As I recall, around this time last year I was struggling trying to narrow down my 2022 top ten favorite grindcore releases due to the exceptionally strong output of material. Once again, I find myself in similar straits this year with yet another crop of amazing records to scour through. With 2023 being a year full of economical and political strife, a string of great albums to listen to is the least that can be afforded to us. What was truly unexpected was a collection of releases from bands that hadn't put material out for several years. Bands like Bandit and Organ Dealer finally released long awaited albums, while bands like Shitstorm and Gridlink released their first new material in nine years.
Now, I've decided to make this year a little easier on myself by only including full-length albums on this list and omitting EP's and splits. It was still a difficult chore and I will tell you now that the positioning of the top three releases were frequently rearranged right up until the end; citing different levels of personal preference for my indecisiveness.
As you few readers know, the blog has been in a bit of a state lately with reviews trickling out through life's levees of responsibilities and prioritized commitments. Time for reviews has been vastly limited, but I'm hoping that will change in 2024 starting with the compendium below. Well, here we go.
Honorable mentions:
Chepang's 2023 magnum opus was a popular release this summer and for good cause. Not only was it a massive release with a staggering twenty-nine tracks of the band's self-described "immigrindcore" and beautifully packaged in limited edition collector's choice double vinyl LP, but the band pushed themselves in the album's songwriting and instrumental experimentation. Chepang's usual brand of dissonant drenched grindcore is perforated with spacey symphonic interludes, jazz laced compositions, abstract noise pieces and melodic guitars. Swatta also hosts a large cast of grindcore co-conspirators with collaborations from the likes of Triac's Jake Cregger, Discordance Axis' Dave Witte, Chadhel's Georges Tremblay, Cognizant's Irving Lopez and Bryan Fajardo and many many more. Swatta is much more than a great album, it's a true artistic accomplishment.
Sweden's The Arson Project was one of the earliest grindcore bands that I got into thanks to their 2008 CDEP, Blood And Locusts, and their split with Noisear in 2010. Yet, I didn't hear much after that, so you can imagine my keen interest when I saw the band starting to promote a new album on their social media. God Bless isn't the blast heavy Blood And Locust version of The Arson Project that I remembered, but rather a dark and heavy blend of crust, grind and catchy riffs that Scandinavian grindcore has become known for. And don't be misled, God Bless isn't lacking in the blast beats. But additionally, the band gives every other song room to breathe in the form of feedback and breakdowns. The album's harsh and heavy production matches the band's militant politics and antagonistic style. This is a solid record with a fiery production that really conveys how collectively pissed off we should be at the world right now.
Now, I don't normally go in for the throat croaking, gut gurgling, groaning gutturals of goregrind, lest it be something truly exceptional. Enter Sulfuric Cautery. Since stumbling upon their LP, Chainsaws Clogged With The Underdeveloped Brain Matter Of Xenophobes, a couple of years ago, I was hooked on the band's insane high pitched hyper-blasting snare drum. Sulfuric Cautery's latest is just as brutal and unhinged. The record is a perfect balance of dirty blown-out production, animalistic vocals, heavy distorted guitars and absolutely blistering drums—which range from fast as fuck to supersonic. Seriously though, Isaac Horne's drumming alone is well worth adding this LP to your collection. If you typed grizzly bear+snare drum+machine gun fight into an AI generator you'd get Suffocating Feats of Dehumanization.
Bandit's 2018 Warsaw is a beloved, almost mythically regarded EP that left fans patiently waiting for a follow up. Five years later we are presented with Siege of Self—a full-length that picks up where Warsaw left off, but in an evolved, more mature form. Their original hardcore/grindcore hybrid now plays more like a metalcore/grindcore mix. Siege of Self finds the band's same Pig Destroyer style of modern grindcore, yet at a higher performance capacity with a beefier production than previous releases. This is only amplified by guitarist Jack McBride's unreal, heavy technical lifting and song composition. It's enough to make Scott Hull sit down and take notes. I also love how the album's studio mix uses the heavy impact of the drums to fill in for the band's lack of bass guitar. This is an ingenious bit of mixing and a varsity move. Vocalist and popular stage regurgitatist, Gene Meyer, sports a deeper rasp here compared to Warsaw and it brings a more cohesive pairing with the rest of the band. Both Warsaw and Siege of Self make use of Meyer's ultraviolent spoken word intermissions—drawing further comparisons to both Pig Destroyer and J.R. Hayes. But don't write Bandit off as some swine destroying doppelgänger. They are an articulated powerhouse of proficiency and one of the most talented grind acts operating today.
Early readers might recall my review of Noisy Neighbors' 2018 self-titled EP and that I often still use it as a yardstick when reviewing subsequent releases as a way to measure proper snare mixing levels. 2023 had the band dropping their first full-length way back at the beginning of the year and I almost forgot about it before writing this list. Derailing the Hype Train demonstrates a better produced and equally crushing version of the band's well known, self-avowed "raw D-beat grindcore." Noisy Neighbors are an incessant systematic grindcore machine that effortlessly churns out erratic zigzaggy buzzsaw riffs, ferocious dual vocals and expertly apportioned blast beat hammerings. For fans of PLF who are stuck waiting on new material, Derailing the Hype Train fills that void nicely. Noisy Neighbors keep things very pure and strictly grindcore and don't worry about reinventing the wheel or wasting time with experimental dabblings.
7. Cognizant - "Inexorable Nature of Adversity" LP Dallas' premiere dissonant tech-death-grinders, Cognizant, return with their first full-length since their 2016 self-titled debut. 2023's Inexorable Nature of Adversity is an expanded, warmer, more fluidly mixed version of that initial release. The band's staple soundscape of lightspeed labyrinthian blasting and technical siren riffing remains intact, if not honed. Yet, Inexorable Nature of Adversity is the darker, more sinister version of Cognizant. Guitarists Irving Lopez and Alex Moore sew a dungeonous web of rapid-fire technical speed riffing and skipping metal acidity. While grindcore drumming legend, Bryan Fajardo, carves a maze of cymbal catches and flying blast beats incised with the surgical precision that Fajardo is world renowned for. The only sense of guidance in Inexorable Nature of Adversity is vocalist Kevin Ortega's deep scathing monotone, and frankly, his sinister peels make for a menacingly unreliable narrator. Cognizant are an apex level grind band playing a scorched-earth level of grindcore. The band sets a mathematical exactness to their tangled storms of death-grind that is perfected so well that it should easily appeal to fans of Gridlink and Discordance Axis.
The legendary Czech sovereigns of stop-and-go grindcore, Lycanthrophy, have been doling out some of the best music in the genre for almost twenty-five years via some almost forty releases. Lycanthrophy blends punk, powerviolence and grindcore into a storm of blast beats that the band fires at you in quick bursts like a belt-fed machine gun. On The Verge Of Apocalypse is another one of those highly anticipated albums and was in the making for five years. The wait was well worth it. On The Verge Of Apocalypse is eighteen tracks of wound up grindviolence lightning strikes that are just riddled with heavy blasting. The album is full of powerviolence breakdowns and pacing, but maintains the speed and weight essential to grindcore. The guitarwork on every song is manic and can turn on a dime from shifty circular riffing to heavy hardcore breakdowns. Likewise, the drums are equally spasmodic with stuttering blast beats and split second tempo changes. For as long as I have listened to Lycanthrophy they have always been one of those bands that when you see a new split or album drop, you just buy it, because you know it's the best shit. On The Verge Of Apocalypse is that blind-buy-best-shit.
P.S. Who is pressing the vinyl?
New Jersey's Organ Dealer (or "Organ Dweller" as Decibel Magazine so attentively called them) return with their first full-length since 2015's Visceral Infection and I have been ravenously awaiting its release. The Weight of Being is a razor sharp, shark-frenzy of new school grindcore brutality. The album has a refreshing crispness to it that might stem from the band's hybrid sound of dirty grindcore alongside of a more polished deathcore/metalcore sound. The album's mix is so well-balanced that each instrument—including the bass and often especially the bass—are accounted for and amplified. The guitar is a churning roar of distortion and at the same time a pinpoint accurate metallic mechanism, complete with tremolo picking and the occasional heavy metal solo. My favorite part of the album, besides the exacting blast beats and double bass pedal gallops, are the vocal performances. The tandem vocals seesaw between a mid ranged yell and spuming gutturals, but it's the passion and force behind their delivery that makes them so impactful and memorable. Between the biting fullness of the production, the impassioned vocals, the explosiveness of the drums and the pace and structure of the songs, The Weight of Being is a hugely enjoyable listen that begs for repeated spins. Not to mention, The Weight of Being boasts an impressive twenty-one tracks in twenty-two minutes—the way full-lengths used to be (old man yells at cloud.) Organ Dealer are at the top of their game as well as ahead of the curve as far as the future of grindcore and deathgrind.
Truth be told, Contaminated Conscience was largely brought to my attention for consideration by a couple of you readers and friends of the blog. Deliriant Nerve's inclusion in last year's top ten was due largely in part to the band's dynamic sound and song composition, so I knew they were good. I just hadn't gotten around to listening to the latest release in full. That said, and after a couple of dozen run-throughs of the album later, Deliriant Nerve delivers with a hefty blast of grindcore groove ruination—still bolstering that same dynamicism. This is mainly due to the guitarwork at the forefront of the album. It's a constant flux of headbanging metal chugs and squeals, alternatingly picked tremolos, thrash riffs and dissonant harmonics. There is an extreme level of skill here, but also a consciousness of what works and what's unique. Correspondingly, the drumming is right there, hand-in-hand, matching the vivacity of the guitar with blast beats and drum fills that are ready to change in form and tempo before you are even aware of what's going on. Besides snare hits that sound too fast to be healthily maintained, there are some rototom rolls that are so nice and distinct that they command your attention. From start to finish, Contaminated Conscience is, in all respects, a thorough release that can't really be anticipated. Like I had previously remarked about the band, Deliriant Nerve are very reminiscent of bands like Insect Warfare, but they are a compelling band in their own right. Now, the controversy begins with whether or not this is an EP or an actual nine track, ten minute long album. The actual vinyl is a twelve inch record and is promoted as an LP. I am unsure of where the technicalities lie, but I'm including this as a full-length album because I do not want to have to rewrite this list again.
Did anyone have a new Shitstorm release on their 2023 bingo card, because I sure as shit didn't. Shitstorm's Only In Dade came out of nowhere and absolutely destroyed. The album is a staticky, grime drenched onslaught of completely pissed off grindcore vengeance. Shitsorm have their grindcore roots in hardcore and thus have an unflourished purity to their grind. They don't have time to fuck around, just bludgeon. The guitar riffs slide in and out of chord changes and different levels of distortion tone like nothing I've ever heard. The bass punches into the mix just long enough to let you know it's there and it's not happy about shit. But that all quickly means little as the whole thing is strangled out by screaming feedback. Like, literally blast beats over stinging white noise. It's like the instruments and fuzz are clamouring over each other for dominance. Meanwhile, the drums are just toppling over themselves at the most violent of speeds. The vocals act as ringleader to this head-on collision with livid barks reminiscent of 90's powerviolence. Only In Dade is plain and simple savagery for savagery's sake. And not to be outdone by Organ Dealer, Shitstorm fires off twenty-seven tracks in less than ten minutes! So, yeah. This album is not for posers or metalhead-weekend-warriors thinking they listen to grind. I love how Shitstorm just checked-in to remind everyone who the fuck they are and what the fuck they do.
I first saw Closet Witch in Dallas in 2018 and it was one of the most impressive live performances I had ever seen. What I bore witness to was a demonstration of unconditioned power and catharsis. On that tour the band was promoting their first full-length record and now, five years later, Closet Witch have followed it up with their second LP, Chiaroscuro—an appropriately titled album because Chiaroscuro is high art. Closet Witch's latest is a concoction of grindcore, chaotic hardcore and screamo played with an air of melancholy and desperation. Guitarist Alex Crist sets the songs ablaze with a wall of noise and distortion that is both melodic and punishing. This creates a large atmospheric space within the album that gives you a sense of total immersion. Cory Peak's growling bass and Royce Kurth's drumming only fuels the fire. Kurth propels songs with his blast beats and stomping hardcore interludes, as well as some atypical drum fills that are understated, yet are completely in tow with the band's emotive audio environment. Mollie Piatetsky's vocals are a searing contrast of fury and despair. They cry of an exhausted longing, a burning torment, an empowered courage and a soul crushing disgust. They are a vicious seething well of feminine rage that I'm not even going to pretend to understand the depths of. Chiaroscuro is a brooding grindcore masterpiece and plays a little bit as the band's swan song since they announced a hiatus simultaneously with the album's release. Closet Witch elevates noise, chaos and speed into something beautiful and ethereal. Hopefully my favorite wicked witch is not dead and the band has more to offer in the future.
Although I have been buying Chiens records for the last ten years, ashamedly, I often forget about how good they are. Their hyper blend of grindcore and powerviolence is a frantic exercise in speed and intensity. The band's latest full-length, cheekily titled 1.8.7 Myself, seemingly doubles down on both of those attributes. Chiens' ultrafast French grindviolence sounds leaner and meaner this time around. The drums are absolutely blasting at a speed that is relentlessly pummeling. They spillover themselves at a devastating and erratic pace that is inhuman, yet too precise to be feral. With almost every track being under a minute, songs are battered into oblivion. The guitar's short punk riffs are a blur trying to keep up. The band's vocal smorgasbord runs the gamut from low barks to powerviolence grunts to a mainly implemented high pitched shriek. 1.8.7 Myself is akin to Lycanthrophy's On The Verge Of Apocalypse if you played it at 45 RPM instead of 33 RPM. It's a spry tsunami of blast beats that is both nimble and destructive. Most importantly—it's fast. While writing the list, many of these albums shuffled positions within the ranks and I went back and forth, a lot. Chiens landed where they did based on the fact that out of all these records, 1.8.7 Myself would be the record that I would probably find myself most easily throwing on.
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