Grindcore – Page 39 – Wonderbox Metal

Evisorax – Goodbye to the Feast..Welcome to the Famine (Review)

Evisorax are from the UK and play Grindcore. This is their latest EP.

Violent, intense and uncompromising; Evisorax have entered the building.

What can you say about Grind as demented as this apart from advising people to run as far away as possible? This is only advice to the normal people of course, for if you’re a fan of Grind then you should be hurrying to embrace the carnage that Evisorax deal as quickly as you can.

Evisorax are a whirlwind of destruction. It’s an apt image as their music twists, turns and convulses in ways that defy the listener to keep up.

I’d say if you combine the intensity of Discordance Axis, the unhinged brutality of Brutal Truth and the Sludgy extremity of Labrat then you’ll have a starting point for Evisorax.

Hidden behind the pure maelstrom of visceral lunacy that they play the band have a strong sound and actually have compositional skills. To the uninitiated it may seem that a band like this simply turn up, turn on and play whatever they like, but to the Grindcore connoisseur it’s clear that thought and refinement has gone into these tracks.

They may know how to unleash chaos but it has it’s own warped version of dynamics and pacing, which only increase the power of the impressive noise that they create. This is especially apparent on the penultimate track So Many Fat People, During the Famine, which sees the band expand their sound into wider Extreme Metal territories.

I was already a fan of Evsiorax’s 2011 release Isle of Dogs, but this new one has taken the extremity to a whole new level, and I love it.

Get this.

Stheno/Grassroll – Wolfkind – Split (Review)

Stheno are a Blackened Grind band from Greece.

They start this split off with just under 7 minutes of Crust-fuelled terror the likes of which will have most people running for the hills. It’s underground, brutal and terrifying.

The vocals are savagery incarnate and come off completely unhinged; serrated growls that don’t sound even vaguely human. Crikey. Sharp high vocals occasionally cut through the meat of their sound too but it’s the deep vocals that do it for me.

The songs are very energetic and I like how it’s not all blasting; the band pace themselves well and give a very aggressive display without resorting to Grind-by-numbers.

These short songs hit the spot and the Blackened Crust influence in the riff department is a welcome change from the Grindcore norm.

A very enjoyable few minutes of ultra-violence from Stheno.

Grassroll are also from Greece and play Grindcore with a dash of Sludge. They contribute just over 6 minutes of fast, insectile Grind to the split.

The singer has a voice that’s so high and maniacal as to sound scarily barbed. Her vocals scar, maim and lacerate. Deep growls occasionally punctuate the tracks but for the most part it’s static-like screams, reminiscent of Discordance Axis. Overall it’s the opposite of Stheno really, who mainly use the deeper vocals.

There’s a slight Sludge hint to their sound in some of their riffs; enough to perk the interest but not enough to detract from the pure demented aggression of these songs.

Grassroll like to play fast and hard, and who can blame them?

Short and to the point, this is a worthy split between these two bands. Both contributions are different enough that the songs on this split are obviously by distinct bands yet their shared base genre allows them to complement each other well.

This is one split to check out for sure.

Cretin – Stranger (Review)

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.

Archagathus – Dehumanizer (Review)

Archagathus are from Canada and play Grindcore. This is their 4th album.

Mincecore. Move over Agathocles. Dirty. Horrible. Ugly.

Archagathus are here.

Punk vehemence with Grinding fury. 20 tracks in 21 minutes. Blunt and to the point, this is a release that vomits out of the speakers and into your home, befouling everything with its very existence before it even hits your tender ears.

The production is as grim as the riffs and the vocals are as putrid as a rotten beaver. In the context of Grindcore though this is all complimentary and Archagathus spend their time being energetic and vigorous.

These are lively tracks that have a certain character about them – this is not faceless Grind-by-numbers; this is Punk violence and realised extremity.

What can you say about an album like this? You either like this kind of stuff or you don’t.

I do. Bring on the mince.

Trigger – Start Our Revenge (Review)

Trigger are from Germany and this is their début album. They play Grindcore.

Immediately it’s a wall of hard noise that hits you with the first track. Trigger don’t mess around. This is 24 minutes of aural abuse and nasty Grindcore that’s for true fans only.

Violent Grind is the name of the game here. The Punk/Hardcore influences of the genre are not as blatant as some bands as Trigger go for a harsher sound and delivery than most.

The high screamed vocals sound utterly maniacal and unhinged. I’m sure the singer is a nice, normal, well-adjusted person in real life, but he sounds like a lunatic on this.

Did I mention there’s no guitars? No? Well there isn’t. Who needs guitars when you have bass, drums and enough bile and venom to kill an elephant. The riffs are fuzzed-up bundles of hatred and the drums are as relentless as decay.

The lack of guitar gives them a Sludge feeling in places, despite the near-constant high-velocity nature of the tracks. This feeling is reinforced on the odd occasion that they do slow down and it’s a welcome additional facet to their sound.

This is strangely compelling and oddly refreshing. Pull the Trigger and watch them explode.

Piss Vortex – Piss Vortex (Review)

Piss Vortex are a Grindcore band from Denmark. This is their début album.

Piss Vortex play the kind of monstrous, visceral Grind that’s just such a pleasure to listen to. Their brand of mayhem is infused with a healthy wedge of Sludge and the two influences have conspired to create a caustic blend of hatred and venom.

The short, violent tracks on this release are a testament to a band who clearly want to rip out your insides and equally clearly don’t care how they do this.

Blasting, atonal and dissonant Grind is mixed with Sludge’s harsh churn to create tracks that don’t always go the direction you might expect, although every one of them is lethal.

Inventive and interesting riffs are backed up by inhuman drumming and vocals that are aggressive enough to carry a health warning.

Piss Vortex have an impressive amount of ways to kill and maim. Some Grind can fall into the trap of just repeating itself, but Piss Vortex manage to sound fresh, enticing and relatively varied for a band that are essentially harnessing pure anger and rage.

Absolute class. For connoisseurs of violent music.

Nesseria – Fractures (Review)

This is the second album from French band Nesseria. They play Hardcore/Grindcore

I’m a fan of their previous work so it’s good to see another round of explosive, violent Hardcore from this talented band.

Nesseria have a sound that’s dense and heavy. If you take a band like Converge as your starting point and mutate it with violent Metal and Grind then you’ll have an idea of the angry space that Nesseria inhabit.

This is intense music that’s not for the weak of heart. Like Converge though Nesseria are not all about the brutality and violence; there’s enough subtlety, nuance and emotive riffing here to give the band a real sense of dynamics and lend the songs a keen emotive edge despite the crushing nature of the music.

Nesseria’s songs have depth and longevity that belies songs as aggressive as this. The album has a good flow though so that the blasting extremity is offset by slower Doom/Sludge sections as well as lighter moments. The ambient menace of the title track allows the listener a bit of breathing room in the middle of the album before the devastations begins once more.

The twisted, rage-filled vocals seem to channel pure anger as they punctuate the Metallic chaos with venom and bile. His is a voice for the ages, heralding in the apocalypse.

Nesseria have produced another album of exceptional merit; a clawing, grinding monster of an album destined to set many a speaker on fire.

Highly recommended.

Internal Rot – Mental Hygiene (Review)

This is the début album from Australian Grindcore band Internal Rot.

This is short and hyper-aggressive Grind where every track, (bar the last one), is under 2 minutes in length and most are a lot shorter than that.

Noisy, angry, fuzzy and filthy; Internal Rot stink up the place with their destructive Grind.

As the first track, Muciferous, shows though, they also know how to slow it down when warranted and take a heavier, Sludgy route to devastation. Granted, this slower side of the band doesn’t appear much over the 20 tracks but it’s good to see the band are capable of more than just instrument demolition at top speeds.

One of the enjoyable things about this band is that they do get into a nice groove now and again in between bouts of blasting. Now, I love me some blasting grind, but it’s also nice when it’s interspersed with other tempos as otherwise it can risk becoming dull.

Mental Rot have this covered though. This is music for those with short attention spans and even shorter tempers, so dullness is not an issue here.

The proto-Hardcore chugging and brutal Deathcore riffs are condensed into violent blasts of Crusty Grindcore that really hits the spot.

I’ve really enjoyed this album. Grind on.

Torch Runner – Endless Nothing (Review)

This is the second album from US Grinders Torch Runner.

Their début album Committed to the Ground was a very enjoyable release containing some extremely harsh and abrasive Grindcore. I’m very pleased to say that on Endless Nothing the band have kept up the intensity levels and this new release is just as acerbic as the first.

They show off once again that they may be committed to extremity but it’s not all about the blast, (although there’s still plenty of that). They know how to use dynamics and slow proceedings down when necessary to create heavier atmospheres before ramping up the intensity once more and going in for the kill.

The guitars seem to have a bit of a Swedish Death Metal tone going on, which is interesting to hear when combined with the infections high-energy riffs. The songs explode out of the speakers and alternate between sheer scything hate-filled blasts and bouncier groove-laden sections that threaten to level the house.

With this kind of ultra-violent Grind there’s nothing to not like really. It’s as if Napalm Death released a short covers album of all of the most extreme Converge songs whilst playing with a Swedish Death Metal sound and dragging the At The Gates singer in to do some high-pitched screaming.

You know Converge’s cover of Wolverine Blues? Like that, only Grindcore.

In other words, this is a great release and should you be privileged enough to hear it you’ll be instantly hooked.

Warfuck – Neantification (Review)

Warfuck are from France and this is their second album. They play Grindcore.

Over the last few years France has proven to be adept at producing quality Extreme Metal bands and Warfuck are no exception.

I have enjoyed their previous work and Neantification is just as pleasingly unhinged and rabid as the rest of their output. More so perhaps.

Warfuck play furious Grindcore with insectile screams and pinpoint precision guitars sharp enough to puncture flesh. The riffs are frequently angular, atypical and mark the band out as different from the larger part of the Grindcore herd.

There is a touch of the old noisecore scene about these tracks. Warfuck’s songs bleed out from a chaotic Hardcore base and the band channel this twisted spirit into something immense and dangerous.

In some ways they come across as the Grindcore cousins of a band like Uphill Battle, (who were already pretty extreme in their own right), and have similar levels of intensity.

Short songs, short album. This release may cater towards people with a short attention span but there’s enough content here to keep even the hungriest Extreme Metal fan satiated.

Why sell youself short by listening to only the latest Deathgrind clones? Get Neantification and remind yourself how interesting, exciting and devastating real Grindcore can be.

Top marks.