Cretin are from the US and this is their second album. They play Grindcore.
Cretin play Deathgrind with an Old-School flavour and lots of aggression.
The songs are high energy and blast all over the place in sprays of enthusiasm and accidental carnage.
The singer has a great voice that is driven by pure power and brutality but also contains no small amount of finesse. She sounds great and puts in a blinder of a performance.
Stranger has a strong sound that strikes a good balance between a full, well-rounded sound and a warm, organic feel that prevents them from sounding too modern or clinical. Cretin play vibrant, living Grind that just might bite your hand off.
This is one of the few Grind albums I’ve heard of late that has guitar solos, which is something I’m very pleased with and helps differentiate them from the Grindcore pack, although it’s not the only thing that does this.
Grind can be a one-dimensional affair if done poorly but Stranger is anything but. This is Grindcore that holds the interest throughout the 32 minute playing time. The songs are very well written and in addition to having lots of ideas they’re just plain catchy. Okay, so this is never going to be the kind of style to feature hooks that most radio shows would recognise, but you get the idea.
Cretin remind me a lot of Brutal Truth in some ways. Not in the sense that they really sound like them, (apart from the obvious similarities all bands of this ilk share), but rather the feeling they give me. Listening to Cretin reminds me of them as the Grind they play has the same song-based quality and feel as Brutal Truth, and when I listen to them it’s almost with a certain nostalgia as it really makes apparent how many other Grindcore bands these days neglect the importance of songs in their quest to be the heaviest, fastest, most extreme, most offensive, etc.
Cretin have the songs, the power, the feeling, the pure fucking class…wrap this up with the fact that they are very much in the here and now and ready to rock and you have a sure-fire recipe for a winner.
Wonderbox Metal 