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

Listen to the album: https://asagrefriapv.bandcamp.com/album/yunque

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 Ramones, The Dead Kennedys, The 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

Listen to the album: https://783label.bandcamp.com/album/v-a-blast-no-1-blastbeat-tribute-to-type-o-negative

Tuesday Night Fever: Travølta - "Disco Violence Up Yours!" LP Review

     I first came across Travølta via To Live A Lie Records after noticing that their 2017 split LP with Marxbros made for a memorable album cover. That album art not only grabbed your attention, but told you everything about what that record was going to sound like: a punk as fuck political farce of the cheekiest kind. The same thing happened again a couple of years later when I once more stumbled upon the band's brilliantly packaged, In Tinnitus We Crust LP. The angelic black metal pseudo-sacrilegious celebrity parody printed in gold on the jacket with matching gold vinyl is the thing physical media was made for. I was beginning to see a pattern emerging that would require that I finally give this band some real mindful attention. So when Travølta's Disco Violence Up Yours! came out in 2023 and Give Praise Records asked me to take a look at it, it seemed like a long time coming. 

        Travølta got their start in Belgium blending elements of D-beat crust punk, hardcore, powerviolence and grindcore into an uneasy fusion of their own brand of Urban Cowboy fastcore. Soon the band released a trilogy of splits in 2016 and 2017 with the likes of Days Of Desolation, Gewoon Fucking Raggen and the aforementioned Marxbros. 2018 saw the band release another split with Boom followed by that Chains of Gold full-length—In Tinnitus We Crust in 2019.

    Much like many of the bands in the world during the Covid pandemic, Travølta found themselves at a pivotal crossroads in their musical careers and some reevaluations and decisiveness were necessary. After a lineup change and some socially distanced songwriting, Disco Violence Up Yours! was delivered and would be the band's second original full-length record. The album would serve as a back to basics homage to the band's roots. Whereas In Tinnitus We Crust seemed a darker, speedier sounding exercise in grindcore/fastcore, Disco Violence Up Yours! is a deluge into punk rock and hardcore. 

    Disco Violence Up Yours! is a political satire lampooning capitalism, bigotry and the greed filled hatred that has been systematically institutionalized in the western world. Disco Violence Up Yours! is the not-so-subtle voice of dissent in our half forced, half self-induced toxic modern culture. Surely I need not have to overly decipher the symbology of the communist propaganda-esque album cover of a proletarian hand, raised in opposition, wielding a medieval morning star fashioned from a disco ball? That imagery once again sums up so much about the band, both ideologically and musically. 

    Like I stated previously, Disco Violence Up Yours! and Travølta as a band are a mix of several subgenres, finely triturated into an indivisible bag of grindcore cremains. I usually pride myself on categorizing bands and placing them where I feel they fit best. Travølta is one of those bands that I find personally frustrating when it comes to writing and defining. (If this review comes out late I think it's safe to blame the band recommendations appendix stumping me.) [Editor's note: This review did in fact come out late.] Travølta made it a point to classify themselves as powerviolence, even going as far as titling the album after a Saturday Night Fever powerviolence pun. And, sure, powerviolence is an essential ingredient, but that isn't a genre that I would immediately jot down as a prominent identifier. At least not in the traditional sense of that Californian, 90's urbanized powerviolence that comes to mind for a lot of us. But then again, the powerviolence elements we see in many "grindviolence" bands can be a bit of a reach, as well. Clearly powerviolence is a major influence on the members personally and is a part of the band's musical mulch. I find it very fortuitous that the band included a cover of Dropdead's "You Have A Voice." Dropdead being one of those bands that bridged the gap between hardcore and powerviolence and is well accepted within several adjacent musical scenes. 

    Likewise, the same could be said about Travølta being just straight up punk rock. The structuring of the songs and the use of choruses and gang vocals certainly lends to the punk/hardcore punk feel. Not to mention, Travølta are heavy on the melody, especially on this latest LP. An attribute you will be hard pressed to find in much of any grindcore releases in general. Several bands came to mind while listening to Disco Violence Up Yours!, namely, the East London band The Restarts. Probably for no other reason than a shared belief in genre blending and sharp political sarcasm.

    Yet still, in tandem with all of that, the aggressive, political nature of the music and the brashness of the vocals alone could be enough for this record to cut the mustard with any crust punker. Despite lacking that boring metal element of most crust and D-beat bands, Travølta's speed, lyrics and overall grindcore presence would allow them to shoehorn in just fine. 

    While I might personally label Travølta as a fastcore band, or maybe just a grindcore band, it's just simply not that simple. Disco Violence Up Yours! isn't necessarily a blast-a-thon—maybe even less so when compared to past records like In Tinnitus We Crust—but I have listened to fastcore releases that didn't blast at all. Maybe the real lesson here is that labels are contrived and it's possible for a band to coalesce all their influences together seamlessly and produce a true, unprejudiced embodiment of them all. Or maybe I just talked myself out of a job. [Editor's note: Cut that last bit.] 

    Whether the band is powerviolence, fastcore, grindcore or some kind of halfsies, it's all under the grindcore umbrella, assuredly here in this House of Grindcore. But then, vocally, Travølta differs from your atypical grindcore act. Absent are the customary deep gutturals or the high/low shrieks back-and-forth. Travølta's lead vocalist Nico is surprisingly decipherable in his powerful hardcore punk barking. His vocals are so distinctive I had to scour my mental Rolodex of music to find something vaguely reminiscent. Filed under the early 2000's during my high school street punk years, I landed on Germany's Die Oi!gens and Italy's Rotten Bois. For sure deep cuts, but they're what came up. Travølta's vocal presence is obviously more powerful and pronounced than two short-lived European street punk bands, nevertheless, it could give credence to the band's paradoxical shrine of subgenre influences, if nothing else. I also noticed a repetitiveness in the lyrical structures of the songs in which Nico emphasized the same lyrics over and over again and the choruses are filled with similar chants. I immediately thought of 80's UK bands like Discharge and their looped lyrical styles. 

    As distinctive as Nico's taunting snarls, Kevin's bass playing is just as uncustomary in the genre; or rather his tone is. His punchy skate punk sounding bass is slinky and front line for the entirety of the album's mix. It's a very uncommon sound for grindcore bassists. The white hot brightness and cleaner tone en lieu of heavy distortion is a great way to infuse both a vibrancy and energy into the songs. The same could be said for the guitar, played here on Disco Violence Up Yours! by band newcomer, Jonas. The guitar is obviously distorted, yet not overly detuned. The lighter weight in the riffs provides a nice gain filled crunch and clarity while allowing the songs to stay agile and springy. The guitar and bass are dialed in to that unbridled punk rock energy and Travølta are focusing it like a laser towards their activist viewpoints. 

    If you had any doubts on whether Disco Violence Up Yours! was anything but a grindcore album, drummer Rik is here to dispel any of those rumors. There are a lot of fast punk beats throughout the release, but there are even more, even faster blast beats. Rik is pushing the punk rock riffs and hardcore vocals into overdrive. He has no problem turning the Travølta Kalashnikov from semi-automatic to fully automatic and back again on a dime. From the skipping blasts of "Modern Day Witch Hunt" to the hardcore poundings of "Bruin Rotte Zweer" to the slow plods of "Jesus Crost Soccer Punch" to the nonstop blasts of opening track "Shake Your Ass," Rik does it all with extreme control and ease.

    It's pretty late and I think I'm rambling, so suffice to say, Travølta is an exceptional band that not only blends and bends genres, but has perhaps indeed created their own—Disco-fucking-violence! Thankfully, it's a genre that does not contain disco at all, rather it has plenty of punk, crust, hardcore, fastcore, powerviolence and grindcore. That's all of the good ones, mind you! Travølta are the perfect grind band for those of us that came into the genre via punk rock instead of metal. They are a bit of a mix bag, but nevertheless, they are a rock solid band of flawless musicians with a cynical wit and a radical agenda. 

    [Editor's note: Disco Violence Up Yours! is available from Give Praise Records here in the States and is just the latest record in the band's immaculate discography. And speaking of record labels, I didn't even get around to discussing Rik and Nico's amazing label, Loner Cult Records, and the amazing roster that they have over there.] 

FFO: Extortion, Hetze, Lovgun, Raw Peace    

Listen to the album: https://travoltakvlt.bandcamp.com/album/discoviolence-up-yours

or Give Praise Records: https://givepraiserecords.bandcamp.com/album/disco-violence-up-yours

Salt The Wound: Woundflower - "Misery" Cassette Tape Review

    Before I can tell you the story of Woundflower and their debut full-length, Misery, we will have to first talk about the band Bled To Submission. Blog alumns and friends to The House of Grindcore, Nashville's Bled To Submission released their third and final major release, Bury Them in the Graves They Dug For You, on Nerve Altar Records back in 2021. After a musical career spanning some five years, the band ultimately chose to bury themselves in the grave that they dug by calling it quits soon after the release of that last EP. The band's sludgey mix of power violence, hardcore, grindcore and harsh noise coalesced into a darkly textured and atmospheric record. (The particulars of that release can be found here.) But as prophetically titled as that final EP was, the members of Bled To Submission would ultimately claw their way out of that acidic grave dirt—well, some of them, anyways.

     Nashville's Woundflower are the metaphorical and literal successor to Bled To Submission and their noise fueled metallic grind-violence. Like their predecessor, Woundflower are cultivating that same rich atmospheric form of grindcore. Their malevolent, sour-electric take on the genre isn't wholly new, but I think both Bled To Submission and Woundflower offer a powerful and sophisticated take on the genre. Woundflower operate within that same technological hellscape that Bled To Submission did, yet Woundflower are not as meticulous in the circuitry that they are sewing. They are less Tetsuo: The Iron Man and more Tetsuo Shima of tech-dystopian anime, Akira. And of course those are deep cuts that are completely convoluted and are very much a Japanese comparison of apples and oranges; but suffice to say, I feel Woundflower are first and foremost focused on obliterative grindcore. Songs on Misery play out about as you would think with their own ghostly aura. If anything, I feel Woundflower are the haunted house within that industrial-noise-grind post-apocalyptic, overdeveloped cyber-cacotopia. Misery has a bitter and calculating anger to it that I feel is from fermenting deep someplace in an eldritch sort of darkness.  

    From my first listen of Misery, I was immediately struck by the album's heavy low-end. The bass and drums are massive in the mix. Not only is it nice to hear the rotundity of the band, but it also gives a live performance feel to the album. If you have ever been to a show at a venue that was proportionally generous with the subwoofers and you could feel the bass in your chest, imagine something like that. The bass guitar, floor tom and kick drum, in particular, rumble with a thunderous weight. 

    Misery's basswork is provided by one J. Weilburg, who seems to have also taken over bass duties from Bled to Submission's Patrick Quinn after Bury Them in the Graves They Dug For You, if I'm not mistaken. His return here in Woundflower is emphatically underscored by the aforementioned mix. Opening track, "Worthless," begins with a slow and foreboding bassline against a backdrop of pouring white noise. It plays like a Wound Man track only deformed and darkened by its time in the abyss. Instead of the bass waning when other instruments enter or the tempo increases, it remains audible and forefront; especially in the slower dirges. The bass can also turn those dirges into confrontational and sneering power violence pawings like in tracks, "Parasite Unsurpassed" and "Hopeless." Misery's mixing and mastering by Kevin Bernsten at Developing Nations Studios and Dan Emery at Black Matter Mastering, have turned this record into a real love letter to grindcore bassists and bass enthusiasts. While the basslines might not be overly flashy, their mere prominence is enough to get me completely pumped. 

    J. Weilburg is working closely with drummer Ross Winchel. Winchel is a careening and shifting torrent of blast beats and slow groove based power violence themed sludges. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of blast beats in Misery. The album could have very easily put the grindcore on the back-burner in favor of artistic experimentation. Instead, Winchel is providing the proverbial two scoops of blasts. He is riding a line between precision and unhinged impetuosity; stepping in and out of tempos as need be, but never missing a beat or distracting from the composition. I really enjoyed his relentless blasting in "I Am Regret." A little more than half way through the song he turns the snare drum into a pulse pounding two-step that proves that sometimes raw power can be just as propelling as blast beats. 

    

    One of the more notable differences between the Bled To Submission's v1.0 and Woundflower's v2.0 is the guitarwork from Isaiah Rodriguez. One of two guitarists in Bled To Submission, Rodriguez is now sole guitarist and has really evolved. His former contributions in Bury Them in the Graves They Dug For You were a flaming, stannic writhing. Misery has a heavy dissonance that I didn't remember in past releases. The style is reminiscent of bands like Cognizant or Chadhel. Rodriguez's playing style is a whipping and aggressive string of fanged distortion torn with peels of feedback. It's a lot smoother and more modern than what I have heard from him before. While almost every song features dissonance, "Rusted Flesh" is a good example specifically of Rodriguez's guitar prowess. Not to mention a summative descriptor for the band itself. 

    I hate to keep drawing comparisons to the band members' past musical endeavors, but the comparisons between Woundflower and Bled To Submission can't be ignored when it comes to the harsh noise elements of the two bands. Although, while not as enamel dissolving as the noise elements on Bury Them in the Graves They Dug For You, Misery contains some very similar and very shrill noise tracks. This isn't surprising given the noise orchestrations are once again handled by Isaiah Rodriguez and J. Weilburg. Weilburg, himself, is known in the Nashville post-industrial noise scene and is the founder of Trance//Furnace, an electronic and noise art collective.

    However, Misery is less of that screeching sizzle and more of a haunting air. "Cultivating Misery" has an old horror vibe. The song sounds like a 1950's science fiction B-movie mixed with someone pouring a cup of nails onto sheet metal. I feel the band's noise elements, as well as the malign nature of the album overall, have a horror tinged influence. Maybe that's just where my mind naturally goes or maybe it's the eeriness of the encroaching autumn season. Who knows? This might also be the reason why I couldn't help but hear an Earth A.D. riff on this album. Likewise, the song "The Bottom Feeder" plays like an ominous ambient synth score to some A24 or Neon Films arthouse fright feature. 

    In addition to their noise, guitar and bass contributions, Isaiah Rodriguez and J. Weilburg have taken the reins as far as the vocal duties. What we get here is the standard high/low contrast dual vocal combination. The lows have that tone of the throaty crusty, metallic hardcore ilk. The highs, of course, are the scathing and decorticating vocals that boil your eardrums out like a hot liquid metal. Sometimes I think I even hear a combination of the two. 

    Overall, Woundflower's Misery is not only what I expected from this group of young men, but it's what I was hoping for. Their noise charred industrial wired grindcore—emphasis on the "grindcore"—is some of the best out there. It's aggressive, abrasive, fast and brutal. While the band takes its time laying out the bleak and moody noisescapes, they know when to speed things up. Like I said, the similarities to Bled To Submission are inescapable and I saw that Austin Strobel, former guitarist and vocalist in Bled To Submission, has a writing credit on Misery. Perhaps this entire thing was meant to be a Bury Them in the Graves They Dug For You follow-up, but things and lineups changed for whatever reason. Maybe the decision to start something new out of respect for a departing member and an ending an era resulted in Woundflower. I've been there. 

    Regardless, and with all due respect, I find myself digging Woundflower a tad more. (Another apples and oranges comparison at this point.) Misery is a little more straightforward and to the point. There is less of that black metal drip and more of a grindcore focus. Not to mention the mix is great for those who like a little more boom in their blast. I did this review from a digital download so I don't know how all that bass will translate on a cassette tape. Yet, this album is a must for anyone who has a penchant for noisy or file corrupted grindcore.  

 FFO: Bled to Submission, Knoll, Manipulator, Full Of Hell

Listen to album: https://woundflower.bandcamp.com/album/misery

Groin-core And Groin-violence: Groin - "Greatest Hits To The Groin" Discography CD Review

 

"Arrrggh! My groin!"

-George C. Scott, in 'Man Getting Hit by Football'

The Simpsons, 1995

    After an extraordinarily taxing and toilsome summer, time has been tight and money even tighter. My small family's eagerly anticipated meager beach vacation was truncated by the first tropical storm of the year. The money pit that is my car has grown vast and cavernous. Then there are the trials and tribulations of finally trying to produce and monetize my art by selling them at local markets and bazaars, only to barely cover the overhead. Yet, for some reason, not soon to be revealed to me, the air conditioning system in my house has decided to fail us. It was explained to me by the sweaty, mournful faced repairman that the unit was old, out of date and no longer complied with current EPA standards. The cost for gutting, remodeling and replacing is starkly and wholly devastating, to say the least. The financial hit is unexpected and crippling. And with the Texas temperatures tipping over a hundred degrees this entire week, it's safe to say that air conditioning is a mandatory necessity. Despite doing so several times in my life, you never quite get used to sleeping in a ninety degree, stagnantly dead house. 

    However, since I have been given the time to sit here in my sweating, wilting home and watch the men walk back and forth with pieces of what was once my attic, I think about how things could be worse. (Catastrophizing is probably the thing I do best in this life.) I can't help but think of places like Arizona. Arizona's current weekend forecast places their summertime highs at one hundred thirteen degrees. They also have had claims back in 2018 of car tail lights melting and polypropylene trash bins liquefying in 2021. Both of which turned out to be unfounded social media rumors. Nevertheless, Arizona is hot. While not being officially ranked as hotter than Texas, Arizona is plenty hot and currently hotter than the Lone Star State this week. For the sake of my kid who still insists that she needs a hoodie and a blanket right now, I'm at least glad we don't live in Arizona. 

    That sweet heat of the Arizona desert is home to a flamed kissed creature in the form of a grind-violence band named Groin. Groin is, relatively speaking, a newer band, dropping their first release entitled Greatest Hits via Bandcamp in 2020. But the nine song debut EP was as scorching as the Sonoran Desert. The mix of hardcore and chugging grind riffs over beat downs and blast beats give the band a heavy edge over the more straightforward power violence bands. The EP combined the brooding death-violence elements of bands like Weekend Nachos with the ballistics of Shitbrains. 

    In 2022 the band released their second EP, a thirteen track self-titled seven-inch. This release runs along the same lines as Greatest Hits with its blistering blast beats and trash can melting high pitched screams saddled next to caveman barked grunt-fueled power violence. There is of course the usual improvement in songwriting and production, as these sorts of things chronologically go.  

    

    Like the last episode of this blog, the good people of Inglorious Moshers Records have not only combined these two EP's into a twenty-two track discography CD that was subsequently released in 2023, but also afforded me with a copy for review consideration. Like probably many of you, I saw that highly recognizable art of a mustachioed, Walter White-esque gentleman, bleached out in high contrast white with the logo G-R-O-I-N stamped across his bald forehead. But even still, I slept on the whole thing. I wasn't so much oblivious to the band's existence, but I didn't really listen to them until this review. The downside of reviewing releases non-stop is not always having time to listen to multiple new releases; choosing to instead remain hyperfocused on the review at hand. 

    Inglorious Moshers Records' Groin discography, entitled Greatest Hits To The Groin—a title that might cause confusion given the clever name of Groin's first release—compiles each of the band's first two releases. Starting with the more recent self-titled EP. 

    

    Vocalist Lois Ferre is an amazing vocalist that proves that his vocal performance is just as scathing as the Arizona asphalt. Compared to Greatest Hits, Groin has less of the high/low juxtaposition and more of a gradient array of shaded vocals. The power violence barks, screeching highs, searing roars and a fiery mix of all the above are all up for grabs. I really like the sustainability and fluidity of Ferre's vocals. Groin's lyrics seem to range from the political to the despondent to the absurd. So there's a lot of rage and a lot of fun being had. 

    Like I said, there's noticeable improvements in sound, but Groin is definitely more riff focused and more aggressive. Guitarist Austin Kelly—who also fills in on bass during recording sessions, keeping the band's lineup chiefly a three piece through the years—is the reigning songwriter. His playing style is a feedback seeped, drilling squall of low-fi distortion that tears through hardcore thrashings and breaks down into power violence sludged stomps. 

    Kelly's writing accomplice is drummer Josh Goodwin. Goodwin is the grind-violence tempo keeper and displays the assorted beats you might imagine a grindcore or power violence band might have. Goodwin's speed and smoothness when blasting is what really solidifies the grindcore elements. The power violence aspects are your standard-fare of slow plotting beats, hardcore mid tempo beats and two-step bounces that—given the band's particular brutality—are maybe part mince, part hardcore. Groin champion speed and intensity over everything.

    Groin is my favorite type of band—a torrid and searing grind-violence act with speedy blast beats, face melting vocals and blaring guitars. This only compounds my guilt over the fact that I slept on this band for so long. As a band, Groin can draw plenty of comparisons to bands such as Endless Swarm, ACxDC, Weekend Nachos, The Afternoon Gentlemen, Beg, Gets Worse, Magrudergrind and so forth. Yet, Groin have made their niche in the genre by releasing great songs almost from the start, cultivating a great sound and doing it well. I appreciate the band's speed on the snare, the scathing vocals and their mix of grindcore and power violence. I realize the redundancy of all of that, but I just love what Groin is doing here. 

        While not included in the discography, this summer Groin released their first full-length album, Paid In Flesh. The new twenty track record is a further piece of evidence of the band's growth and ferocity. Paid In Flesh has even more meat on its bones when compared to Groin. The bulkier mix and punctuated snare tone makes for quite an exceptional release. I hear big similarities to Magrudergrind, specifically Magrudergrind's 2009 self-titled LP. The guitar and vocal tones are very comparable. Completionists be sure to grab Paid In Flesh and Greatest Hits To The Groin to cement your grindcore collection

    

    Inglorious Moshers Records is doing a great job of packaging up early releases of up-and-coming bands, that might be on hard to find cassette tapes or just available as Bandcamp downloads, and making them more accessible on compact disc. I remember how stoked I was to find the Lycanthrophy discography CD back in the day. Now I'm stoked to find Groin and their Arizona flame grilled grind-violence. 

FFO: Magrudergrind, The Afternoon Gentlemen, Endless Swarm

Listen to the album: https://ingloriousmoshers.bandcamp.com/album/greatest-hits-in-the-groin

Shots Fired: Active Shooter - "Discography 2016-2021" CD Review

    On the wall of the warehouse where I work hangs a weathered, spiral-bound, laminated booklet with the words "EMERGENCY PROCEDURE GUIDE" printed across the top. Below that is a rainbow colored array of segregated tabs that read things like: "EVACUATION," "TORNADO," "EARTHQUAKE," "FIRE," et cetera. On the very last tab, the steel blue colored one, it reads in bold white letters—"ACTIVE SHOOTER." As banal and ordinary as something like this emergency manual might seem—especially in the beigeness of a workplace setting—this bottom tab always catches my eye.

    Before active shooter was just another media buzzword for an epidemic of mass murder and long before Columbine changed the fabric of American culture, active shooter was a term only tossed around by competitive gun enthusiasts and firearm advocates. The only thing more terrifying than an active shooter situation is the frequency and prevalence that would necessitate an "ACTIVE SHOOTER" tab in a public or business environment. I'm old enough to remember when that tab was not always there and its addition holds my attention. 

  

    As active shooter turns from informed gun safety vernacular to terroristic gun violence headlines, a group of hardcore speed freaks from the sticky streets of Houston, Texas are turning active shooter into a name that elicits something more entertaining and show-worthy; yet just as blasting. Active Shooter, the band, are yet again another band carving their names into the Bayou City of Syrup's famed roster of grindcore elites. Bands like Insect Warfare, PLF, Cryptic Void and more recently, blog alums and fellow hoodrats, Cocaine Titans, all call this Space City home. This Texas coastal city is something of hallowed grindcore grounds and it's no mistake that Houston has had several mentions in the House of Grindcore. 

    Active Shooter debuted to the larger grindcore community in 2016 with their first demo in the form of a three piece—a lineup demographic that would remain a semi-permanent fixture throughout the band's tenure. Their 2016 demo was followed up with the EAR​.​2​.​THA​.​STREET EP released the same year, and then later by the band's self-titled EP released the following year in 2017. It might be safe to say that Active Shooter didn't arrive on my radar until around maybe 2019 or 2020, after I either could not attend the local show or my then band had to turn down the local show. Although, I might be mistaken. Pre-Covid life is a blur now. But it did introduce me to the band for the first time as well as 2019's Sign of The Times; a release that was gathering a lot of attention through Bandcamp at the time. The band's latest release came in 2021 with the cassette tape, Life Stands Still. A release recorded by Dallas engineer and founding member of both Cognizant and Trucido, Irving Lopez. 

    All of this to say that Active Shooter is overdue for a new release. However, in the meantime, Italian grindcore compendium collector, Inglorious Moshers Records, has taken it upon themselves to release a discography CD in 2022 compiling all of Active Shooter's previous releases listed above. Between the years of 2016 and 2021 the band released some forty-six tracks totalling thirty minutes. Optimal grind time ratio for any worthwhile release. 

    As a contemporary version of the band, Active Shooter give off big Insect Warfare vibes, only not as long-winded, if that is possible. They basically waste no time and dish out some very tasty, very heavy metallic riffs and some powerful hyper-blasting drumwork in mere seconds. The vocals are a high-low contrast that mostly relies on a guttural monotone that is reminiscent of the mighty Rahi Geramifar. 

    Now, reviewing a discography compilation album is a little complicated because there are too many variables to review it as a whole, but reviewing each release individually is a bit extravagant. I haven't chosen which way to go about it yet, so bear with me. 

    

    For spanning five years, multiple lineup changes and differing production and recording engineers, the CD plays reasonably consistently. The tracklisting is in reverse chronological order, so the newer, Life Stands Still starts the record and the 2016 demo wraps it up. Understandably, the style and production levels go down from start to finish. The only true constant is guitarist Erik Gomez and drummer Seth Wilson. The two are powerhouse pillars of grindcore annihilation and the two are responsible for crafting the contents of this entire discography. The vocal duties on the demo, EAR​.​2​.​THA​.​STREET EP and the self-titled EP were handled by Wes Mason before being replaced by Dan Silva for the later Sign of The Times and Life Stands Still. 

    The opening of Life Stands Still tracks have a dark, stout, brown production quality. The guitar is a metal distorted Texas tornado that is rich with riffage and a chronic use of a Dimebag style whammy bar. Starting track, "Intro," is a Slayer-esque thrash dipped instrumental that sets a deathy-grind tone to the record. The drumming is a stampeding whirlwind of blast beats and double bass gallops that come at you from every angle. The hyper-blasting, high-pitched snare tone rises above the cacophony to emphasize what truly matters most—which is the hyper-blasting, high-pitched snare tone. It's very much in line with other snare heavy grindcore bands like Sulfuric Cautery. Silva's vocals are low, grating barks that run deeper and more metal than Mason's more power violence styled vocals. 

    Sign of The Times plays similar to Life Stands Still only with a sharper, cleaner production. The guitar riffs run clearer and keener. Things don't really become noticeably different until the self-titled EP. Mason's vocals being the biggest deviation. The music seems a little less mature than later releases, but still very solid. The rest of the releases go on like that, diminishing accordingly down the line. Two of the recordings—EAR​.​2​.​THA​.​STREET and Sign of The Times—feature the band as a four piece with a bass player, while all the others have the band as a trio. 

    

    Active Shooter are probably Texas' best kept grindcore secret as I don't hear their name as much as I feel I should. That might be due to the popularity of the band's namesake in the news and media, making a Google search somewhat complicated. However, I did finally catch-up with the band last year at the Haltom City Theater playing a show with Deterioration, Trucido and Noisy Neighbors. "A bulldozing beast of brutality" is the initial descriptive phrasing that came to mind. Active Shooter are three big burly built dudes with a big burly sound to match. They put on a great set and definitely stood out in an already hellaciously stacked lineup. 

    I've seen the band categorized as hardcore, power violence and grindcore; all of which are applicable and all of which the band has embraced. Depending on the release you could get one or the other or all the above. This discography is a good document of a band's evolution and growth. From a power violence/grind-violence beginning to a beefier grindcore tank, Active Shooter has risen through the Houston City grindcore ranks. I feel the later albums have the band hitting their stride and finding their sound—a brutal sound that it is.

    In 2022, the year that Inglorious Moshers Records issued this CD, there were six hundred forty-four mass shootings in America. In 2023 there were six hundred fifty-five mass shootings. This year the United States Surgeon General declared gun violence a public health crisis. As the active shooter trend appears to be becoming more en vogue, I know of one Active Shooter that I want to see a lot more of. (To be clear, it's the band I'm reviewing and not the white nationalist terrorist incels of the world.)

 FFO: Insect Warfare, Noisy Neighbors, PLF 

Listen to the album: https://ingloriousmoshers.bandcamp.com/album/discography-2016-2021

Blast Meat Processor: Korroded - "Rudiment Butcher" LP Review

     Memphis, Tennessee—home of the blues, rock 'n' roll, barbecue pork ribs and pulled pork sandwiches, Elvis Presley's thirteen-point-eight-acre Graceland estate and the legendary Sun Studios. Like its sister city, Nashville, Memphis is popular among bands and musicians, as the city has a rich history with live music and festivals; including the very misleading Grind City Music Festival. However, I would instead direct your attention to the more seedy underbelly of the city's sordid reputation—race riots, serial killers, soaring crime rates, street gangs, the death of Tyre Nichols and the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior. Memphis, the "Place of Good Abode," was once known as the Murder Capital of the World. In 2023, the city set a record in violent crimes and homicides. A statistic that is on track to be exceeded by the end of 2024. 

    And you might be thinking to yourself that these unsavory legal and historical records aren't solely specific to just Memphis; and in many ways that is the point. Yet, I wanted this violent and unglamorous version of Memphis at the forefront when discussing the review of Memphis, Tennessee's Korroded.

    Korroded's debut full-length, Rudiment Butcher, was released in 2023 through fellow Memphian and iconic DIY grindcore label, Wise Grinds Records. Despite Memphis' musical braggadocio, the city's current extreme underground music scene is modest, yet potent. Korroded formed out of that tight-knit local scene in 2021. The quickly formed band compiled an eclectic list of influences including grindcore, metal, punk and hardcore. They are a band that lend themselves to several analogous paths. Immediately the comparison to old school (be sure to take a drink every time I say "old school") grindcore pioneering bands such as Terrorizer and Repulsion (make sure you do a key bump every time I say "Repulsion") leap to the forefront. The band's cadence and execution is certainly evocative of that early grindcore style of the mid 1980's. It's the kind of grindcore that borrows heavily from that thrash metal formula. You can also hear an oscillating nod to grindcore legends, Insect Warfare as well as New York 80's hardcore tough guy bands from the Bowery.

    Much like the urban bite of Memphis, the production of Rudiment Butcher straddles that line between that old school, raw sound and the slickness of contemporary grind records. Don't think of it as purposely underproduced, but as the proficiency of modern production with the totality of the rawness coming from the band itself. The album plays like the polished grime of Graceland; in which I mean that the bright flashiness is built upon a healthy foundation of sleaze. 

    The band's brutishness is largely and immediately present in Korroded's guitarwork. The guitar is not reliant on technicality or dissonance, but instead relies on brute force as it punches through songs with chugging punk rock power chords drenched in static fiery distortion. The metal palm mutes drag the circular riffs from the thrash metal gallops of "Full Color Obituary" to the sludge metal trawls of the titular track "Rudiment Butcher" to the bowling blast beats of "Endtime Prophetic Realities." Like an omnipresent hobo barrel fire flame of overdrive, the guitar fuzz is stoked and smoldered as needed.

    The bass guitar rumbles just underneath the guitar and its infrasound growl is audible if you can push your earbuds deep enough into your ear holes. From what I can hear it seems to largely follow in step with the guitar, yet it's somewhat distant from the bulk of the mix. Distant like the bumper rattling subwoofer of a 1989 Cadillac Brougham from two blocks away. Yet, just like that bass buzzing Caddy, it's more audible when the gun shots of the snare drum are at a minimum. 

    The vocal performance on Rudiment Butcher is a bit of a departure from what you would generally think of in reference to your typical grindcore band, but not by much. The deeper lead vocals are hefty bellows that are almost abrasively discernible, barely. This is still grindcore, I remind you, so don't think you are going to be singing along to any choruses. Think Phobia's Shane Mclachlan and Cretin's Marissa Martinez. The raspy barks are versatile enough to toggle the punk and metal tempos with ease. Additionally, the higher backing vocals are a reverb black metal sneer of ugliness. They have a little more character and act as a great contrast to the lead. 

   

    In addition to that old school thrash song composition entrenched within the guitar and vocals, Korroded's drums bring to mind the sound of death-grind bands such as Repulsion and Cretin. The types of bands that have blast beats, but are very much leaning into thrash and/or crossover. The drumming on Rudiment Butcher is definitely not dragging tempo, but isn't exactly relying on exclusively blast beats. Equal percussive attention is paid towards other punk and metal beats. There is a lot of that thrash, alternating two-step style of drumming as well as a lot of D-beat hoofings. Again, much in the vein of that Repulsion style, the blast beats are in that stair stumbling fashion. That perpetual forward tumbling sound that rides the line of blasting and catapulting apart. "Endtime Prophetic Realities" raves like a revved up 1984 ripcord Masters of the Universe Road Ripper. (If you are under thirty-five you might have to Google that.) On that same topic, the mix on the drums, especially on the kick drums and toms, are bass-filled and booming and are very much lending to the whole throwback vibe.

    The widest gap of genres and perhaps the biggest departure is B-side death metal saunter, "Geofence." The guitar is extra blown out, the vocals have that two-tone George "Corpse Grinder" Fisher emphasis and the drums are simplistically intermittent. You can hear the drummer white knuckling it with anticipation for a chance to speed things along or throw in a snare roll. Thankfully things do speed up, and like a sugar fueled child, the drummer spastically runs through all the aforementioned beats and tempos. The track is a two minute love letter to the metal heads who happen to get their hands on this record. 

    Much like the blog's last review of Autodafé's Zapruder, Korroded have opted for a curated soundscape of samples and sound clips bookending a lot of the songs on Rudiment Butcher. They mainly consist of chopped and screwed Orwellian investigative journalistic public service exposés like the song, "Superfund Contamination." "Subjects of Pleasure" is twenty-four seconds of music before another twenty-four seconds of pitched down Slavoj Žižek Slovenian ideology ends the track. "Full Color Obituary" has the expressive sounds of death via chainsaw laid underneath the music. Not to mention the comically depressing voicemail outro of album closer, "Korroded." The audio clips aren't anything new for the genre, but the band uses them to great effect, especially when paired with audio manipulation. They give a deeper depth to the record's exploration into the band's psychology and meaning. 

    Just in case this review read as convoluted, Rudiment Butcher is Elvis Presley brand pure gold. Korroded are a hostile powerhouse of a band shaded in crime and violence. Their combination of grindcore, punk and thrash—while very much in the vein of pioneering death-grind bands like Napalm Death and Repulsion (big sniff)—is filtered through the savviness of the new school grind ethos. Korroded keep things fresh and energetic, but pay homage to their idols. 

    Although to be perfectly frank, from my initial listen, I heard something like a power violence band that was fronting as a death-grind band. Opening track "M.A.G.U." is definitely reminiscent of old Spazz. There's just something about the band's spryness, their embodiment of the modern dystopian 'hood life, the warped social commentary, the indoctrination of street culture and the grit of living it. In all honesty, I can't believe this band is not from Houston. The band is equally as brutal and ugly as the streets, and like the streets, Korroded are hanging out of the window of their red 1988 Hyundai Excel with a double-barrel sawed off shotgun—just fucking blasting. 

FFO: Terrorizer, Cretin, Repulsion, Napalm Death

Listen to the album: https://wisegrindsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/rudiment-butcher

The Lone Gunmen: Autodafé - "Zapruder" Full-length Review

    I don't know what Zapruder means in the French speaking province of Québec, but here in Texas it means something tragically specific. Around these parts (insert spittoon sound effect here) it's a historic reference to one Abraham Zapruder—a Ukrainian-born American man who filmed the very explicit assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy as he drove through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas one Friday in November of 1963. Abraham is now synonymous with President Kennedy's head flowering into an Arby's beef and cheddar as well as an additional sixty years of conspiracy theories and obsessive mystery.

    Now, is the intention of the Québec based band, Autodafé, to invoke this most famous act of public political extermination that was accidentally memorialized in celluloid that day in Dallas? The Zodiacal crosshairs in the band's logo and the Xerox version of the 1897 painting of The Burning of Archpriest Avvakum by Russian painter, Grigoriy Myasoyedov as the album's cover certainly makes me think it's a strong possibility. The painting depicts the burning of Eastern Orthodox Christians in 1682 Russia. You could say the fiery death of Avvakum and the assassination of Kennedy both represent political martyrdom and the horrid permanence that that sort of philosophy fosters. It could be that Mr. Zapruder might represent us—the passive populace that can only watch in traumatized stupefaction as the public execution of a man seared itself into the American zeitgeist forever.  

    Autodafé are a two-piece grind-noise band formed by Chadhel's GT and Alex Gaudreault from the synth and noise project, Twenty9Cult, during the 2021 Québec Covid lockdowns. GT handled the bass, guitar and vocal work, while Gaudreault handled noise and drum machine programming as well as all recording and production. The band's mixture of noise, metallic hardcore, sludge metal and grindcore pays homage to 90's bands like Enemy Soil and Agoraphobic Nosebleed. In May of 2023 Autodafé released their debut full-length, Zapruder, digitally via Give Praise Records. 

    GT's guitar prowess has been well documented within the pages of Return to the House of Grindcore as I have reviewed several of Chadhel's past releases. Yet, don't disregard Autodafé as just another extension of Chadhel. The guitar playing on Zapruder is stylistically different from what you would hear from a typical Chadhel release. GT trades in his usual shrill dissonant fretboard gymnastics for a more heavyset, power chord driven style of riffing. The quickly dished palm muted grooves evoke that previously mentioned 90's modus operandi with a lot of chugging, syncopation and that general heavy bounce that permeated the decade.

    But make no mistake, the metal and hardcore riffs aren't necessarily indicative of a rudimentary playing style. There is still plenty of very competent chordsmanship to be had. The distorted filigree and metallic modes trickle through the cracks and chugs. Likewise, GT seemingly can't help but leave an air of dissonance within the songs. Tracks like "Modern Ignorance" have a tinge of that sour melody. The downturned notes at the end of the riffs fold in an inharmonious expiration. Meanwhile, there is a melodic borderline that is leaned upon, yet never crossed. 

    Alas, the final track, "The Flames of Regression," is that token closing sludge track that I hate to see come back into grindcore albums. The song is a standard death metal walk that, while competently played, the song fails to really take off. This closing track, if we are keeping with Autodafé's similarities to Agoraphobic Nosebleed, is more in the vein of the 2016 EP, Arc. That release of course had Agoraphobic Nosebleed aping southern fried sludge bands, namely Eyehategod. Autodafé, however, lack Katherine Katz's amazing vocal performance on Arc. Prior track, "Sire of Horror" has Autodafé playing a better version of 90's death metal that isn't as bogged down as "The Flames of Regression;" and in fact, it has more of a sense of motivation and charisma in comparison. The band is still stepping back from the grindcore on "Sire of Horror," but it doesn't feel so far out of the way.   

    Alex Gaudreault's handling of the programming of the drums is fairly naturalistic. The drum track honestly could pass as a live drummer if the album's liner notes didn't refute that. Obviously the band isn't taking cues from other cyber-grind acts that feature blatantly inhumanly fast blast beats. I'd say it's on the level of Agoraphobic Nosebleed's later Agorapocalypse and most modern drum machine utilizing bands such as blog veterans, Vermintide. 

    The band's noise elements are mostly regulated—yet not strictly limited to—before or after songs. They are more bookended rather than integrated. They are not your typical harsh noise samples like one might assume from a similar act such as Full Of Hell. Gaudreault's prior Twenty9Cult is more of an electronic, industrial, dark wave style of music played over synth beats. In turn, Autodafé's noise intermissions are a little more crafted and not so much grating noise. The brooding ambient noise falls somewhere between the horror and sci-fi classifications. 

    Zapruder opens with a haunting piece that sounds like a mixture of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre score and the Kola Superdeep Borehole recording. The track "Sadistic Arsonist" starts with something akin to a Silent Hill industrial fog and wraps up with a piece that reminds me of The Shining theme melting into Slipknot's "Tattered & Torn." Likewise, the end of "Calibrate To Dominate" literally sirens into more of that Silent Hill flavored orchestration. 

    In the grand scheme of Zapruder, the noise elements of Autodafé are pariferial, yet the furnace and phaser noise-scheme is integrated into nearly every song. Just so listeners aren't expecting anything like Insect Warfare's noisecore self-titled coda LP. Zapruder plays like fourteen curated chapters, each offering an independent composition. The encompassing theme of cyber-grind reigns dominant, but Autodafé include a variety of the extreme music subgenres. 

    I know I mentioned hardcore, among others, as being a significant influence at the beginning of this review, yet I didn't really elaborate on it. The bulk of "Birds of Ill Omen" gives a glimpse into those hardcore influences. Not to mention the two and a half minute "Minefield" is a total metallic hardcore crusher that could be a single for an upcoming release from A389 Recordings. Much like the band's pseudo-model, Agoraphobic Nosebleed and their shifting style of cyber-grind from one release to the next, Autodafé include that fluctuating style fluidly throughout the tracklisting of Zapruder. 

    Whether this is a one-off album and indeed just a side project to get the boys through hard times, Zapruder is an exceptionally well made album within the usually divisive genre. GT's guttural monotone vocals and guitar genius bring a nice weight and mastery to the album. Meanwhile, Gaudreault is entering into, what I am assuming, is a new genre and he isn't missing a beat—literally. He brings the blast beats, he brings the production and he leaves a healthy handful of what he does in his musical world. Together they bring a fun, unique and, dare I say, catchy addition to Québec's greatest natural export. Plus, it's on Give Praise Records. What else do you fucking want?

FFO: Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Chadhel, Pig Destroyer 

Listen to the album: https://autodafebookburner.bandcamp.com/album/zapruder

Teoria Del Complotto: TSUBO - "Capitale Umano" CD Review

    My first introduction to Italy's TSUBO was a blind purchase of the band's 2012 release, .​.​.​Con Cognizione Di Causa, through Give Praise Records' old distro. I didn't have any real expectations other than the promise of some form of a grindcore experience. With its stringent vocals and wailing guitars, the twenty track death-grind release made for a sufficient entry to both the band's then fledgling discography and to the T-section of my alphabetized CD media shelf. It would be another five years before the band released a follow up seven inch and another six years after that before they released their second full-length album, Capitale Umano. In all honesty, I hadn't paid much attention to TSUBO after that initial 2012 CD, up until last year's submission of Capitale Umano.

    So, these reviews tend to be formulaic in how I breakdown albums and instrumentation. That is half intentional and half unintentional. Having a methodology is helpful, yet I will often try and change things up if I happen to notice that a review is running too much of a familiar path. Still, occasionally while listening to a certain type of album I'm tempted to throw out the usual recipe and just write about the things that specifically caught my attention. Such is a release like TSUBO's Capitale Umano. At the risk of being non-linear, this is the kind of record I would much rather review with a corkboard, thumbtacks and a spool of red yarn. 

    TSUBO's latest outing is not exactly what I expected. It has been a few years since I listened to .​.​.​Con Cognizione Di Causa and I vaguely remember that era of TSUBO having a Mumakil style of grindcore—a relentless and pummeling breed of grind (Mumakil of course being my personal favorite litmus test for straight down the middle, exhaustive grindcore.) But Capitale Umano presents us with a TSUBO featuring a new lineup that are flagrantly wearing their influences on their sleeves. 

    Capitale Umano is a thick and dense thirty-five and a half minute album that is tightly packed with almost every type of extreme and heavy subgenre that could be shoved into grindcore. The first quarter of the album is what you would typically expect from your archetypal grindcore record—again, my Mumakil-esque yardstick shtick. 

    TSUBO offer no introductory fanfare, no pithy sound clip, not even a count off; just everything all in, all at once. And within that, depending on what kind of listener you are, there are a few things that might immediately grab your attention—either the tone of the vocals, the tone of the snare or the competency of the guitar.

    The band's vocals are a choir of gruff, scorching flays of crusty roars and deep guttural barks. They are aggressive and have a memorable cadence. I much prefer these vocals compared to the vocals on ...Con Cognizione Di Causa. Not that the vocals on the two albums are that dissimilar, but something about this latest recording goes down a little smoother and pairs better with the music. 

    A more atypical characteristic to the band's vocals is the frequent occurrence of spoken word. Songs like "Rivolta," "Arma Ideologica," "Cosa Sei Disposto a Perdere" all have a spoken word portion that is so frequent that it's obviously a preferred choice. It reminded me a lot of spoken word passages common with anarcho and peace punk bands. I can't be certain if those were influences on the band, but it wouldn't surprise me given the close history of the multiple genres, like Napalm Death's association with Crass Records. An oversimplification of this aspect in Capitale Umano could be if the 2002 split release between Resist And Exist and Phobia bled into one cohesion of music. (A triggering example, I know.) It's not exactly a one-to-one comparison and it doesn't quite capture the depths of Capitale Umano, but more on my opinions about that later.

     The drumming on Capitale Umano is as fast and hard hitting as you would expect or would want in any grindcore band. Emphasizing that sentiment the most is the snare drum. It's something that I immediately noticed upon first listen and is something I had heard previously in regards to this album. The snare tone is loud and upfront in the mix and, more importantly, the tone is extremely impactful. Whether it's from crafty studio engineering or drum triggers, I'm not for certain. But whatever the method, the snare is certainly potent and dominating. Surprisingly, the striking power of the snare isn't felt so much in the blast beats as one might initially assume, but are in fact more prominent in the fast punk beats. The snare also emphasizes the band's slower and rather unconventional time signatures that much more. Match this with the push of the kick drum and I feel like the snare really resonates and entrenches the tempo within the listener.

       Lastly, TSUBO's guitar is doing a lot of heavy lifting. When not implementing heavy grindcore plowing, the guitar is a teetering flurry of nimbleness and technicality. The guitarwork is a bumper car of death metal pinch harmonics, thrash riff ripping, classic metal solos and melodic crust punk symphonies. The attitude of the song can change on a dime depending on the guitar. Songs like "Vili Bastardi" can start out as thrashing grindcore and pivot into spider walking fretwork before rounding out into some circular metal riffing that skips like a broken record. It's a frequent combination that the band employs throughout the album. Although, a song like "Antropocene" goes full Iron Maiden and finishes in an almost symphonic black metal dirge.

    Unconventionally and almost a rarity in grindcore is TSUBO's addition of the use of synthesizers in the form of an electric organ. Before you clutch your powerviolence pearls in trepidation, I can assure you that the use of the organ is a master stroke. It is used pretty sparingly only on a total of four tracks, I believe. The organ is used as a tool to create a somber melodic melancholy atmosphere to great effect. We are first introduced to it in track four, "Rivolta," as a hypnotic and serpentine outro that is vaguely reminiscent of the theatrical score to that orgy scene in Conan the Barbarian. The synthesizer is a good way of injecting melody, catchiness and musicianship into a song. It's a big part of the cathedral black metal serenades, the midtempo crust excursions and the smoothness within the transitioning of those organ heavy songs. 

    

    Following the metaphoric red thread back up to the initial push pin—TSUBO are indeed that layered brutishness that we established. The band's multiple influences and analogies are plainly sewn throughout the album and its songwriting. The band is a brackish mix of crust and metal; like England's Napalm Death and Pacific Coast's Resistant Culture. The aforementioned peace punk spoken word diatribes gives TSUBO the impression of being as much punk rock as they are death metal, yet still totally grind. And the band's melodic crust punk juants are indicative of the crust and D-beat bands of the early aughts, specifically bands like Australia's Schifosi come to mind. The album's title track, "Capitale Umano," is most representative of that. Whereas the previously stated black metal influences can be found in songs like the six minute "Antropocene" and the sirening "Guerre." To that end, each song on Capitale Umano is approached with a sense of epicness and grandeur that I think is very much achieved. 

    Capitale Umano could rashly and unjustly be regulated to yet another run-of-the-mill grindcore album, but I can honestly guarantee you that it's much more than that. Capitale Umano is one of those albums that you will want to give repeated spins because you will most likely find something new each time. TSUBO are offering a high level of musicianship with a mature sense of song structuring. 

    Capitale Umano, as a record, is a fierce combination of heavy bombing and sophistication. I, like many others, am overly fastidious about the purity of my grindcore. TSUBO perceptively toe the line between proper grindcore blasting and progressive musical boundaries. They never tip too far into the melodic or too far into the more traditional classic metal riffs, keeping the main focus on the band's hammering grindcore. The band's introduction of the synthesized organ might seem at odds with that sentiment, yet it only amplifies the entirety of the album. TSUBO are at their best here and now.

    

FFO: Looking For An Answer, Cripple Bastards, Blockheads

Listen to the album: https://tsubo.bandcamp.com/album/capitale-umano