Monday, February 17, 2025

Open House: An Interview with Travølta


    Belgium's grindcore, powerviolence, fastcore, hardcore, political punk powerhouse, Travølta, have been taking the piss out of the plutocratic and patriarchal powers that be since 2015. The outspoken leftist band combines all the aforementioned subgenres into some snarky and searing blitz styled attacks that they have funneled into some four split releases and three full-length albums. They have been a staple in both the grind/powerviolence scenes as well as the social activism scenes in Belgium and Europe. 
    In the rising tide of right wing political tyranny, legalized xenophobia, open racial and sexual prejudices and budding fascism coming out of the U.S. right now, the politically critical music from bands like Travølta seems more necessary now than ever. They, and bands like them, put their politics where their mouths are and promote dissent and direct action. Travølta is one of those bands that has that egalitarian moral compass as well as their own satirical voice. I recently had the pleasure of bombarding the band's DM's and getting them to talk with me about what they have been up to lately, their thoughts on grindcore and their plans for the summer. 

How's it going? I hope the new year is going well for you guys. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions for the Return to the House of Grindcore blog. I'll begin with the obligatory introductory question of who are the current members of Travølta and what do they do in the band? 

    Nico is the singer, he also writes all of our lyrics. Jonas plays guitar. Kevin handles the bass, artwork and recorded/mixed our upcoming stuff. Rik is the one throwing sticks. He also does most of the samples on our records. Nico and Rik are also the guys behind Loner Cult Records so they distribute the Travølta stuff.

How did each of you get into grindcore/powerviolence/punk and how did that lead to the formation of Travølta?

Nico: I got into hardcore/punk when I was 13 or 14 years old. From a time without internet so… It all started with tape trading in school, reading zines and writing letters to bands. After a while I got in contact with a bunch of local bands. When getting in contact with the people from Zero Positives and a bit later with Agathocles, I crawled way deeper into the underground. In 1992 I started my first little distro and a couple of years later I start playing bass in Outrage (political straight-edge hardcore), later on that band evolved into Reller (a grindcore band, the first band I was singing in.) After both bands broke up I ended up playing bass again in Vuur (raging hardcore violence) and KingTerror (fast-core.) Still wanna be singing, but It never happened until the Travølta kids crossed my path. 10 years later I’m still enjoying it so… Later on I’m also involved in a D-beat band called Arrogänt.

Rik: We all started listening to hardcore/punk when being teenagers. After discovering local hardcore bands, I delved into darker bands like Integrity, Damnation AD and Ringworm. All these hardcore/punk bands were gateway bands for even more extreme kinds of music. I guess no one starts with grindcore when being introduced to underground music or guitar oriented music in general?
Jonas was more into metal but couldn’t handle the meaningless lyrics and rock star attitudes of some bands so he got into old school 80’s hardcore (Black Flag and stuff.) He just likes angry fast music and powerviolence seems to fit his needs perfectly. Kevin has a Kill Your Idols tattoo, so I guess that band influenced him way back.
    The formation of the band was with another guitar player. He and the drummer (that’s me) wanted to do a powerviolence/crust band. They contacted Kevin which they already knew for many years and shortly after Nico joined. During the first COVID period, the previous guitar player took a step aside and a few months later Jonas joined the band. We already knew this guy for many years and the fact that he also lived in our area made it even better.
    The COVID period was a time of reflection and adaptation. Because a tree fell on our original rehearsal space, we were forced to rehearse somewhere else. That place got shut down for more than a year so our way of making music totally changed. We constructed blueprints for songs at home and exchanged files through the internet. Afterwards, when it was possible to meet, we started rehearsing those songs and a few jam sessions followed. This is how our previous full length Disco Violence Up Yours! was created.

What genres and what bands played the biggest influence in Travølta's sound and style?
 
Nico: For me I got inspired by bands as: Ripcord, Agathocles, Lärm, Crossed Out, Seein’ Red, Dropdead, Chokehold... I got inspired by a lot of outspoken and political bands. Genres? I always fell in love with the more gritty and extreme kind of our scene. When music becomes happy I’m off, I always look for real anger and passion in music.

Rik: At first we tried to mix crust and powerviolence. We always said Extortion and Disgust were our influences. I’m not really sure you can hear this in our first record but there are some parts more akin to crust or D-beat and some to powerviolence.
    Nowadays we have less crust influences and more fast hardcore parts thrown into our eclectic mix. In Tinnitus We Crust had some old school death metal influences because our previous guitar player was getting more and more into death metal. When he stepped out of the band we wanted to make a return to old school powerviolence. Jonas’ songwriting has a more punky feel to it and you can hear it in our music.


I got into grindcore via leftist punk music. Travølta is a hugely outspoken political band and your lyrics obviously reflect that. How are politics important to the band and how are you using the band as a platform to promote them?
 
Nico: The same here… I grew up in the 90’s, a time when bands where all pretty outspoken. So the thing was that I wanted to join the band, but wanted to do more than just music. Especially ‘cuz no one talked anymore on stage… it all became just a music thing and that frustrated me so… I wanna do it differently. The lyrics are sometimes a bit sarcastic, but still clear enough to point out at things.

Rik: We’re very glad that you are describing us as hugely outspoken. We all have kind of the same views on politics which are pretty leftist. Some people love it but also many people don’t like it when we preach while performing. You know the drill, less talking more music. We want to party and don’t want to listen to your messages.
    We think hardcore/punk and in extent grindcore or powerviolence are intertwined with social messages and social critique, it’s part of the strength of the music. Lyrics from many bands that recorded records twenty years ago are still very relevant today. Personally, I also think that these messages add to the overall “value” of the music. For example, I do love the music created by Cannibal Corpse, but I honestly can’t really stand by the lyrics. I can headbang to it, I can enjoy the songs, but they don’t touch the heart. That’s where hardcore/punk, powerviolence and grindcore (let’s exclude goregrind… haha) come into play. The Smiths wrote a nice lyric about it which is a good comparison to what I’m trying to say: "Hang the blessed DJ, because the music that they constantly play, it says nothing to me about my life."
    For us, the lyrical content is a very important part of the band. On our lyric sheet the lyrics are accompanied by commentary. We always get bummed out when we see a good band, but they don’t say nothing in between songs and just act cool and hip. We really don’t care if you wear sunglasses on stage or if you keep your leather jacket on when the temperature is rising. We care about your integrity and your message, fuck that rock star attitude! Be real, don’t act! Bands like Seein’ Red and Dropdead are good examples of how we like it!

What are some of the band's favorite activist groups in Belgium? Are there any political/human rights organizations that you support and that you think people should know more about?
 
Nico: We already played a bunch of benefits for human and animal rights groups. Going from medical aid for Ukraine war victims, aid for Palestinian refugees, law costs for anarchist prisoners, a dog shelter in Greece, [etc.] In our area you got some interested citizens movements like Hart Boven Hard (an organization that fights against injustice and asocial government laws.) You also have Straatsyndicaat in Antwerp, an organization that fights for a more humane policy for homeless people. You also got some activist and anarchist groups in the bigger cities. I always thought that the personal is also the political, so... I try to join manifestations once in a while... We also adopted our animals from an animal shelter called: Forest & Friends. We put up local shows in our area lately to get something moving in our area, also to get the anarchist/political statement out to a wider audience: I live a vegan lifestyle, etc, etc.

How is the grindcore scene in Belgium? Who and what are some of your favorite Belgium bands or labels?

Nico: Grindcore is always kind of strange in Belgium. People from outside of Belgium always think the scene is big and filled with bands with international fame: Agathocles, Intestinal Disease, [etc.] But the scene is kinda small lately. When we release brutal grind records with our label, we mostly sell ‘em outside our country. But you definitely have to check out the following bands: Parasite Circus, Head Of The Baptist, Verpest, Loathsome, Assur, Days Of Desolation, Monnier

Rik: Well, when Napalm Death plays in Belgium (last time was with Pig Destroyer, Primitive Man and Wormrot) they can fill a venue with a thousand people. When a smaller international band plays on a Monday, you may have 10 people sticking around (or less.) You also have some labels backing up the scene here in Belgium. Loner Cult really does it’s part by releasing many Belgium bands, including grindcore. Other noteworthy labels are: Bringer Of Gore (true underground noisy grind), Halenoise (members of Days Of Desolation), Sick Phoque Records, BCR-30, [etc.]
Some interesting bands (yes, I forgot many bands but I can’t make this an endless answer.):
Verpest: They sound like Mayhem (Deathcrush period) playing grindcore.
Days Of Desolation: Ultra tight, crusty and technical grindcore.
Hetze: Hardcore/punk meets powerviolence.
Assur: If Mortician was created in Belgium, they’d call that band Assur.
Parasite Circus: Heavy hardcore/grind with a very good sound. Sometimes I think it’s Coalesce playing grindcore.
Head Of The Baptist: Crusty metal.
Plague Thirteen: Crust for fans of Tragedy and His Hero Is Gone.
Raw Peace: Crust spicing it up with that Japanese vibe.
Reproach: Trashcore, going wild on the live shows. Imagine Bones Brigade but based in Belgium.
Röt Stëwart: Oldschool hardcore for awesome people made by even more awesome people.
The list is endless: Dögmën, Serial Pissers, On Fire, Burning Kross, xINVICTUSx, xINCLUSIONx, Drudge, Sore, Visions Of War, BezetteStad, Toxic Shock, [etc.]

Songs for the split with We Sleep are starting to come out. How did this pairing come about? When can we expect the upcoming split to be released?
 
    We played Dräschfeschd in Germany (Hamburg), it’s a grindcore/powerviolence festival in a school with only 15 minute sets. The fest is organised by Ralf, the drummer in We Sleep (Nico knows him from his days in Stack.) We got some sleep at his place (pun intended) and the next morning there was this idea of making a split record.
    The record will be released in April on Loner Cult Records, Flower Violence Records, Give Praise Records, Rotten To The Core Records. Global Help Foundation is doing a CD version of it.

This Summer has Travølta embarking on a European tour with Meth Leppard in July. Will you be returning to the Obscene Extreme Music Festival? What are your favorite experiences at Obscene Extreme?

Rik: We’re not playing Obscene Extreme this year, but Meth Leppard are. We’ll be joining them after the weekend for a two week tour across Europe. 
    We played on Obscene Extreme in 2023 and it was a great experience. People seemed to like our music and lyrical content, so we’re very happy about that. Saw many old friends, made some new ones and saw many great bands!
    Nico is going to Obscene Extreme, but the rest can’t make it. Here are his top bands to check out: Lack Of Interest, My Minds Mine, Bas Rotten, I Scream Protest, Eraser, War//Plague, Odio Social and Meth Leppard, of course.

How did a Summer 2025 tour with Australia's Meth Leppard come to fruition?

    We co-released the first 7" of Meth Leppard. On an earlier tour we also played one show together. So I guess it’s helping each other out, pure DIY style!


Strictly speaking grindcore/powerviolence, what bands are you guys currently listening to? What bands or albums would you consider essential listening for fans of the genre? 

Nico: There are some really interesting bands around in the underground lately. I think about bands as Dögmën, Hetze, Raw Peace, Teigne, Crippled Fox, Lady Gaza, LilyxElbe, Possible Damage, Failure, Plague Thirteen, Jodie Faster, So Close, Gummo, Tael, False, LMDA, The Prim, Martø, [etc.]
Check out Skiplife, they always deliver with their old school powerviolence sound, but also check out the [music of] Loner Cult. All these bands deserve a lot more attention and they’re all worthwhile to check out. 
    If you want me to drop some oldies, definitely check out: Neanderthal, Siege, Crossed Out, Avskum, Fuck On The Beach, Deathtoll 80K.

Rik: Some of my favourite powerviolence/grind releases of last year:
Failure: Obstinate
So Close: Painkiller Mentality
Trigger/LilixElbe split 10"
Brodequin: Harbinger Of Woe
Horsebastard: Horsebastard
Archagathus/Assur split
ACXDC: G.O.A.T.
Completed Exposition/Maxxpower split
Tael: Self-titled
Convulsions/Civilian Thrower split
Turtle Rage: Curse Of The Mutants
Final Exit: Born In Hell
Eraser: Harmony Dies

Favourite all-time grindcore/powerviolence records:
Infest: No Man’s Slave
Extortion: Degenerate
Siege: Drop Dead
ACXDC: Self-titled
Fuck On The Beach: Power Violence Forever
Discordance Axis: The Inalienable Dreamless
Napalm Death: From Enslavement To Obliteration
Misery Index: Dissent EP
Antigama: The Insolent
Hellnation: Your Chaos Days Are Numbered
The Locust: New Erections
Unholy Grave: Grind Killers
Agathocles: Theatric Symbolisation Of Life
Wormrot: Dirge
Iron Lung: Sexless // No Sex
Spazz: La Revancha
Nasum: Human 2.0
Psudoku: Deep Space Psudokument
Gadget: The Funeral March

Other than the upcoming We Sleep split and Meth Leppard tour, what's next for Travølta? 

Rik: We’re doing a new live split record with Slutbomb from Cincinnati. We got some recordings from a show and thought they captured our essence quite well. It’s rawer and even sometimes faster than the stuff on our studio records but we liked it.
    We’re also recording music for a new split 7" and have blueprints for another split 12”. Gotta stay busy, haha.

Any last words?

    Thanks for letting us speak up on your blog, keep up the good work. People mostly forget about all the hard work people like you put into this underground scene. We aren’t anything without people who set up gigs, do artwork, do labels, do zines, blogs, etc. It’s because of people like you that the D.I.Y. scene is this fantastic place to be in! Keep up the good work and hopefully we’ll all meet somewhere on the road. Cheers.

    It has been a pleasure. I cannot thank you guys enough! I really appreciate you taking the time to answer all my not-so-inspired and redundant questions. And thank you for all the kind words about the blog. I can't wait to check out the upcoming splits. I'm especially eager to give those new live tracks a listen. 
    As I am stationed stateside, I can't say that I'll catch the band on tour this summer, but European readers be sure to catch Travølta on tour with Meth Leppard. I'd hate to miss those dates if I were you. Once again, thank you so much to Travølta for their words and time.
    For everyone else, you can listen to Travølta and grab some merch on the band's Bandcamp page: https://travoltakvlt.bandcamp.com/ 
Also be sure to follow them on Facebook for news and info: https://www.facebook.com/travoltaviolence/ 
Also check out all the great bands and releases on Loner Cult Records on the label's Bandcamp page: https://lonercult.bandcamp.com/ 

More links to good things: 
Hart Boven Hard (Belgium): https://hartbovenhard.be/
Forrest & Friends (I think this is the correct organization, Belgium): https://forrestandfriends.be/
Doggybag Crew (Belgium/Greece): https://www.doggybagcrew.org/

Monday, February 10, 2025

Split Level Housing: Fading Trails/Järnbörd/Horornisdisphonevalley/Abanglupa - "No Blessing" Four-way Split CD Review


    2024 went out in a pathetic and woeful whimper that waned into a death rattle right before 2025 inevitably took a complete shit. As bleak as 2025 is and as strained as foreign relations are, around this time last year the half Scandinavian, half Asian, cross-continental four-way split CD entitled, No Blessing, released on Esagoya and EveryDayHate Records in late January of 2024. Bands Fading TrailJärnbörd, Horornisdisphonevalley and Abanglupa collaborated on a multinational record that coalesced different cultures under the single banner of stocky grindcore. They say music is one of the true international languages. Let's see if noise not music also applies to that adage. 

 Fading Trail (Finland) 
    Finland's Fading Trail and their winning combination of death metal, sludge, groove metal and grindcore once again grace the pages of Return to the House of Grindcore. We last saw Fading Trail with their Everydayhate Records sponsored review of Count The Days in 2021. The band's evolution from blasting dungeonous death-grind to a more sophisticated blended and blackened death metal is still the standard on No Blessing. Fading Trail aren't all about speed anymore and instead focus on craftsmanship and brutal plowing. 
    Their six contributive tracks are quick tempoed songs of venomous vocals and rich timbred guitar distortion. The guitar riffs writh and contort like a beheaded snake; flashing the dorsal and ventral scales of rhythm and lead guitar. Like the serpentine-esque carcass that swirls through the dirt, the throes of their guitarwork change directions wildly and evasively. That lead guitar trumpets in with sirening cries that add a sense of metallic melody throughout the background of the songs. 
    The songs are masterfully crafted and switch from up-tempo trucking to slow brooding trudges by the use of keenly placed noise interludes or hiccuping drum collapses. This is showcased most blatantly in the track, "The Inevitable." The blast beats are used conservatively and more as embellished flourishes and crescendos.
    Fading Trail have taken their grindcore roots and forged them into exceptionally heavy versions of the metal subgenres. I usually find that bands within said subgenres tend to be tedious and bloated. However, Fading Trail are overly skilled and motivated, making for a thoroughly enjoyable and textured listening experience.  

 Järnbörd (Sweden) 
    It's not that often, or ever, that you hear of a fresh or interesting take on grindcore these days. However, multifaceted Swedish crust-grinders, Järnbörd, are sure going out of their way to make you think otherwise. 2024's No Blessings was my first introduction to the band's quirky concoction of grindcore, crust punk, metal, hardcore and sort of an alternative pop rock. An unorthodox mix that is currently getting their latest 2025 full-length, Filmer För Blinda, plenty of accolades. 
    Right from the start of Järnbörd's first entry, "Skarpt Läge," I could tell that this wasn't your average grindcore band. There was a melodic shallow undertone of what I could only classify as 90's era alternative rock trampled over by an avalanche of thick blasts beats. There's as much catchiness as there is brutality. It sounds like Sex Prisoner blaring over Sonic Youth
    Like their split mates, Fading Trail before them, Järnbörd are utilizing diversity and melody to deepen and enrich their songs. The band's eclecticism is its super power. The genres run the gamut from track to track. For instance, track "Succélunch Med Tjejerna" plays like a heavy guitared hardcore/grind song that concludes with a Twisted Sister-esque, "Burn In Hell," outro. (I am assuming it's unintentional, but I couldn't help but think of Dee Snider riding the hood of that Cadillac in Pee-wee's Big Adventure.) Additionally, "Vi Har Fakta Och Röstar Nej" reminds me of early 2000's Profane Existence Records melodic crust bands like Ballast or Another Oppressive System
    Hopefully I didn't make any of that sound remotely unappetizing, because it is anything but. Järnbörd is all grind and with a healthy dose of punk rock catchiness. Think of bands like Travølta. The guitar and bass are heavy and thick. The vocals are hardcore barks, not too dissimilar to that of Code 13's Felix Havoc. The drumming is fast and tight and the blasts are unremitting once they start. Järnbörd's protean style is a fun and fresh take on the genre. 

 Horornisdisphonevalley (Japan) 
    Horornisdisphonevalley are yet again another returning blog alum, previously seen on the review of Tystnadsallergi—the band's split with SlothPhantomMoth in 2021. As you may recall, Horornisdisphonevalley's noisy and discordant take on melodic grindcore is a manic and multifarious musical tapestry. Parallels between this Japanese, outside-of-the-box, one-man grind project and bands like Gridlink, Mortalized and Psudoku are not uncommon. 
    Horornisdisphonevalley's influences and amalgamated styles aren't so much toggled amongst as they are tangled and trampled. Tracks are scrambles of guitar and drums with seemingly no preconceived framing, just the composer's whim. Songs dip in tempo from blasting grindcore to whirring lulls that leave the listener wondering where things will go next. The drums are breathless tumbles of calamitous snare rolls and blast beats. As you can imagine, the band's guitarwork is a dynamic display of talent and aggression. There is a balance of traditional metal licks, driving grindcore and the melodic undertones. Horornisdisphonevalley are known for their penchant for audio samples and synthesized instrumentations. Track, "無頼男(Bremen)," starts with the former and ends with a zig-zagging electronic noodling that reminds me of some sort of Capcom arcade game or a Castlevania eight-bit digitized tune. The vocals are just as schizophrenic as the rest of the instruments. Long screams and demonic barks ebb and flow over collapsing tempos and virtuoso riffs. 
     Horornisdisphonevalley are less of their harsh noise on No Blessing, but are keeping things lively and unpredictable. The band's speeding aggression and heavy metal technical guitar are generally the orthodoxic norms within the genre, but Horornisdisphonevalley are just weird enough to keep you on your toes. 

 Abanglupa (Philippines) 
    Bookending this four-way quite nicely is Filipino hardcore/grindcore band, Abanglupa. Not unlike their split counterparts, Fading TrailAbanglupa are a heavy, trodding, sludging juggernaut. The band's back catalog—most recently the Perpetual Grip On Power split with Swineslaughter—is keeping more in-line with that hardcore/grindcore dual genre. On that release the band exercises a liberal amount of blast beats and hardcore swings that border on beatdown. Abanglupa's hardcore mid-tempo cudgeling does devolve into sludgy, almost doom style tracks. In regards to No Blessing, that more sludgy hardcore angle seems to be the band's focal on this split. 
      Abanglupa have a rhythmic, highly repetitive style of songwriting. They have a circular pulsing course to them. A maggoty undulation that pushes through the songs. Initial track, "Habitual Fabricator," mixed a quick hardcore tempo with an almost tribal style of drumming. While the general tempo is usually plodding, blast beats are fleeting tags at the end of riffs and aren't as prevalent as in their other releases. The guitar and bass are crushing and crisp. The lead guitar often assumes this sound of an alarm or siren. Again, it's a repetitious groove that creates a sort of revolving syncopation. Vocally, Abanglupa have a raspy, Scandinavian grindcore styled yell. In fact, a lot about Abanglupa's sound has that Northern European polish: the vocals, the sharpness of the distortion, the creaking guitar leads, the high quality of the mix and master, et cetera. 
    Abanglupa's four tracks are almost tailored for this release. The band dish out their looped hardcore with its inflections of grindcore, while also taking their time to keep tempos more subdued. Despite that, Abanglupa have the shortest songs on the split with a majority of them clocking in under a minute.  

    Generally, in keeping with my experiences with split records with more than two bands, they usually have a multitude of bands that I have never heard of; or feature one band that I do recognize paired with others that don't seem to measure up. Yet, either way, lately it seems that I'm being proven wrong, or maybe it's only of late that I'm looking in the right places. Splits like the one between Sidetracked, Fed Ash, Shrivel Up and Ixias in 2022 really started turning my head. 
    Nevertheless, I haven't come across a collective split as well balanced as No Blessing. The split has a nice cohesive through-line of sludge and grind that is refracted differently and distinctively through the prism of each separate band. It's an international effort of entities speaking different languages, yet saying the same thing, if you will. While No Blessing isn't a blast-a-thon styled album, it will definitely sustain the grindcore enthusiasts. 


FFO: Rotten Sound, MortalizedTravølta


Monday, January 20, 2025

Payback Time: Deterioration - "Paranoia & Violence" LP Review


     This album starts off with a minute-long audio soundbite from the 1987 film, Predator, in which a group of machine gun toting commandos level a Guatemalan rainforest. One particular character exhausts the entire ammo reserve of a handheld M134 Minigun nicknamed, "Old Painless." I can't think of a better way to describe Deterioration—loud, incessant, brutal, devastating. 
    Deterioration is the band that you recommend to your annoying normy coworker when the subject of music comes up and you don't want them to talk to you ever again. They are relentless in speed and precision. The vocals are bloody and violent and the songwriting is tighter than a nun's nasty. The Minneapolis two-piece has an absolutely prolific output of material with multiple releases a year, almost every year, for the last twenty years. It is pretty insane to think about. 2024's Paranoia & Violence is just the latest in the band's laundry list of grindcore releases. 
    
    Deterioration are known for their total pervasion of pulverizing drums and blazing guitar distortion. The chronic speed and tight blasts are exhaustive. Paranoia & Violence is no exception, however, the album's B-side explores the band's sludgier and more moderately paced influences. These songs lean more towards the metal and goregrind with mid tempo jaunts and mince style two-step beats. 
    The production on Paranoia & Violence almost borders on the low-fi, yet isn't of a specifically poor quality, nor is it at all overly polished. It suffices to say that the mix is ample while maybe being a cheeky bit muddy. The band's tongue-in-cheek, ironically cringey, metaphorical aesthetic of duct taped combat boots with camouflage shorts and a throwback WWF t-shirt with the sleeves cut off is conducive with the band's ready-to-rock sound and attitude. The polish isn't really necessary or, in some cases, even warranted in grindcore of this caliber. Deterioration are so good at what they do. You know exactly what you're getting when you buy one of their records and you would be hard-pressed to find much of any disappointment. 

    I don't really know why this release is a full-length twelve-inch record. At only nine tracks, Paranoia & Violence seems like it could have easily been an EP. Even though a lot of the songs here have sound clips that are almost as long as the songs themselves, they are still not overly lengthy. Deterioration's normal full-length track count is typically ten or less tracks anyways, so we are definitely on par here. It just seems like grind like this would have an obscene amount of tracks per record. Perhaps it's like rattlesnake venom, in which just a dab will do you. The band certainly leaves you wanting more, in any case. 

    Deterioration and their latest, Paranoia & Violence, mows down the listener just like "Old Painless" did to that feature film foliage. The record's roaring guitar and grinding blast beats is sure to make hamburger out of your eardrums and any rogue Yautja headhunters. 


FFO: Sulfuric CauteryFiend, Death Toll 80K


Friday, January 10, 2025

Return The House Of Grindcore: Top 10 Favorite Releases Of 2024


    Another year has come and gone. Another year where I paint myself into the proverbial corner of looking back at the previous year and attempt to curate the best grindcore and grindcore adjacent releases. Despite the fact that I am most likely just stress-raging against writer's block and an encroaching deadline right now, compiling my favorite releases from the previous year is my favorite thing to write about in the blog. I enjoy the inundation of all the releases and the manic frenzy that comes with listening and sorting them all over and over again. The varying styles of all the bands reinvigorates my love of the genre at a time of year where one could easily lose sight of simple pleasures such as listening to music. However, I would be lying if I told you that the compilation of a top ten list isn't anxiety-inducing in its own right. 
    In past years I have struggled with the abundance with both the quality and quantity of the releases and the overwhelming task of culling through them all. Lo and behold, this year is no different. The longer that I write this blog, the larger the pool of grindcore bands to choose from. A vivid realization that is setting in only now.
    Traditionally, I seem to fill a lot of these prefaces with a plethora of apologies and stipulations. So, I shall spare you the contrition and caveats and simply extend some of my gratitude. I would like to thank all of you who support, read, follow, share, submit or otherwise engage with the Return to the House of Grindcore blog in any way. I would like to thank all the bands and record labels who have submitted over the years. You literally make this possible by giving me great new bands to listen to. The friendships and dialogues that I have made because of this blog were unexpected, unintended and are wholly appreciated. I am still here, unnecessary as I am, because of you all. 
    2024 was what it was. It was a tough year all around, but as far as grindcore was concerned, it was a God damn smoke show. This year I had to forego an Honorable Mentions section due to the fact that there were so many exceptional grindcore releases. My Honorable Mentions were a dozen bands deep and defeated the entire purpose. I will, however, acknowledge some of the bands that make up the twenty-four currently open Bandcamp tabs on my phone's web browser. ChadhelDeteriorationHoukago Grind Time, KidnappedKnoll, ManipulatorWarfuck and Woundflower all had amazing releases this year that cycled through my top ten at some point. I just couldn't fit everything into a concise list. I had the privilege of listening to a lot of music this year and that's a celebration in and of itself. We, as listeners, should be grateful for that gift alone. I don't think any of us got into music or formed bands with the expressed goal of being included in some arbitrary "best of" list on a blog or webzine. But as fans of the genre, our appreciation and support seems to be the least that we can do. Besides, I know we all really got into bands so we could get into shows for free. 

 
10. Vermintide - "Virus Pedigree"
Believe it or not, I actually had the most difficult time placing a band in this number ten spot; even more so than number one. There were a set few bands that I knew would make up the front half of this list, but there were so many more bands that I wanted to include on the back end. Even now, as the majority of this list sits complete and idle, the internal debate goes on. 
    I ultimately decided on Israel's slam/death-grind trio, Vermintide. Their 2024 digital release, Virus Pedigree, is not only just a good album, but it's also an achievement in the growth of the band themselves. The unorthodox, sort of reverse-engineered way that Vermintide came into existence and the evolution into a death-grind band with this amount of ferocity should be a point of pride for the band. I know it is for me. They successfully engineered a standard of technicality and production like that of some more credentialed extreme metal acts, but they harbored the ethos and brutality of grindcore. 
    Virus Pedigree's latter-step guitar riffs have that hairy deathcore sound along with a polished wiry shriek that adds a certain flavor to the guitarwork as it shifts from tempo to tempo and from rhythm to lead. The heavy slinky basslines are my favorite part of the album. The detuned pop-punk toned riffs are so technically dexterous and aurally gratifying that I couldn't help but gush over them in the February 2024 blog review, but also to the band themselves. Vermintide's implementation of programmed drums could be a point of contention, yet they are so congruent that they are practically imperceptible if you didn't honestly know beforehand. Virus Pedigree was released almost a year ago now and I feel it remains a dynamic listening experience that has a broad multiple genre appeal.


9. See You Next Tuesday/meth. - "Asymmetrics" split LP
    This avant-grind collaboration was the brainchild of See You Next Tuesday guitarist Drew Slavik, and from the first listen seemed like something noteworthy. Described as a sort of musical and social experiment, Asymmetrics is technically a split release between Michigan's mathcore/deathcore/grindcore, See You Next Tuesday and Chicago's screamo/noise/metal, meth. From what I have gathered, each band recorded a variety of drum patterns, swapped them and then independently wrote songs around both sets of the Frankensteined drum tracks. So, in short, you get six songs from each band along with a pair of bonus tracks that have both bands playing simultaneously. If that seems convoluted, don't worry about it. All you need to know is that it very much works. 
    I'll be honest in the fact that I preferred See You Next Tuesday's contributions maybe a little more. The beginning of the record starts out very strong. The production value is high and extremely polished. The instruments break like a thunderstorm: explosive bass drops, a hail of snare blasts and a dizzying tempest of technical guitar peels. See You Next Tuesday drummer, Jimmy Watson, throws down on some God damn gravity blasts that made this album a shoo-in for one of the best of 2024. 
    Now, I hope it doesn't sound like I'm discrediting meth. and their efforts. The band's style leans more towards the atmospheric and sludgy/stoner feel, but the band also offers up an impressively long and unbroken string of blast beats. And don't forget, the bands switch up drum tracks and also the vibes. Asymmetrics is a unique and experimental way to do a split that I don't recall ever seeing before. Part Frankenstein's monster, part The Postal Service, part Wife Swap, this release is pretty exceptional. 

8. Antichrist Demoncore - "G.O.A.T." LP
    No introduction should be needed for this band. The vast influence of these godfathers of SoCal grind-violence over their more than twenty year tenure cannot be overstated. ACxDC have established themselves as one of those elite bands that came to be respected amongst the grindcore, powerviolence and hardcore communities alike. Their latest 2024 full-length, G.O.A.T., is not only an audacious declaration of the band being self aware of their impact on the genre, but it's also an antagonistic assertion of their superiority and dominance within it. Not to mention the obvious satanic double entendre. 2020's Satan Is King had a chugging metalcore approach to the band's brand of grind-violence that I felt tipped the band's scale more towards that of outright grindcore than towards the powerviolence side of the spectrum. G.O.A.T. seems very much in line with the dark and bulked up undertone that Satan Is King established. Yet, the band reaffirms the the powerviolence and hardcore elements through gang vocals, elbow-throwing moshing breakdowns and rapid fire drumming. There is some real amazing tom and snare work on the album as well as some heavy and catchy guitar riffs. ACxDC have once again proven themselves not only worthy, but also make it abundantly clear that they have no intentions on vacating the grind-violence throne that they have seated themselves upon since the Second Coming EP, at least. G.O.A.T. is a sacrilegious showpiece of blasphemous blasting. This is easily ACxDC's best record to date. Hail Satan.

7. Barren/Sickrecy split LP
    Since their debut 2021 demo, Barren have had a near perfect track record of releases. The band has been putting out some of the best and most brutal grindcore in the world. Their 2024 split with Sickrecy is no different. The Belgium riff lords are absolutely punishing on the record. As always, the production is top-tier. Its thick gravelly distortion permeates everything. The guitars are utterly crushing and searing with gain. The blast beat drumming has this solid sounding impact, whether it be from the blasting of the snare or the double kick. The vocals here are almost inhuman. I can picture the black bile spewing and spattering underneath the cinder block screams every time I listen to it. The album cover art might as well be a picture of the microphone pop filter after the studio vocal tracking.
    I couldn't have thought of a better band to do a split with Barren if I tried. Barren may have finally met their match in Sweden's Sickrecy, and I mean that homogeneously not antagonistically. Sickrecy has a similar vocal style and similarly ferocious guitar tones. I needn't have to explain Sweden's affinity for the Boss HM-2 as well as Barren's fanatical ties to the legendary distortion pedal. Sickrecy has more of a crust punk songwriting style and might have what is considered traditionally more metal guitar riffs, complete with solos and string bending screams. Their thrashing riffs are lightning fast and may perhaps be more frenzied than Barren's
    This split is a grindcore guitar fan's wet dream. It will have you phantom palm muting on the thigh of your jeans, desperately trying to keep up. The rapid fire chugging, the crunchy guitar tone, the mechanized blasting from both of the bands just complement each other so well. The more I listen to this album, the more fun I have and the more I enjoy it.

6. Sick/Tired - "Whip Hand Paranoia" LP
A new release from harsh grind heavy bombers, Sick/Tired was not on my bingo card for 2024. The band's last full-length album was in 2014—some ten years prior! Whip Hand Paranoia seemingly came out of nowhere. I think I was essentially sent a link by the band that was like, "Oh yeah, and this is a thing." 
    Whip Hand Paranoia picks right up where Sick/Tired left off with 2014's Dissolution. The band's mean, gritted teeth style of grindcore is a distorted and blown out take on the genre. Its noisy sheen and corroded edges add a taste of rust into the mix without sacrificing production value or clarity. Any true noise-grind elements are really regulated to just a few tracks, but they sound like sonically fried slices of digital Hell. The rest of the album plays relatively straightforward, otherwise. While Sick/Tired's sound is composed mainly of grindcore, it incorporates influences from powerviolence and hardcore. And it's a lot of that hardcore that I believe gives Whip Hand Paranoia its concussive punch. There is a certain sense of earthen tactileness that I can't quite articulate. The dense blast beats and the fuzzy guitar give a World War II pole charge blasting a hole into a Normandy beachhead type vibes. Something about a warbling impact and the shower of the particulates falling around the listener. Sick/Tired have planted a seed of aggression and speed into soil contaminated by electronic waste and heavy metal poisons and Whip Hand Paranoia is what germinated from it.

5. Morgue Breath - "Plaga Sin Rostro" LP
    Los Angeles' favorite goregrind/death-grinders, Morgue Breath, returned with their second full-length in two years. As you might recall, Morgue Breath originally started as Ivo "Bastard's" one-man grind project. After repositioning himself as lead vocals and guitar, Ivo added grindcore superstars, Emi Tamura and Isaac Horne from the highly acclaimed Shitbrains and Sulfuric Cautery, respectively. 
    Despite the band's charnel imagery and the clinically putrescent natured song titles, Morgue Breath doesn't necessarily have a stereotypical goregrind sound. Instead, the band's songwriting tends to focus mostly on consummate musicianship and heavy blasting. 
    Plaga Sin Rostro is a nonstop seventeen track torrent of blazing guitar riffs and maniacal blast beats. The contrast between Emi's sour high screeches and Ivo's throaty low gutturals is pitch perfect. Very similar are her rumbling basslines to his fiery distorted tremolo riffs and squealing whammy bar adornments. Issac's drumwork might not be as berserk as his work on Sulfuric Cautery, but it is still tirelessly pummeling. Like other gore-flecked grindcore contemporaries, such as Texas' TrucidoMorgue Breath are keeping it grotesque while also keeping the grindcore quintessence at the forefront. They are successfully avoiding the humdrum cliché trappings of your average goregrind outfits, thus ascending above them in caliber and quality. 

4. Groin - "Paid In Flesh" LP
I told you! Arizona's raging hot, noise-kissed, feedback drenched grind-violence threesome makes their prophetical return to the blog with Paid In Flesh. With twenty tracks in under twenty minutes, you know this release is going to rip. The record is a coin toss between sludgy powerviolence and blistering grindcore that is as hostile as it is entertaining. Groin's vocals are also similarly fashioned in that same grind-violence cast, with a caveman roar and a sharp high pitched coupling. (If you were looking for the results of that aforementioned ACxDC influence, look no further.) 
    Paid In Flesh is a revved up and tough sounding record that has real teeth. The attack on the drums has a dull, wooden sort of thudding, boiling report. The kick drum is pushed forward in the mix so you can hear every footfall. The combination of the snare and kick presents a distinctive and pleasurable bubbling pop, especially with Groin's typewriter styled blast beats. The guitar and bass meld together in this gnarly way—the buzzsaw guitar riffs are rounded out by a heavy bottomed bass tone. A bass tone that has a guttural bear growl sounding distortion on it that is so fucking mean. What pedal are you running that thing through, Austin? Asking for a friend.

3. Controlled Existence - "Out Of Control" LP
    Prague's grindcore powerhouse veterans put out their very first full-length album after almost fifteen years in the game. Out Of Control might be the band's first long-player, but with twenty-one tracks—not a single one of which is over a minute—they did things exactly right. How they are fitting trudgey metal interludes in between lightning quick blast beats in just thirty seconds is a testament in its own right. The guitarwork is clawing and aggressive and often wanes out into whining dirge style leads. The band is known for their excessive pummeling and blitzkrieg style of blasting grindcore. The songs go off like ticking timebombs of staticky fire and scouring vocals. 
    Controlled Existence's grindcore has a fairly binary, hot and cold approach, both vocally and in tempo. While it might not be anything new, it is executed with precision by the band via their talent and efficiency. At the end of the day, Out Of Control is a starchy, well crafted record. It's a nice hybrid of older grindcore with its metal influences as well as the agility and polish of modern grind. Drumstick drop.  

2Horsebastard  - "Horsebastard" LP
    Horsebastard dropped a brand new release right towards the end of the year in late November. No doubt, dead set on upsetting everyone's end of the year lists. Now, I had no idea that this album was in the works or if the band was even active after their 2019 split with Retortion Terror. So when they released this self-titled full-length I was fucking stoked. The band's ballistic, high-octane chaos-style grind-violence is some of the best the genre has to offer. The vocalist's high-pitched screaming is stinging and shrill, not to mention, utterly psychotic. They are part Tasmanian Devil cartoon, part bobcat attack. The lyrics and the low, gruff powerviolence vocals barely reign them in. 
    The yo-yoing guitar riffs and bass spills are wound so tight that you expect something to snap and maim an eye at any given moment. Horsebastard's hyper-blasting is absolutely devastating. The drumming is a drilling battery of snare and kick and are some of the fastest drums on this list, I'm sure of it. I love the drumwork on this record so much that my firstborn kid's name is going to be—"The Blast Beats On Horsebastard's 2024 Self-titled Album, Jr."
    Everything, and I mean everything, is dialed in. This is the tightest and fastest stop-and-go grind-violence that you are likely to find, period! (I often measure things in BPM's, so that means a lot.) Extrapolate that over some astounding twenty-eight tracks, and forget about it. It also doesn't hurt that the production is near perfection. Horsebastard, the record, is so exceptionally good that I might kick myself later on for not making it my number one. 

1. Exorbitant Prices Must Diminish - "For A Limited Time" LP 
    What I think of when I hear a truly great sounding record is not too dissimilar to what you might picture in an early aughts Sprite soft drink commercial. Some hot and sweaty summertime backdrop that frosts over via the power of a thirst-quenching beverage—smash cut to fruit splashing through a wave of water in slow motion. I think of buzzwords like: "clean," "crisp" and "refreshing." From track one of For A Limited Time, that is exactly what popped into my mind. 
    For A Limited Time is the first studio release from Switzerland's Exorbitant Prices Must Diminish since 2020's split EP with Nothing Clean, and it is a fucking banger! The band's stop-and-go, turn on a dime, blink-and-you-miss-it brand of grind-violence is a thing of sheer glory. The dizzying song structures pivot and shift from one tempo or instrument to another in a way that would even give Spazz whiplash. Bass solos, guitar solos and drum solos all fly by like flipping channels on a television set before settling on machine gun fast blast beats and whirlpool riffs. It's like watching a pinball get stuck bouncing back-and-forth in the bank of bumpers. 
    Exorbitant Prices Must Diminish hosts a party of vocals consisting of sourly high screams, gravelly roars, siphoning powerviolence yells and whatever falls in between. For A Limited Time is full of scratchy guitar riffs and some of the most satisfying spring-loaded croaking bass leads I've heard in a while. It's an album of right angles and schizophrenic ADHD. Exorbitant Prices Must Diminish is a highly taught and intensely gratifying refreshment that I just want to inhale and drown in. *Slurp—exasperated sigh of satisfaction.*
 

Thursday, January 2, 2025

Phantom Lung - "Starving To Serve" Single Review

    Well, the holidays are over and the winter solstice was just a few weeks ago, so that means that we here in the Northern Hemisphere are officially in the coldest and darkest days of winter. Historically, shorter days meant less time working outside and more time at home surrounded by the warmth of family and fireplace. For generations, European winter nights consisted of ghost stories and spooky tales of haunted folklore told around the glow of the hearthlight. In North America, scary stories are modernly thought of as a strictly Halloween affair, but throughout the United Kingdom the tradition of Yuletide and wintertime horror has and remains a firm cultural institution. The telling of tales of ghosts and ghouls in Victoria England was an oral pastime before the industrial revolution pushed the country's creepy Christmas yarns beyond the fireplace. One need only look as far as Charles Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol, or The BBC's A Ghost Story For Christmas, which was an annual supernatural television series event that aired throughout the 1970's. 
    It makes sense when you think of the dreary and dead landscape of winter and the natural inclination to populate it with specters of the dead. And when it comes to specters, this House of Grindcore has its resident spooks in the form of Toronto, Ontario's Phantom Lung

    Phantom Lung's debut EP, Abhorrent Entity, was originally reviewed here in 2023. Since that initial 2023 release the band released two more EP's that same year—Abhorrent Entity II: Moribund and Abhorrent Entity III: Solivagant. The Abhorrent Entity trilogy was an interesting way of releasing essentially an album in the form of a triptych that, while still encompassing a central concept, released its movements far enough apart that the band's quick evolution is charted from first to last. It is an organic take on what could have easily been just another series of digital releases. 

    2025 finds Phantom Lung thawing out from their Great White Northern freeze of 2024's dormancy. Yet, even though 2024 didn't have the volume of releases as the year prior, the band spent the year focusing on live shows and writing new material for an upcoming full-length album. 
    As a show of good faith—that isn't just an obligatory band announcement of "big things coming"—our favorite grindcore phantoms have done us one better and released a foretaste of what they have been working on. "Starving to Serve" is a demo version of a single that will be part of a new album set to release sometime in the spring, hopefully.

    The freshly posted "Starving to Serve" is a minute long blast of sprinting, pounding grindcore delirium. Phantom Lung are a band that does things at their own pace and often take their time easing listeners into songs, but from note one, "Starving to Serve" kicks off in a cacophony of distortion, blast beats and screaming. The track wastes no time getting into things. The drums are a perpetual hammering that do little in the way of letting up. When not straight blasting, the drums are a mechanical omnipresent obsessive pounding. The hardcore dawdling is kept to a minimum, leaving the song very lean and base. Compared to the two and three minute long songs on Abhorrent Entity III: Solivagant, this single track is a more streamlined version of Phantom Lung and I am all for it.
 
    Phantom Lung's vocals are as rabid and deranged as ever. Through my experience with the band, I've come to find Andy Dinner's vocal performance as a maniacal, unhinged, sort of scornful prattling. Subsequent songs in the Abhorrent Entity trilogy even hosted some vocals that were more on the cleaner side of things, yet still came off as sneering and taunting. However, the vocals on "Starving to Serve" are again leaning more towards that rawboned, singularly focused style like that in the drums. The vocals are unexpectedly binary, but once again, you will hear no complaints from me. 
    What makes this song differ the most from the band's previous discography is the addition of a guest vocalist. The guttural lows in the latter half of "Starving to Serve" were courtesy of Brian Ortiz of the California Aztec/tribal themed death/doom metal band, Tzompantli. Phantom Lung became enamored with Tzompantli and their 2022 album, Tlazcaltiliztli—an album that made Decibel Magazines' top forty albums of the year. After Phantom Lung dropped into Tzompantli's DM's, a year-long friendly dialogue between the band and Ortiz led to "Starving to Serve's" collaborative vocal set. Ortiz's vocals fit well and are given the spotlight they deserve. 
    Lyrically, "Starving to Serve" is the first stab from what is promised to be an album of a whetted critique of Canada's systematic political and economical deterioration. Dinner's disillusion with the country's leadership is very real and very distressing, and I think it is a frustration felt on both sides of the border. Phantom Lung's upcoming album will definitely have a Rod Serling meets George Orwell political sort of a sinisterly surrealistic theme. 
     
    Generally, I enjoyed "Starving to Serve." I appreciate the straightforward, death-grind minimalism of it. Phantom Lung seem like they are pissed off something awful and don't have time for pleasantries or ambient vibes. They are grinding it out on this track; only slowing things down in the slightest to keep things heavy and somber. My only real criticism of "Starving to Serve" would be the fact that it is just a demo—at least the version that I heard. The guitars are a bit muddied in the mix and kind of subscribe to that cloudy jet engine sound. The riffs and instruments are discernable, but not to the standard of the previously released Abhorrent Entity EP's. But hey, it works for Deterioration. Some things seem un-flourished and might simply be acting as placeholders for now, or this might just be part of that new lean and feral Phantom Lung songwriting. 
    The band is either currently in the studio or soon will be at the time of this review and an album version of "Starving to Serve" is on the horizon. If this new track is any indication of the direction that Phantom Lung is going, then I think the upcoming full-length should be the band's fiercest material yet. It seems as if the cold, dark, desolate days of winter will last well into the spring and summer of 2025. 

FFO: Vermintide, Vermin Womb, The Arson Project

Saturday, November 30, 2024

In Cold Blood: A Sangre Fria - "Yunque" EP Review


     Published in 1966, In Cold Blood is a best-selling true crime novel by American author Truman Capote. The novel detailed the homicides of a rural Kansas family of four in 1959. The book was an instant best-seller and served as the archetypal true crime novel of the twentieth century, which laid the foundation for the popular genre today. 
    The commonly used expression of "in cold blood" is of course a reference to cold-blooded animals. Most notably animals like sharks and crocodiles which are generally thought of as emotionless and unconcerning killing machines. The application of the term in reference to the human condition might refer to that killer instinct within the primal, lizard portion of the human brain. The relation describes excessive cruelty and merciless acts of violence or ill will as animalistic or subhuman when compared to the moral qualities that we think of as civilized humanity.

    Colombia's A Sangre Fria adopted their name from that commonly used idiom when they formed in Bogotá in 2018. The origins of the band's name is anyone's guess, yet it would soon become morbidly fortuitous. Much like the United States during the pandemic, Colombia was embroiled in political protests and riots in 2020 and 2021. The 2020 death of Javier Ordóñez at the hands of Colombian police officers very much mirrored the death of George Floyd in America earlier that same year. Much like Floyd's death, Ordóñez's death was filmed and the officers' excessive use of force caused widespread outrage. The protests spread throughout Colombia and riots and deaths ensued in their tumultuous aftermath. 2021 saw the country in much the same state with more demonstrations and more deaths. Javier Ordóñez's cold blooded murder and the dozens who died in its wake certainly warranted that animalistic merciless lethal indifference—a sangre fria
    
    A Sangre Fria's latest EP, Yunque, was forged in the fires of those Colombian riots. After a pair of demos in 2019, a 2021 full-length and a recent lineup change, Yunque marks a new chapter for A Sangre Fria. A chapter rife with political unrest, choked in plumes of tear gas and clotted with blood. Yunque is a nasty mix of hardcore and powerviolence that tends to lean more towards the former. The EP isn't exactly jammed packed with blast beats, but it isn't your general monotone of hardcore either. 
 
    A Sangre Fria's vocal disgorge is quite a nice divergence from the typical hardcore rhythmic shouts or the pubescent yelling of youth crew bands. Instead, A Sangre Fria offers all that and more. In addition to the hardcore bouncing barks, the band includes more than a fair amount of those constipated caveman powerviolence yelling and some grindcore mannered gutturals. In addition to some quick snare work, the grindcore and powerviolence comparisons are very blatant in the vocals. I don't know much about the band and its members, but from what I have gathered, the vocal duties are shared between the lead vocalist and guitarist—at least when playing live. Knowing who does what and who ends and begins where is tricky. The vocals spill and pour out in a constant flux. It immediately presents a more aggressive edge over similar hardcore bands. Hardcore is usually pretty intelligible when it comes to the vocals. Sing along choruses and straight vocals are not uncommon. Yet, I would consider A Sangre Fria's vocals more unintelligible. Although, despite the prevalence of Spanish spoken in my family growing up, mi español es bastante mierda, so the vocals are indiscernible to me regardless. But I like my vocals highly political and terribly indecipherable. After all, that's what lyric booklets are for. And A Sangre Fria make the most of their lyrics. Given the political climate, the band's lyrics were mainly influenced by the riots and protests, the anger at the government and police on the other side and the anger at those who haven't quite picked a side yet.
    Musically, A Sangre Fria are fairly stripped down. The guitar riffs are mostly chugging hardcore power chords that when triggered ignite into a streak of powerviolence speed. The bass guitar's nimble slinkiness wavers in-and-out of the mix and keeps pace with the guitar's quick sprints. The drumming isn't overly technical, especially when compared to the more pure grindcore bands that have been featured in this blog. Yet, A Sangre Fria still bridge the gap between hardcore and powerviolence. Quick mid tempo beats set the pace for a majority of the songs, but they do slow things down with the obligatory moshing hardcore breakdowns which can turn on a dime and shift into spastic powerviolence seizures. Faster tempos in songs like "Acumulador," "La Revuelta" and, well, most all the songs, are proof of the presence of true blue blast beats. I also appreciated the abundant use of snare rolls on this EP. It reminded me of old Los Crudos songs that were brimmed with snare fills. 
    The EP mix is pretty decent, definitely when compared to the band's earlier releases. I did get aural flashbacks to live recordings of band rehearsals in the practice space. Something about the accent in the guitar distortion and spacious drum tone took me back to those garage days and the visceral sounds and flavors of playing in a punk band. Paralleling more of that Los Crudos style of hardcore, Yunque is a tad rough-and-ready. There is a rawness to it. The guitar chord changes have a myriad of audible finger slides up and down the fretboard. This is common in records of any genre and might simply fall under being a matter of pickiness, I suppose. But it could become overly distracting to those who would hyperfixate on it. 
    
    Overall, A Sangre Fria put their politics where their mouth is in Yunque. What you see is what you get, so to speak. They are exactly what you would think of when you think of a cross between powerviolence and hardcore. The band toggles the genres like rungs on a ladder. And I have to admit that I am a tad rusty on my hardcore, but comparisons can be drawn to most modern day monosyllabic hardcore bands like Spy, Gel or Gulch. The same could be said about the powerviolence influences. Fans of Infest, Capitalist Casualties or Weekend Nachos should find purchase in Yunque. Those expecting overt metal influences or technical grindcore flamboyancy might need to look elsewhere. A Sangre Fria are as straightforward as a brick hitting a cop in the face. 
    

FFO: Violencia, Come Mierda, Coke Bust



Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Goth Grind: "Blast No. 1: Blastbeat Tribute To Type O Negative" Compilation CD Review

 

   
    It's that time of year again. The veil is thinning, the nights are growing longer and darker and the smell of burning leaves rides high in the wind. Dollar store ghosts teeter from tree branches and bellow in the breeze. Plastic pumpkin shaped blow molds illuminate windows in glowing orange hues. Streetlights bathe sidewalk corners in ominous, golden cones of light, offering little sanctuary from the shadows that surround them. Even the smallest suburban thicket of trees exudes the deepest sense of Sylvan dread.   
    The month of October always awakens a certain flurry of emotions inside me—feelings of childish excitement, a healthy dose of general trepidation, a wistful melancholy and a stern obedience to ceremony. I'm flooded with the memories of sharp edged vacuformed plastic masks and serrating, saliva filled plastic befanged dentures. I remember the smell of latex masks that were doused with a veneer of talcum powder that burned my eyes while the nose would fill with a condensation that dripped cold and constant down my mouth and chin. Horror movies, trick-or-treating, jack-o-lanterns, scary stories, vintage die cut paper wall hangs, overpriced faux-goth home decor materialism, candy corn—I'm enthralled by it all. 

    Like the TGIF lineup from my childhood, I like to try and do a special Halloween themed episode of the blog when I have the opportunity. Therefore, I have been whittling my way down to a submission from 783punx/783label that I think aligned pretty well, although tragically late. My apologies to the label. The UK record label released a compilation album, two years in the making, entitled, Blast No. 1: Blastbeat Tribute to Type O Negative, back in 2023. I think the title should be self explanatory enough, but this is a collection of bands doing Type O Negative covers in the style of grindcore. And just so we are clear, we are using the term "grindcore" somewhat loosely here. Some of these bands I would label as just black metal or death metal, for sure. 
    For those who are not aware of Type O Negative, they are a far cry from grindcore, especially when it comes to the tempo; making this cover album an interesting study in the genre. Additionally, Type O Negative's solemn, goth vibes and loose Halloween associations seem like the best a grindcore blog can pull for this holiday.
   
    In my youth, compilation albums were some of my favorite CD purchases. You got a lot of tracks for usually fairly cheap and it was a great way to get introduced to new bands that you might not have heard otherwise. Tribute albums on the other hand were notoriously less reliable. The above list of attributes was still applicable, but hearing rehashed interpretations of your favorite songs from one of your favorite bands might seem like a great idea on paper, but it's an equation that seldomly works out. In 2013 I bought the CD release of Undead: A Tribute to Disrupt and despite the absolutely stacked lineup of bands and legendary tracklisting, the release was underwhelming. I know over the last few years labels like The Hills Are Dead Records have been pushing out grindcore tribute compilations of bands such as The RamonesThe Dead KennedysThe Misfits and Extreme Noise Terror, to name a few. There seems to be some sort of unofficial challenge of "will it blast?"
    
    The Misfits—in addition to probably being my favorite non-grindcore band since the sixth grade—have the most tribute albums I have ever come across. Through those releases I learned a lot about cover songs. Bands will typically go one of three routes: either they will hopefully deconstruct the song and make it their own, or they will play it beat for beat to the original, or they will opt for some kind of a parody rendition of the song. Ideally the first option is preferable. As far as a grindcore cover, I think Wormrot's cover of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, "Rich" is the best possible outcome. All that being said, I've never reviewed a compilation of various artists before.

A brief history of Type O Negative:
    Type O Negative is a band that has its roots in the 80's hardcore scene of New York. Founding members of the band wanted to try for a sound that was a bit of a departure and through a series of evolutions and name changes, coalesced into the Type O Negative we know today. The band was hugely instrumental in popularizing gothic metal with the mainstream and their slow, doom rock ballads are instantly recognizable. Their third album, Bloody Kisses, was Roadrunner Records' first album to go gold, and now has since gone platinum. 
    The band was known for their controversial, mean spirited or darkly romantic lyrics as well as embodying a tongue-in-cheek and almost desperately self-deprecating humor. Much of this is in large thanks to frontman, Peter Steele. The vampiric vocalist's sonorous and sultry singing style coupled with his six foot, seven inch, brick shithouse frame was the stuff of legend. Steele's reluctance to be in the spotlight and live the "rockstar" lifestyle led to years of depression and drug use that manifested in the band's later songs. Peter Steele tragically died in 2010 which ended Type O Negative's twenty-one year tenure. The band's influence can be heard in goth, industrial and metal genres over the last three decades.  
    Now when I think of Type O Negative, I think of the faceless hesher kid in the halls of my junior high school who wore the band's t-shirt and it's seared into my memory as the most 90's thing ever. I think of my time served in a recent horror-punk band in which half the band was obsessed with Type O Negative and I had to fake a smile and feign interest when they would play Type O Negative songs in the rehearsal room. The appeal was entirely lost on me. I think of my deeply toxic relationship with my ex-girlfriend immediately after high school. October Rust was the soundtrack to her torrid, white trash, scummy spooky girl exploits. Like, she thought the song "Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-all)" was about her. Yet, it would turn out that "Unsuccessfully Coping With The Natural Beauty Of Infidelity" was closer to the truth. 
    So obviously I am not the biggest Type O Negative fan. I've never liked Peter Steele's ASMR, seductive spoken word monologues over droning doom tracks. Not to mention, the distortion tone on the bass and guitar makes my skin crawl.

    Well, I don't exactly know where or how to start, so I suppose I will start with my initial observations. Type O Negative songs are lengthy. Some are up to ten or fifteen minutes long. That's an entire EP where I come from. Henceforth, a lot of these songs on Blast No. 1: Blastbeat Tribute To Type O Negative are over the three minute mark, even when sped up. A couple are even seven or eight minutes. Type O Negative's dragging tempo and inability to end a song are contributing factors to their albums' lengths. The juxtaposition of tempos between Type O Negative's haunting sensual sludge and our version of grindcore could lead to a nice powerviolence-style or sludge-grind interplay of fast and slow, and in some cases, that's exactly what happened. 
    As far as what routes the bands took in orchestrating their covers, all avenues were utilized in my opinion. Some bands made the songs their own and I think these were the most successful when accomplishing the principals of the assignment. These bands I felt kept the grindcore in focus. Blast No. 1: Blastbeat Tribute To Type O Negative opens strongly with a few of these bands—Kannibal Kris's version of "Are You Afraid" and Task Force Beer's "Prelude To Agony." The latter of which uses that nice balance of sludge and grindcore. Thankfully, most bands on this record find some kind of balance like this.  
    There are also some bands that took the path of playing the songs relatively straight. Will Cope's "Some Stupid Tomorrow" plays it half level, half blasting grindcore. They straddle both sides expertly in a way I didn't think I would enjoy as much as I did. Speaking of which, Plague Bearer's interpretation of "Creepy Green Light" is perhaps the most "as is" song on the record. It has a grind-metal luster on it, but it manages to keep the mid-tempo pace, stay heavy and still encapsulate the eerie gothic mood of the original. It shines a green gelled spotlight on the talent and musicianship of both Plague Bearer and Type O Negative.  
    Lastly, there are the parodies. Much like how a lot of The Misfits covers—not to mention the entire horror-punk genre—feature a Glenn Danzig vocal caricature, I surely expected a Peter Steele imitation and there were a few. The best impersonation was from Assur on their version of "Christian Woman." I thought this would be kind of cheesy and infuriating, but Assur followed it up with some of the best blasting on the album. There are a few other bands with vocal mimicries, but Emissaries Of Syn turn their style of parody into a whole Weird Al mannered rewrite. Their cover of Type O Negative's most famous song, "Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-all)," ditches the original lyrics for new lyrics. About what, Guinness? I rarely feel comfortable in calling out a band on its faults, but this just seems like the biggest missed opportunity given the popularity of the song and the title of the album. Altogether, it is a weak performance. 

    Overall, as unlikely of a concept as a grindcore tribute to Type O Negative might seem, this album plays fairly well. Some of the bands you will recognize and some of them you won't. Some of the songs work and some don't. Not all the tracks are winners, but this could be due to the manners of the songs and maybe not so much to the bands, although some of it is definitely the bands. The artists that knew how to wrangle-in the gloomy melody and blast through the monotony definitely are the ones who came out on top. Some songs play more like black metal, while others do their job as moody death-grind cantatas. I think 783punx did a great job on the album as a whole. The production and mastering is consistent and well mixed. Tracks don't waver in quality like a lot of compilations. The packaging obviously had some money behind it as the album had a big roll out with deluxe gatefold screened vinyl, cassette tapes, CD's, t-shirts, stickers, box sets, et cetera. It's clear a lot of time and love went into this.
    I would say that this release is, in truth, dedicated to the niche of the niche. The grindcore and Type O Negative fans that exist in the tiniest of slivers of the Venn diagram. For grindcore fans and metalheads with varied palettes, this might be just the release that is missing from your collection, as it most definitely fills a certain hollow in the spectrum of all things grind. As for goth kids with a propensity for the extreme, Blast No. 1: Blastbeat Tribute To Type O Negative could be your gateway into grindcore and other associated extreme genres.

    Well, that's about it. That's all I have. I hope it wasn't too disappointing. I will see you in the next blog. Until then, take it easy.

FFO: Type O Negative, Plague Bearer, Herida Profunda





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