Covet Thy Neighbor's Noise: Noisy Neighbors- Self Titled 7 Inch Review

After my divorce my first apartment was a one bedroom on the ground floor. The apartment itself wasn't bad. It was newly renovated and spacious for the price. My first full day there was raddled by a gentleman hammering in the apartment above me. Hammering something. Constantly. This continued most weekdays. On the weekends his wife did what I could only audibly deduce as step aerobics. At 6 AM. Without fail. Every Saturday and Sunday. It wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things, but fuck lady. 

Now imagine you've recently moved into an affordable duplex and you find that on the other side of a shared wall your neighbors were crack cocaine enthusiasts with a penchant for ruckus. A gaggle of crack heads toiling away in a pit of squalor reside next door to you. Banging, shouting, fighting, the repetitious thumping of loud music. Activities that seem to have no purpose other than to promote an all too particular brand of racket at the most inopportune times of night. The illicit goings-on that are routine right outside your door. That visceral yelling that comes with violent addiction. Horrible, yes. And we haven't even gotten to the dude that shits in the bucket in the basement.

Birthed from this urban annoyance is one of the best grindcore bands that South Texas has to offer. San Antonio's Noisy Neighbors, formed in early 2018, have quickly made a name for themselves across the Lone Star State. Their self-titled E.P. is pretty much what I'd consider a perfect grindcore record. It's unrelenting and full of blast beats. Officially/unofficially, this is the best release of 2018 and here's why:

Opening track "Caffeinated Demise" starts the E.P. off with a heads up in the form of a Shao Kahn sound clip that sets the mood perfectly. From start to finish Noisy Neighbors are throwing minute to a minute and half start/stop grind combos. 

Immediately what grabs my attention is the drumming; both in talent and tone. John Katastrofe (the crack head neighbors were his neighbors) is at the top of his class as far as grindcore drummers. Fast and relentless blasts are overflowing from this E.P. What we have here is quintessential modern grind drumming made popular by the likes of Bryan Fajardo and Dave Witte. What really drives John's drumming home is the mix. The drums are at the forefront of the entirety of the E.P. They sit just on top of the rest of the music. The snare is bright, the cymbals are crisp, the bell is blazing and it's all right there and nonstop. The drums sound industrial. Not like Ministry, NIN "Industrial" but like factory machinery industrial. Like if somebody taught a WWII 50-Cal machine gun to play Maruta drum covers.

Shane Elwell carries the rest of the band on this recording, playing both guitar and bass as well as doing a majority of the vocals. If the drums are the bright and shiny of the band, the guitar and deep vocals are the grimey. But in the best way. Elwell brings a nice tidal wave of noise and dirt that John can surf through as the noisy squall bears down on the coast. They both pair well and, in tandem, create a very driving sound. The song writing doesn't vary much (mostly because it doesn't need to) aside from E.P. closer "Perilous Demise" which is the only song to break the two minute mark and infuse the smallest bit of melody while some how doubling down on the blast beats. 

Noisy Neighbors was recorded, mixed and mastered at Beer Break Studios and I love the choices made in the mastering of this release. It makes me really interested in future projects engineered by the studio. They obviously understood the sound that was needed here. I was talking to John after a show recently about this very subject. He and the band were very pleased with the sound of the record and the fact that I had such high praise about the drums in specific. Trying to squash any doubts he might have had, I said something to the effect of "If you don't like the way this is mixed, you don't like grindcore." And I'm extremely adamant about that. If you don't like this, you don't like grindcore.

FFO: Insect Warfare, Kill The Client, PLF

Stop the Presses: Nervous Impulse/Anüs/Unsu - "The Daily Grind" CD Review

Late in 2017 Nervous Impulse drummer, Yan Chamberland, sent me the music files of his band's most recent releases: the Atomic Grind three-way split and the Grind Cuts four-way split in the hopes that I would review them for the blog. I felt like a huge dick when I had to break the news to him that the blog was defunct for a couple of years at that point, but that I liked the tracks. He was really understanding that sometimes in life shit happens and we both hoped the blog would return one day. Well serendipitously, the rebirth of the blog coincides with Nervous Impulse's 2019 release of The Daily Grind three-way split with Swedish gore-grinders Anüs and Unsu from France.

Nervous Impulse starts off the split doing what they do best, the ripping death-grind that we are familiar with from our boys from Quebec. House of Grindcore readers might remember our review of their 2015 full length Time to Panic which appears to be their last full length. Instead the band seems to have opted for multi-band releases with bands across the globe. Despite whichever bands that they are sharing releases with, Nervous Impulse stays consistent in their sound. The production on all of their tracks is top notch. I saw Yan's name on all of the recording liner notes so he's doing something right besides just amazing drumming. I will say that the production on The Daily Grind sounds more cohesive compared to Time to Panic. The drumming sounds more natural, albeit still triggered sounding, and the instruments as a whole gel a lot better and presents a more aggressive finished product. Eric Fiset is still here with his large array of vocals. Frothy gutturals, screeching highs and literally everything in between. I'm fairly certain I heard some cleaner screams and some curmudgeony yells. The vocals seem to change as frequently as the tempo. Musically, this band is constantly in flux, in a good way. It makes me think of that scene from 1982's Tron where the lightcycle is making manic, constant right angle turns avoiding the maze of walls. Once again Nervous Impulse proves that the are one of the more dynamic bands in their genre.

Anüs is a new band for me. And honestly I am not the biggest fan of gore-grind so I apologize if this is at all biased. But in the the spirit of impartiality, here we go. Anüs, at first listen, deviate very little from the gore-grind formula that I am loosely familiar with. Foremost is Anus Kristus' vocals. Gurgly-bubble-gutty-rooting-gastral-pig-snorting lows and his squealing-squelching-tortured-pig highs. He's throwing out brees and some noises that resemble sick barnyard animals. I'm not exactly certain what all he's doing here, but whatever it is, it's on point! Musically speaking, the production is tight. The mix is bright. The guitar is standard Line 6 metal preset. What I do like about this band is that they seem to be a gore-grind/grindcore hodgepodge (a la Squash Bowels.) While some songs are more your basic hop-and-a-skip gore-grind bounce; there are others that seem to get the standard grind treatment. With straight blast beats and the more traditional screaming vocals I find these songs easier to enjoy. Although I think they seem to stick to the former rather than the latter. That and poo humor.

Last and certainly not least on this split is France's mighty Unsu. House of Grindcore patrons might remember my review of their 2014 full length K.I.A.I. Compared to that release a few thing have changed, mainly in the tone. The production sounds fuller and louder than K.I.A.I. This presents a more vicious, driving edge to the songs. It reminds more of past Unsu like 2012's CDEP The Filthy rather than future Unsu. The songs seem more to the point. Short and sweet. As it should be. Any slower portions appear to have been saved up for the trudging song "The Demise" and in the outro to closing track "Never Fed Enough." Gone is drummer Adrien's hollow, wood block sounding snare which is replaced by a tighter snare that falls back in line with the other instruments creating a more comprehensive wall of noise rather than standing out against the music as a whole. This contrast returns, however, in their newest full length Darkest in the Sun that was released earlier this month. But that's another review. All the instruments act as cohesive cogs propelling the gears to this grind machine. Another change is in the vocals. If I'm reading correctly, K.I.A.I. vocalist, Dam has passed vocal duties on to Mic. Mic tends to lean towards the higher end of the spectrum as a vocalist, which I love. Even the lows on these tracks are more of a gravely mid-range. They feel right at home with the band's prior albums so that Unsu's catalog doesn't ever sound too dissimilar from one release to the next. I'm going to go ahead and say this is my favorite band on the this split and my favorite material from the band to date.

Overall, I of course enjoyed The Daily Grind split and was pleasantly surprised to see two House of Grindcore alums working with one another. Each band here offers up enough blasting grindcore and metal laced guitar work that all three mesh well together. This group effort is a great example of the varying subtleties of what death-grind can entail without being to polarizing to the more casual grinder.

FFO: Murder Construct, Jig-Ai, Human Cull, Mumakil