full disclosure: Control Force sent me a download.]

You Grind…But Why?: Defeatist

You wouldn’t think there would be a lot of cultural overlap between Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart and grizzled grindcore scene vet Aaron Nichols, guitarist and vocalist for Defeatist (who have posted their latest record, Tyranny of Decay, as a pay-what-you-want download at their Bandcamp page). But like the porn-bedeviled magistrate, Nichols said after all these years he still can’t even define grindcore, let alone explain its seductive attractions. He just knows it when he sees it.

“I was trying to come up with some clever answer to this question, but the truth is that I am a moron,” the self-effacing Nichols said. “How else do you explain a middle aged man still fucking around with blast beats? I have always been drawn to faster and heavier music growing up. I am old enough to have seen the first U.S. Grindcrusher tour and Brutal Truth when Kevin was belt-sanding car doors on stage and Carcass before they sucked. So I guess grindcore was always there. Even though the term is murky, at best. Are there even any formal properties for grindcore? I guess the only fundamental is blast beats but even that varies. I usually know right away when a band isn't grindcore, but if I think of who the best bands are, none of them sound alike.”

You Grind…But Why?: Cloud Rat

With a musical progression that goes something like Foreigner->Def Leppard->Metallica->Dead Kennedys-> Napalm Death, I completely get where Cloud Rat’s Rorik is coming from when he describes his meandering musical history. Here’s how the promising Michigan up and comer got his grind on and what keeps him coming back.

“I grew up in a really small town (Shepherd, MI), and I wasn't surrounded by a punk/metal scene until I got into my mid/later teens and traveled to other bigger cities,” Rorik said. “My mother was in bar rock bands her whole life, but by the time I was old enough to get into music she was a devout Christian. On a tip from a friend, she ordered some tapes through some Christian distro that I can't remember, and the bands were Vengeance, Mortification, Deliverance, and Tourniquet. At the time I was only about 9 or 10 and didn't really get into the more extreme Vengeance and Mortification stuff, but the other two helped to open my eyes to heavy music (it's funny that Christian music did this, because now I'm of a very different philosophy). I heard Napalm Death for the first time when I was 13, the BBC Sessions on CD. I didn't get it yet.
“It wasn't until I heard Pig Destroyer a couple years later that I started getting into it. After that it was a rapid progression into many extreme music styles, death/grind/doom/hardcore punk/etc. I've been in metal bands, hardcore bands, and rock bands, but nothing has ever got my blood to boil like playing in grindcore bands.
"I guess that I got into grind because to me, it is the fastest, heaviest, and rawest that you can get. And on top of that, to keep it interesting (for me at least), there has to be some sort of real songwriting going on, or some quirk thrown in there that keeps it fresh. And for a style of music that is defined by absolute speed and heaviness, it's amazing how much variety there is! Also, I'm a generally calm person, but I have a lot of intense thoughts and feelings that I can only get out when I play music that is as loud, fast, heavy, and cathartic as I can possibly create.
"I sometimes question my sanity when I'm in a putrid basement with 20 other weirdos, drunk and running into each other, having ear-bleeding noise pounding my ear drums. It's fun to stop and look around at those moments, wondering how you got there. I guess at this point I can't really see it better any other way."

Panic! At the Discography: Discordance Axis

Discordance Axis
Perfect Collection: Original Sound Version 1992-1995
Hydra Head
In addition to grasping for grindcore perfection with The Inalienable Dreamless, Discordance Axis also set the bar for fan service with the early efforts compilation Perfect Collection: Original Sound Version 1992-1995. Originally compiled by Devour Records and reissued by Hydra Head the compilation collects first album Ulterior as well as many of their early splits with innovators Hellchild and Capitalist Casualties. The overstuffed 69 track effort even clocks out with the band’s earliest rehearsal recordings, which are probably only of interest to the most die hard of DxAx obsessives (I'm betting the circles would practically overlap in a Venn diagram of "Discordance Axis fans" and "Discordance Axis obsessives"). If Original Sound Version included nothing more than meditative instrumental curveball “My Neighbor Totoro” and guitar scraping screamer “Ruin Trajectory” that would be enough to cement this collection as a mandatory buy. But so much more thought went into every facet of the reissue.
Given the DVD packaging treatment that would become Discordance Axis’ hallmark with The Inalienable Dreamless, the package shines because of the care singer Jon Chang put into his exhaustive liner notes. Where too many bands are content just to dress up discography packages with some rarity photos and maybe a few old show fliers, Chang illuminates each song, offering some unique insight either into its themes, genesis or performance that illustrates the care Discordance Axis put into their craft (something he would add to the reissued Jouhou as well). His self-flagellating assessment of his earliest lyrical efforts is often hilarious and humbling. It’s impressive to watch the continual critical evaluation of the band’s work that propelled them far past their peers. With Jouhou, the discography also includes Chang’s two-part biography of the band, one of the few authoritative sources of information on Discordance Axis, a band that never got their due in their day.
If you had a gun to your head and could only choose on Discordance Axis album, of course you’re going to pick The Inalienable Dreamless. However, anyone interested in the band’s progression or the baby steps of 21st Century grindcore should also boast Original Sound Version and Jouhou in their collection as well. This is exactly what a well conceived discography should be. It serves as the perfect entry point for new fans but includes enough details and rarities that even long time acolytes will have plenty of surprises in store.

Demo-lition Derby: Gripe

Gripe
The Future Doesn’t Need You
There’s a reason the American Congress takes the summers off. For those who have never experienced a D.C. summer, it’s humid hellbroth of liquefied air and molten pavement that conspires against all forms of mammalian life. The entire city becomes a sodden, festering urban swamp that’s only fit for reptiles and nematodes. So maybe politicians would fit right in after all.
Georgia’s Gripe perfectly encapsulate the reason I loathe this city a good four months out of the year because their sweltering take on grind and power violence on their eight song demo is like watching a thunderstorm build on the horizon on a devastatingly humid summer day. The slow building nature of songs like “Go for the Throat” or “History of Violence” is like praying for the lightning to shear away the oppressive humidity only to cut loose with a barrage of frigid hail. The band has a tinge of ASRA about their protein-rich grind and hints of Benumb in their punked stops and starts.
Taken individually, the songs on The Future Doesn’t Need You massage the grindcore node of your limbic region. However, I wonder how the songs would hold up under full length conditions. While Gripe can fashion a great tune, too many times they fall back on a blast/slow part/blast formulation. It’s a move they’ve mastered, but one trick does not make a magic show.
However, this is a very promising effort but an up and comer. You can check out The Future Doesn’t Need You at their Bandcamp page.

Demo-lition Derby: Priapus

Priapus
Air Loom
North Carolina’s Priapus leave me absolutely speechless. Not because their Maruta meets Benumb at a Jello wrestling convention crush doesn’t kick ass. Because it totally does. No, Priapus have stolen all my words because cmon… Priapus! So many dick jokes to choose from to kick this off. I’m paralyzed by the possibilities. As it is, Priapus is turgid with possibilities because they swing enough sack to give Jesse Helms horrific Mapplethorpe flashbacks. Their six song demo verily throbs with one of the burliest guitar tones you’ll ever hear on a demo, exploding with an orgasmic fury.
Ok, but enough of that.
Over 11 minutes of erectile destruction, Air Loom mixes slippery fingered dexterity with a grunting Neanderthal bluntness. It’s the same subterranean grumble that slouches toward Maruta, waiting to be born. All of that is corralled by a Pete Pontikoff style drill sergeant bark that keeps all the kiddies in line. Highlights include the prickly hedgehog “Where is Everybody,” which is spiked all over with concertina wire guitar nastiness.
You can check out Air Loom at Priapus’ Bandcamp page, and if it tickles your nethers, a short run of CDs is also available at Big Cartel. I’d highly recommend giving this one a spin, but if enjoyment lasts more than four hours, consult your physician.

Multi-Cellular Organism: Cellgraft’s Grind is the Product of Natural Selection

Grindcore is no stranger to some really, wretchedly horrid band names, particularly from those who take their unabashed love for Carcass a step too far. Names so bad you almost assume they’re some sort of bizarre, meta parody-of-bad-grind performance art. Cases in point: Belching Beet, Toxic Bonkers, Urophagia. So I think we can all agree vocalist Matt McKamey and drummer Chris Wotring traded up when they ditched the name Piles Sufferers, swapped in a new guitarist, Ryan Zell, and rechristened themselves Cellgraft.
“I think that was in a Carcass insert or something,” Wotring offers in half-hearted defense of the rejected nomenclature.
While the Floridian trio seems to have exploded out of nowhere to wow the Internet cognoscenti with their Discordance Axis meets Assuck brand of awesomeness, their musical evolution has been a slow progression to grindcore perfection. Wotring said he and McKamey, who was a bassist at the time, were playing in “in a really terrible band” together when McKamey foisted Napalm Death on the unsuspecting drummer in a bid to lure him toward heavier pastures.
“He was trying to get me into heavier music, and a band he was insistent on was Napalm Death so I went out and bought Scum,” Wotring said. “A few weeks later we quit the band to find something better; I was hooked. He knew someone who was also into grind and played guitar so Matt sang and we called it 'Piles Sufferers’.”
Not the most auspicious beginning, but a few more practices and a guitarist infusion later and Cellgraft began to gel. What they would eventually become is one of the more intriguing, intelligent grind bands working. They’re all the more exciting because they have garnered so much praise and attention merely by word of mouth or tweet or text or email or whatever. Without a powerhouse label bringing PR support, Cellgraft has posted its music for free download on its website to survive or perish out in the Darwinian wilds of the internet.
“It seems most people in the hardcore/grindcore scene tend to identify with the ‘we will never sell out’ state of mind,” McKamey said. “Coming from my view point, we love to play, and having very little time and money to do it doesn't help when you want to get something out of it. We don't expect to ever get famous. We just like to let the community and anybody else who gives a fuck a chance to experience Cellgraft.”
Though Cellgraft has persevered through a largely DIY approach to date (friends at No Reprieve Records did issue the excellent Deception Schematic on 7-inch for the band), Wotring said they’re not adverse to garnering label support.
“I wouldn't say that we're 'successful' really but as far as being DIY goes, nobody knew us at fist so we had to do it all on our own,” he said. “If a label came at us and offered to release stuff for us then I think it would be a mistake to pass that up.”
What really differentiates Cellgraft from their “politics and religion really suck” peers is the intelligence hiding behind their songs. While the Revenge EP still showed off their earliest gore-soaked Carcass Jr. infatuation, subsequent songs have hinted at ideas rooted in biology and technology, digging at that nexus between our bodies and the external world. McKamey, who has written the bulk of the band’s lyrics, said he likes to approach his lyrical conceits “from different alchemical, technological, philosophical, and metaphysical angles.”
“We seem to cram all of our perceptions into blocks of noise that last but a few seconds,” he said.
McKamey won’t go into more detail than that, however, preferring to let listeners come to their own conclusions. That deliberate abstraction may be a byproduct of “listening to way too much Discordance Axis,” he suggests.
And about that.
It seems the band can’t make a move without the trio’s concision or distinctive black and white artwork being likened to Assuck or Discordance Axis. While I know a lot of young bands who have sweat blood in garages and basements to craft something that they can call their own chafe at glib internet assholes tossing out easy comparisons to their predecessors, Cellgraft embrace their influences with pride.
“Even being remotely compared to either of those bands is beyond a huge compliment. I couldn't tell you why someone would hate the comparison,” Wotring said. “Both bands are huge influences, so much so we even cover a song from each. We each had our own influences in the beginning but as we exposed ourselves to more grind it was all about finding the fastest noisiest shit out there.”