Untitled: Vile Species - "Demo 2022" Tape Review

 

    Straight outta the cradle of Western civilization, Athens' Vile Species have recently been creating a catalog of crusty, old school grind with an output of five releases in just the past two years. Most notably with Sacramento's Human Obliteration whose 2020 LP, Definition of Insanity, had a somewhat conspicuous release. As a band, Vile Species have been cultivating a sound that combines the unembellished riffing of crust punk with the heavy blasting and keened edge of Scandinavian grindcore. The band can shift from one influence to the next in a matter of seconds. Pivoting from thrashy tremolo picking to stripped down crust punk riffs that sound like they are right out of the Disrupt playbook. Vocally, the band offers a standard truculent trifecta in that of the scratchy highs, a mid-range guttural snarl and some overly deep roars that make up a majority of the songs. Think dueling vocals between Shane MacLachlan and Barney Greenway with a healthy amount of rasp.

    Like the spring loaded plunger on a pinball machine, these Greek grinders shoot into their latest release with a throaty, blown out growl before opening up into a barrage of blast beats and slingshot riffs. The band's perpetual careening is only diminished by a head bobbing breakdown that bumpers its way back and forth before sliding past the flippers and into the gutter and exiting in a mere eighty-seven seconds. Thus completing song one of Vile Species' newest four song 2022 demo. A five minute shot of bare-knuckle grindcore that is straight to the point and does not waste time. With each of the songs being labeled as "Untitled" along with their corresponding track number, we are presented with either the band's raw and unfinished works or an artistic commentary on the futility of presentation. Regardless, Vile Species presents a fast paced, punishing assault of semi-low-fi blastcore that feels familiar and welcomed. 

    Being that this release is a demo, one cannot critique its production or superficialities too harshly, but there were a few things that did draw my attention. Foremost, the guitar tone seemed especially underweight in the mix. The lower fidelity itself wasn't wholly unexpected, but the guitar resonance was. At certain points ("Untitled 3") the band could have been mistaken for a bass and drum ensemble — albeit the best-case scenario of a bass and drum ensemble. It's just that the mix and distortion waver in their solidity and sometimes reduce the actual guitar to an unostentatious fuzz. Searching for the appropriate tone has been something of a constant plague for the band as the guitar sound has been drastically different on each of their releases. Liner notes indicate that mixing and mastering was done in-house and seems like an easily remedied problem in the future with the acquisition of outside mastering. But a lot can be said for DIY ethics and self-production. Not to mention that punk ethos is everything. Nonetheless, I am well aware of the meritlessness of "white gloving" a demo, so please do not let the above criticisms color this release overly negative. 

    

    Spiritually and metaphorically, Vile Species are that aggressively provoked dog on the other side of the fence when you are walking down the sidewalk. You know it's there, yet you fail to hear the huffing gallops quickly closing the gap. Then suddenly and unexpectedly — THWACK! The mongrel slams into the fence. The impact shakes the barricade from its foundation and cracks the wooden planks. Through an already excavated dugout under the torn slats ejects the crocodile-sized head of a barking, snarling, blue furred K-9 killer. Its face ivied in veins and rippled in taught muscle. Desperately snarling and snapping in a lusty attempt to tear out the softer bits of flesh from around your jawline and genitalia. Its red-meated, serrated jowls foam-filled and heaving. Its bright white fanged teeth mawing through the dust. Its pale hazel eyes rolled back and full of splinters, glinted with a vicious and berserk unabated desire to maul. A dramatic analogy, yes; but that's how Vile Species operates. The band's "attack" is a major key component in what makes their brand of grindcore so ruthless and enjoyable. Their explosive compositions hit their marks and don't let up. Vile Species' 2022 demo are those sentiments dirtied and distilled. It's their not-so-idiomatical grindcore pound of flesh, if you will: "no more, no less." 

    As of this writing, Vile Species' 2022 demo cassette tape is currently available on the band's Bandcamp page and soon it will be available on 5 inch clear vinyl through Helldog Records and Nostril Bush Records. 

FFO: Phobia, Blockheads, Human Cull, Mumakil

Listen to the album:

https://vilespecies.bandcamp.com/album/demo-2022

Bipolar Symptomatic: Proletar - "Depressive Disorder" CD Review

    "I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad, worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.'" 

                                                                                                                                            -Network (1976)

     At the risk of once again overstating the obvious, we all know the world has found itself lamed from its current anomalous and pestilential state of affairs. People across the globe are still reeling from the fallout of Covid 19 and its disastrous affects on modern life: unprecedented death tolls, civilizations in isolation, state sanctioned violence, supply chain breakdowns, vapid social media addiction, technological dependence, civil unrest, corporate monopolies, fascism, warfare, riots, fear, despair, disease and anxiety have all gutted the human psyche. And the corrosion of mental health is just the latest pandemic on the horizon for mankind. I highly doubt that I would be remiss in assuming a lot of us had a rough past couple of years and got a firsthand look at the cold face of melancholia. 

    So when it came time for the Indonesian grindcore veterans, Proletar, to name their latest full-length, they could not have picked a more appropriate title than Depressive Disorder. The band's Southeast Asian home in the national capital of Jakarta is a large populated seaside metropolis and a culturally diverse economic mecca. The people of this industrialized cityscape know all too well how the pandemic has strangled the modern world as well as the criminal elements, wealth inequality and varied other common hardships that accompany life in any behemothian city. Not to mention that this urban jungle amidst a literal jungle is sinking. Like actually sinking. Into the ocean. There is a good deal to be stressed about and many sources of depression. Both mentally and incrementally through subsidence.

    Proletar has been a band since 1999 and have released more EPs and splits than I was able to accurately count, frankly. So it's safe to say that the Jakartan three-piece are a consummate and seasoned band that are proceeded by their own volume and stalwartness. A large portion of that volume is collected in the 2007 early semi-discography, Back to Hatevolution CD released through To Live A Lie Records which showcased the band's progression through the better part of their first decade. Right from the start Proletar established a sound that incorporated both an affinity for the old school style of grindcore as well as a healthy obsession for crusty riff worship. In earlier releases, such as the 2004 split with Extreme Decay, Proletar came off as a raw, blasting punk-grind act that only slowed things down long enough to exhibit their thrashy mosh proclivities complete with youthful belligerence and gang vocals. While over a decade later the band's 2016 split with Department of Correction revealed a chunkier, better produced and more metallic death-grind. Over time the band dirtied up their earlier punk-grind predilections with a beefier crust grime. Very much in the vein of Agathocles and their mincecore clones. 

    2021's Depressive Disorder marks Proletar's first new record since the aforementioned 2016 split CD, if I'm not mistaken. Depressive Disorder's official release is also being bundled together with a DVD documentary, Grind For A Better Life which has been in the works for years and focuses on the band themselves. I was not privy to the film, but I did get a chance to review the album. An album that doubles down on the metallic crust punk and offers up a more mellow make of mince. The blast beats seem to be used more sparingly on this release. The drummer instead opting for long double bass trots, mid-tempo grooves and cymbal catching build ups that seem to be designed as filler for the catchy, palm muted riffing that is the real core of the album. There's also a subtle blend of grindcore and sludge metal. Almost as if the band was channeling some influences from their stateside creole counterparts in the American Louisiana Gulf Coast (another geographic location that is also sinking into the sea, by the way.) Bands like Soilent Green and Eyehategod immediately come to mind. However, not to fear, songs like "Teknologi Menghunus" and "Hoax" bring back the aggression and tempo that listeners might be expecting from past records. Given the twenty-one tracks on the album we are treated to a pretty decent mix of the mosh inciting, headbang inducing, chug-heavy songs and the more hawkish, blast beat filled numbers. There are even brief instances of the use of Nasum-style melody thrown in for good measure.

    Tempo isn't the only notable modification that is apparent on the album. There is a kind of experimentation in the minutia and periphery of the record that we haven't really seen the band explore to this degree. Track "Bentala Bernyawa" features an ambient intro overlaid with spoken word. Likewise, "Muda Yang Murka" implements a clever use of Muzak and radio chatter. Vocally, we hear the usual back and forth between death metal lows and highs, but the album also features a goregrind-esque range of gurgles and inhaled pig squeals that are manipulated and layered. The band obviously took full advantage of their time in the studio.       

    All things considered, Depressive Disorder is a stout and solid record that excels in many ways and is a high water mark for the band. The production is the best they've ever had in their over two decade run. There was clearly an emphasis on the "heavy" over speed as the entirety of this record is absolutely crushing. And while speed freaks might find the album lacking, it more than makes up for it in headbanging thickness. Again, fans of mincecore and crustcore will not be phased. In fact, as a crust album, Depressive Disorder would be untouchable in the realm of 2021 or 2022 crust punk releases. It might even help to think of Depressive Disorder as Proletar's version of Warcollapse's 2007 masterpiece, Defy!. Yet in that regard it would really all just be a matter of semantics. In spite of all of this, the album is not without its faults. Even though the riffs are fun and catchy, many of them seem a little too similar which can come off as repetitive at times. Especially with how stripped down the riffs are to begin with and even more so when some of those riffs are grouped in back-to-back songs on the track listing. Regardless, Depressive Disorder is a hard-hitting album that shows a broadening of Proletar's horizons as a band. At the very least, the album provides something for almost everyone. From the blue denim sporting metalheads to the foulest smelling crust punks to BPM worshipping grindheads or even any French grindcore loving goats. 

 FFO: Agathocles, Soilent Green, Brutal Truth, Mastic Scum

Listen to a track from the album:

https://proletargrind.bandcamp.com/track/martelaar