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
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