Cattle Decapitation - Monolith of Inhumanity

So here's my thesis:

Death/grind is the new thrash metal, updated from around 1985, to now:

it's sophisticated in terms of musical structure, rapid key changes, and challenging melodic (riff) formations-- it's hard to play, yet blisteringly furious (i.e., aggressive and fast)... a great balance of savagery and technical ability: witness Danny Lilker's definition: technical and yet intense....

So, I got the advance copy and promptly burned into onto a blank CD and played it at jet-engine volume on my Tank-like If Outdated Speakers ©... because I know one thing, and I know it well:

Death/Grind, as a genre, is useless played at anything less than loudest-sound-possible (194 Db) volume: that's where it's made to be.

Like extreme forms of free jazz, this music is meant to permeate you, to absolutely be your everything for the time you're listening to it-- or to be nothing.

This is the complete opposite of background music.

BUT: give it the chance, and this will OWN you. It's perfectly, ridiculously extreme in that Death/Grind way, but is also full of surprises and tiny evolutions and tempo, key and texture changes enough to keep your cerebellum interested, while your reptile brain writhes in ectothermic ecstasy....

There's sweep-picked solos, blast beats, breakdown (all while being respectably detuned), blah blah blah-- you like extreme metal?

Monolith of Humanity is worth your while.


--Horn

[Monolith of Inhumanity is released worldwide on Metal Blade records on May 8, 2012.]

NAPALM DEATH streams new album, "Utilitarian", online

In anticipation of the release of their new album, Utilitarian , on February 27th in Europe and February 28th in North America, the legendary NAPALM DEATH is now giving fans the chance to listen to their grindcore masterpiece online in its entirety! To join the album listening party, head here:

http://www.cmdistro.de/

Beer Corpse - Keg Nuts

Beer Corpse -  Keg Nuts

I know what you’re thinking.  You read that band name and thought ‘I’m one hundred percent positive these guys play ultra-melodic power ballads’.  Well I hate to break it to you waveriders, but Beer Corpse is actually a grindcore outfit.  I know?!  I was shocked too!  Thankfully I was able to quickly dismiss my melodious hopes and dreams and get down and dirty with this band’s glorious grind.

Here’s what little I know about Beer Corpse.  They are from Sydney, Australia.  It appears that the band is made up of five people (Mac: Chunders Phipps: Six Packs Olli:Yeesty Bottom End Brent: Beer Blasts).  Also…and I could be wrong on this point, but I believe they like beer.  What else have I learned?  That the ten songs offered up on Keg Nuts should only be listened to inside a safe, padded environment.  Involuntary flailing produced among listeners like myself can pose a serious health hazard to anyone unlucky enough to be in the vicinity, and I simply can’t have that on my conscience waveriders.

There are a couple of reasons why Beer Corpse stands out in my mind against other grindcore outfits I’ve become familiar with of late.  First of all the combined sound of the distorted guitar and bass strongly reminds me of The Misfits.  Secondly, unlike most other grindcore groups who only play at warp speed, this band regularly slow things down ever so slightly to establish a massive hardcore-like groove.  Third, the vocals take a back seat in the sonic mix to the instruments allowing me to completely focus in on the dirty riffs and aforementioned groove.  Thanks to the production anyone specifically listening for the vocals will never lose track of every guttural growl, but anyone not interested can simply pretend they’re not there.  In my opinion this will allow more people to enjoy these songs, and I’m all for that!

So, do you like grindcore music?  Do you like The Misfits?  Do you like music that will confuse your nervous system to the point where you cannot explain the movements of your arms and legs?  Seek out a copy of Beer Corpse’s Keg Nuts, put up some protective padding where you will listen to the music, and go nuts!






 

The Izzys -  Keep Your Powder Dry

Question.  Do you like your rock and roll with a healthy dose of country music?  On the flip side do you enjoy your country music when it incorporates some classic rock and roll elements?  You do?  That’s good to hear because I’ve just discovered a band that you must hear for yourselves named The Izzys.  Armed with their latest EP entitled Keep Your Powder Dry, they are ready and willing to rock your musical world!  Interested?  I thought so.  Let’s fill in some of the details, shall we?

The Izzys call Brooklyn, New York home.  The group is made up of four musicians (Mike Storey - Lead Vocals + Guitar; Jack Dawson - Guitar; Aaron Redlin - Electric Bass; Tim Kuhl- Drums + Percussion).  It turns out The Izzys have been making music for quite some time now unbeknownst to this sheltered reviewer.  Their first album was released back in 2003.  Since then they have released two more full lengths and three EPs or singles.  While I intend on exploring this rich vein of music in the future, let’s focus our attention on Keep Your Powder Dry right now.

When I am listening to this EP a couple of descriptors always come to mind.  Warm is one, and wholesome is the other.   While I don’t actually know how this music was recorded, I have to say that it sounds as if the task was accomplished with vintage equipment.  To put it mildly, it sounds fantastic!  I’m listening to this music digitally but honestly, if you put a blindfold on me, I might tell you I was listening to a vinyl record.  The music sounds like an old friend.  One you haven’t seen in a while but always welcomes you with open arms and good conversation.

Have I mentioned that each band member’s performance on this EP is terrific?  No?  Well I have now!  Each instrument works in perfect unison to create wonderfully memorable melodies that will instantly get stuck in your head.  The dual guitars harmoniously complement each other throughout and the rhythm section perfectly sets the stage for each song, no matter if we’re talking about an uptempo boogie number or a wistful ballad.  Mr. Storey’s vocals also help draw the listener in with an air of familiarity.  For the most part he sounds like a cross between Tom Petty and Bob Dylan, but in more delicate moments I hear a lot of John Lennon.  Bottom line, it all sounds good!

Waveriders, I strongly urge you to check out The Izzys.  If you’re a fan of old school rock and roll who enjoys their music with a strong southern twang, or if you’re a country music fan who enjoys songs with a little more pep to their step then this band will absolutely blow you away!  Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find some money in order to buy those earlier releases.  Wait a second…you can download most of them (including Keep Your Powder Dry) for free on bandcamp?!?!  Oh my goodness!  Waveriders there is no excuse.  Get to listening right now!



Get Here Free- http://theizzys.bandcamp.com/album/keep-your-powder-dry

--Penfold

Nunfuckritual - In Bondage to the Serpent

Another band the Ripple crew found exciting enough to review twice.  Here's Odin's take.


A few months ago my brother and I were at a show and Dying Fetus was one of the bands on the bill.  We were listening to all the people talking how they kick ass, rule, and various sorts of comments about how great Dying Fetus are.  At one point we just looked at each other and laughed, because only at a metal show would you find people extolling the virtues of a dying fetus.

And then here we have NUNFUCKRITUAL, and wouldn’t you know, I’m going to spend some time telling you how great they are.  Metal is so awesome!!

If you are looking for something to lift your spirits and soothe your soul, look elsewhere.  Like now.  This is some seriously bleak, filthy, raw, evil black metal.  Listen to this a couple of times and you’re going to feel like you got dunked in a 55 gallon drum of putrefied remains, then dumped out and rolled through a room full of broken glass, and finally hosed down with battery acid. 

This music is truly unrelenting in its corruption.  It is absolutely some of best black metal I’ve heard in a while.  Sometimes you hear bands that play black metal and you wonder if they are really into it.  There is no doubt, when you listen to “In Bondage To The Serpent”, that these are guys are into it.  They live it, they breathe it, and the end result is that you, the listener, feel it.

Each track clocks in at 6 minutes or more.  They go together, they fit together, yet each track is unique and none of them sound like the others.  That’s a huge point in this genre.  The tracks stamp their individual marks of evil upon you and the cumulative effect makes you glad to be alive, if you’re into this shit.

NUNFUCKRITUAL have crafted an amazing album that does everything a black metal release should.  The evil seeps from every note, every riff, and if you are not in league with Satan, then these 6 tracks tell you what you have to look forward to.  And none of it sounds even remotely enjoyable.  And that’s the point.

-- ODIN

Nunfuckritual - In Bondage to the Serpent

God, that band name sucks. Seriously?

It sucks particularly because it makes genuinely interesting, lushly textured music hard to take seriously.

Anyhoo, Nunfuckritual (aka Danny Lilker in Culted)  are, genre-wise, what I'm now calling doom/black. It's got the cool hyphen, like death/grind, and also sounds sorta meme-y, like you're cool for knowing the contraction that for that particular genre of music.  As you might guess, they're (atmospheric, sometimes nearly ambient) doom metal with distinct black metal imagery, production and vocal trends (i.e., the fucking of nuns, one can only presume; a very "chilly," i.e., treble-heavy mix; and a strangled shrieker of a singer). Think Sunn O))) with Mortuus singing, and occasional drum usage.

Specificity:

"Theokotos"-- atmospheric/ celestial (irony?) blackened doom/ drone; quite beautiful, like a guitar-heavy Henryk Górecki, until about 2:25 when the vocals enter, and sound like something GG Allin would scream (still over the Górecki-isms, though, you see, herein lies the uniqueness).

"Komodo Dragon, Mother Queen," hits like  Rammstein's "Mein Herz Brennt" if it were played without machines....

"Christotokos," the ambient soundscaped sounds (and not necessarily music) of the damned.... "Cursed Virgin, Pregnant Whore," confirms the Sunn O))) comparisons, and goes for long without any drums, simply a droning guitar line. Of course, when the drums return, they're blast beats. And it pretty much works.

"Parthenogen," continues the Sunn O))) worship (though again, chillier, with less bass in the mix), then becomes a lurching behemoth (though not Nergal and co.) of a doom metal tune; this is maybe the best track on here: it comes off as confident through its many stylistic changes over the nearly 8-minute running time.

Why does this music appeal to me so much? Goddamn-- I need a new therapist.

Overall, an "unrated/ NC-17" vibe here, like anything can happen at any time; menacing, and musically-speaking, surprising; drearily beautiful, like funeral mists that catch a sparkling moonlight.

--Horn

Blackened Hardcore vs. Hardcored Black Metal: Is there a difference? What YOU need to know! - Featuring Dead in the Dirt's "Fear," Early Graves' "Goner" and Craft's "Void."

Did the headline work?

Did you read it and immediately think, without logically evaluating anything, "Holy Christ! Why the goddamn hell do I not know the crucial differences in these sub- sub- sub- sub-genres of metal?!?!" [Not sure why I'm making you sound like Hunter Thompson.]

Suh-weet. I'm awesome, brosef.  [I assumed you said "yes," or "Of course, Master."]

Just the fact that hardcore and black metal can both be present in a band means 2011 isn't all bad. Not like 1987, when the mere idea of punk and metal together meant a fight. Now with some bands you may as well not bother trying to give a genre.

That's very cool to me. That's "peace in the galaxy"/ tolerant-of-all enough to be on a Star Trek episode.

Anyhoo-- two hardcore punk acts with obvious black and sludge metal influences, today we have Dead in the Dirt and Early Graves, specifically their respective releases Fear and Goner, as well as Craft's Void, which to me is more black metal with hardcore features.

First, Fear. Chuggy, breakdown-ish sludgy, blastybeaty hardcore (with a very agile drummer-- he usually plays the blast beat or the d-beat, but can turn on a dime when the music needs that, more like a tech-death style drummer).

Ridiculously intense, it never relents, not for one goddamn second. It's like the most angry/ferocious features of hardcore, black metal and grindcore joined forces to become, Voltron-style, a super-aggro being possessing all of the strengths of its constituents but none of their weaknesses!

Guess that's really more like Blade, but... still.

Fear, song-wise, is definitely of the LOLA (like one, like all) category-- the entire work is essentially one long, detuned raging blackened hardcore-fest.  "Disease" encapsulated their sound best, I think, and even for these songs is brief (1:51).

Next, Goner-- the most obviously metal of the three here, still very very hardcore (d-beat, three-chord tunes), and very nearly as psychotically angry as Dead in the Dirt's work. "Rot" is my favorite, followed closely by "Wraiths," which opens with a lovely sludged-off riff. Unfortunately, Early Graves love to fill space with feedback, which gets old.

But enough about these acts for a minute-- let's talk about you. You look different. Have you done something with your hair? Lost weight? Been working out? Had some sort of major elective surgery? Joined a cult? Pregnant? You are glowing. Whoo, I tellya, if I were 20 years younger (older?) I'd be all over that.

Aaaaaaand we're back. Regarding Craft's Void, track three, "Come Resonance of Doom" is a lurching, sludgy blackened hardcore breakdown of a song, like Harley Flannigan was in Darkthone or, more accurately, like Mortuus singing for Discharge.

Tell me that doesn't sound wicked cool, yeah?

Track 4, "The Ground Surrenders" is straight out of the Disfear playbook-- until about halfway through, where there's black metal aplenty-- vocals, blast beats, and a choral section. It's a very cool blend of the two styles.

Void is growing on me the more I listen to it. It's probably the most enduring of the three, becuase it never manages to be predictable or boring. The former two aren't boring either, I don't mean that-- it's just that you'll always know what to expect with them.

--Horn

Brutal Truth - End Time

Brutal Truth has always been one of my favorite Grind bands. Since the first time I heard Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses, I was hooked. I heard that album and said "Fuck, this is my favorite kind of metal now!". Brutal, it's in their name and boy do they deliver. After two years we are finally being graced by Brutal Truth newest album, End Time. This is the end all be all of Grindcore. Bands take note, fuck those pussy breakdowns, this is real brutality.

This 23 track Grind masterpiece begins with the track, "Malice". What a great way to begin an album. Almost doom sounding drums start things off. This is the song to warm up to in the pit. This song starts off a little slow incorporating the doomy drums and minimal guitar accompanied by a few choice words from vocalitst Kevin Sharp. It leads us into the beging of our brutal journey with the song, "Simple Math". Have you ever been punched in the face by a wall of sound? You will be with this track. Brutal, fast , in your face grindcore; all in a minute twenty-eight.

One of my favorites track on this album if "Fuck Cancer". Coming in at exactly one minute long, this song and title says it all FUCK CANCER! The title track "End Time" is easily one of the highlights. Lyrically it is one of my favorites.

"our future is now, our world is ending
our life for the disdain has brought about our end time
... It's our time

for those who would fail to see a future uncertainty, end time is certainly
bring in you lost and pray, our world's catastrophe,
bring in the lost to stay

The end time is our time - Our time is the end time

No matter what our self destruction
a condition of memory suppressing past transgressions
bring on our annihilation in our world in chaos collapses
it never fails to amaze me how quickly we forget
watch our world in chaos collapse

our time
our time here on planet earth
cradle obliveon
fall asleep
in arms of obliveon "


In my humble opinion Brutal Truth is ahead of the curve in the genre of Grindcore. Personally they do it the best. As much as I love Assück, I'll still put Brutal Truth at the the top of my Grindcore list. For those about to Grind, we salute you!

Brutal Truth goes good with: Assück, Napalm Death, Anal Cunt, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Retox, The Locust, Cattle Decapitation, Inevitable End


-Cicatriz

Despise You / Agoraphobic Nosebleed - And On And On... - Split

It's been a long time since a split CD has really caught my attention and made me want to continue to listen to it over and over. Back in the day some of my favorite splits were: At The Drive-In / Sunshine, Alkaline Trio / Hot Water Music, Pig Destroyer / Gnob, Napalm Death / S.O.B. and Agoraphobic Nosebleed / Kill The Client, just to name a few. So, it has really been a good number of years that I have heard a good split album. This year I have found a split worth worthy of a review and it is the Despise You / Agoraphobic Nosebleed split entitled And On And On....

For those who have read my past reviews, you know I love Powerviolence bands. Love 'em! Despise You are one of the most legendary bands in that scene. With this release, it marks the first new material from the band in 10 years! Needles to say I was super stoked to hear some new stuff. Despise You kickoff this 25 track split with the song “Berefet”. This song reminds me of old hardcore pioneers, Black Flag. This song clocks in at under just 40 seconds.

Despise You do a pretty amazing cover of Fear's “I Don't Care About You”, which on the album is just titled “Fear's Song”. Despise You make this song even angrier than the original and if my ears don't deceive me, it's a bit faster as well. This is a perfect cover. It holds true to it's early Hardcore roots but ads a twist of Powerviloence's anger. This song is still relevant after all these years. With lyrics such as:

“I see man rollin' drunks,
bodies the streets.
Some man was sleepin' in puke
and a man with no legs crawling down 5th street trying to get something to eat!

I don't care about you!
Oh noooooo!!
I don't care about you!
Fuck you!
I don't care about you!
Hey! Hey!
I don't care about you!”

Despise You knock out their 18 tracks in under 17 minutes. Is it good? Fuck yeah, it's good.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed are one of the premier Grindcore bands out there. They have been ahead of the Grindcore curve since the early 90's. Wow I just made myself feel old thinking that I have been listening to this bands since around 1998. Time flies by when you're listening to brutally fast Grindcore.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed keep the party going for the last 7 tracks. They start things off with the track, “Half Dead”. This is one of the longer tracks on the album clocking in at an astounding 4:39. This track begins where Despise You left off. With a sludgy and dirty sounding guitar. Vocally this track is epic. Lots of yelling and doomish vocals.

“No fit to live anywhere
With anyone I'd have any desire
Make a career out of apology
For a maid's wage, same day hire

The commute is hell, the coffee cold
If you worked here you'd already be home
Half man, half dead, half asleep at the wheel
Fuckin' as good as dead, drunk behind the wheel”


“Possession” is one of my favorite tracks on the album. It's played super fast and fells punk laden. The Punk aspects I'm talking about are the way you are able to understand the lyrics fairly clearly. The lyrics of this song speak of prostitution, I can't wait to go to a show and scream these vocals with Jay Randall.

“Shit breath
Meth tooth
Tweeker
Snitch

Playing it loose with the truth
Trying to crawl out of some shit you just stepped in

The demon possessed charged with possession
Bag of shards and a stem
Trying to loosen the noose and save your neck
From the shit you stepped in

Full blown AIDS
Fuck of death
Talking down another prostitute in poor health

Stick your dick in a casket and close it
Should of only paid her to blow you

The shit you just stepped in is on you 'till death”
And On And On... is an awesome split. Hopefully I get a chance to see either one of them live this year. If you love brutal music as much as I do pick up this split. Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Despise You are bands you need to know about.

This split goes good with: Pig Destroyer, Anal Cunt, Black Flag, Fear, Terrorizer, Cattle Decapitation and The Locust.


Buy this album here: http://shop.relapse.com/store/product.aspx?ProductID=42849

Inevitable End - The Oculus

 

Sweden has always been know as a hotbed for really good metal. Sweden’s Inevitable End
are no different. These Swedes offer up brand new album entitled The Oculus. Known on previous albums as being more of a straight forward Death Metal and Thrash act.Inevitable End takes a different musical spin on The Oculus, combing a more frantic and aggressive style.

This album hits you like a freight train! The first track on the album, “Tell us, Parasites” . The track is almost The Locust like. Combining frantic drums and guitars. Vocals on this track are top notch. Both frantic and aggressive with an underling Death Metalish guttural.

“Zen” the third tack off The Oculus is awesome. The intro is a weird guitar riff then boom, drums and vocals kick in. This song is all over the place, mixing Death, Thrash, and Noise seamlessly. My favorite track on the album is called “The Oculus” which by now you know is the name of the album. The song again is frantic, making you want to bang your head and do a some moshing.

“Vergelmer”  is a Southern Metal inspired instrumental (maybe they are from Southern Sweden) that leads into the track “Chamber of Apathy”. If you like breakdowns, this song has a great one.  A hard hitting double bass and blast beats make this song stand out.

All in all Inevitable End’s The Oculus is a solid metal album. However you take you’re metal, (I’ll take mine with three Grinds and a dash of Power Violence please) you will find a track if not all of them that you dig.

Inevitable End goes great with: The Locust, Through The Eyes of The Dead, old Norma Jean, and countless other Grind, Death and Thrash bands. Be sure to check out Inevitable End’s The Oculus. It hit shelves and digital downloads on May 24th.

-Cicatriz

Buy here: Oculus
Buy here mp3: The Oculus

Haemorrhage - Hospital Carnage

The Spanish are known  for many brutal things. Most of these things involve bulls. When thinking of Spanish music it usually invokes light vocals over just as kind heated sounding instrumentals. Haemorrhage from Madrid, Spain bring the musical brutality…no bulls needed.

Haemorrhage bring to us their new album entitled Hospital Carnage. I won’t say that album artwork is a key selling point of a band but this cover is pretty cool. It depicts what appears to be a surgeon who has just murdered his staff and patient. Very cool.

Musically the band takes me back to the old days of grind core. Namely, Carcass. You can tell these Spanish grinders had some Carcass inspirations. The lead off track, “Open Heart Butchery” is a great way to open the album. Guttural vocals and blast beats offer a familiar death metal experience but make you want to hear more.

Another key track on the album is, “911 (Emergency Slaughter)” which begins with a recorded “911, what’s your emergency” which is quickly turns into heavy guitar riffs and almost pig like squeals. The track is then met with powerful drums which offer up a nice little up beat groove. This song made me want to start a circle pit in the living room…which my cats were none to happy about and scattered underneath the nearest chair.

The fifteenth and final track on the album, “Intravenous Molestation Of Obstructionist After…” is a quick under one minute track.  Great for the ADD metal head. My personal favorite thing about this track is what seems to be a Spanish soap opera playing in the background. It adds a little something to the brutality that is this track and makes it that much cooler.

Bottom line, Hospital Carnage has earned it’s spot in my death/grind rotation. Guttural vocals, heart stopping blast beats and heavy guitars make this an album to check out. If you enjoy bands such as: Carcass, Cattle Decapitation, Anal Cunt or the likes of Bolt Thrower are sure to dig Haemorrhage’s Hospital Carnage.


--Cicatriz

Buy here: Hospital Carnage
Buy here mp3: Hospital Carnage

The Bros. Grindcore: Featuring Total Fucking Destruction, Rotten Sound, Cephalic Carnage & Phobia

Who's killing Comrade Music*? Which of his four sons?

And how do I, your utterly-reliable narrator, the Grand Inquisitor, I, Torquemada and his band, the Howlin' Inquisitors, fit into these proceedings?

"Grindcore" might be defined as... pretty much any other extreme genre, compressed to its maximum energy and its dominant characteristic: beit anger, aggression, anxiety, etc. (and usually in microsong form).

"Grindcore" (this is me saying this after nearly 4 hours listening to it), is almost so far beyond "music," as it's usually defined anyway, that it becomes sonic massage, like sound waves blasted at your sore bones and muscles. It's actually relaxing me a little, like one of those vibrating chairs.

Speaking Karamazovly (yay for new adverbs!), as the title suggested, Total Fucking Destruction (and their newest, Hater), would be closest here to being the sensualist oldest Karamazov brother, Dmitri: joking, multi-faceted, with the most ideas, but also maybe too jokey, and sometimes off-topic-- the coked up religious exhortations of a confined psychotic? [Note to self: why isn't Psychotic Mantra a band name?] The whole album is very cool, and articulate by grindcore standards, particularly "Human Is The Bastard." There's an obvious sense of humor usually absent from extreme music.

Ivan (or Vanya) then, the very serious, brooding, seething next-in-line brother, is black metal taken to an even more distant extreme, as Rotten Sound and their album Cursed have managed to do (I didn't actually think that could happen....)

[Sidenote: Jazz fans have been looking for the "next thing" for decades now and wondered why there's no new Coltrane or Miles Davis to innovate the genre: this is because Coltrane broke genres; the new innovator wouldn't be in jazz at all--  s/he'd show up in something like grindcore,or at the very least extreme music, just as bebop jazz was "extreme" 50 years ago; it makes you wonder what could possibly happen to music in the next 50 years to make grindcore seem tame. Actually, it makes one shudder....]

AND we're back. So-- brother Aleksey (Alyosha), the youngest, most earnest brother might equate to Cephalic Carnage, who, with their newest album Mislead by Certainty, are in their way progressive metal taken to its logical endpoint; there's a more obvious breadth of musicianship, there's more ideas than the previous bands, more color (like the cover, even) overall. They manage to play what can be readily classified as grindcore, and yet simultaneously ignore its conventions: they have, for instance, a 12-minute song ("Repangaea") that's almost ambient, and they also occasionally use alto saxophones, managing to sound in spots like a furious Glenn Frey. "Power and Force" hits back to traditional grindcore, and is as fast and rageful as anything else here. "A King and a Thief" goes all Watchtower on you for about a minute, lest you pigeonhole CC.

Who then, is Smerdyakov, the illegitimate son of music, the young psychopath, the killer of cats...? Who's left? Phobia. I'm thinking their album Unrelenting. Dark, like maxed out death metal (complete with heavily distorted bass guitar), Phobia are as black and white as their cover suggests: pure, punishing speed and rage, like Nails played even faster and more aggressively. Highlights-- "Killing Time," Strive Conception," "Life's Animosity," specifically the brief breakdown at 1:00, "Tradition of Power," and "Enemy Within"-- though if you like one, you'll like all.

James Joyce famously said, of Dostoyevski:  "Madness you may call it, but therein may be the secret of his genius... I prefer the word exaltation, exaltation which can merge into madness, perhaps. In fact, all great men have had that vein in them; it was the source of their greatness; the reasonable man achieves nothing."

Grindcore is distinctly mad.

Is it genius...?

Sometimes. For a minute.

But maybe that's enough.


--Horn

[As a sidenote on the whole "violent music leads to violence" issue: speaking for myself at least-- utter crap. You ever listen to four straight hours of goddamned grindcore? At the end I wanted to groove on Celine Dion and rub bunny's fur. True story.]

*Shut up. I'm not overreaching with this analogy. And I'm using this goddamned English degree somehow.

http://www.myspace.com/totalfuckingdestruction

http://www.myspace.com/rottensound

http://www.myspace.com/cephaliccarnage

http://www.myspace.com/phobiagrindcore