Posts Tagged ‘Grindcore’

Grub Nap – God Pile

Posted: 17 March 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Human Worth – 17th March 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

God Pile is the debut release from Leeds duo Grub Nap, a duo consisting of Dan Barter (Dvne, Joe Pesci) on guitar and ‘back mouth’ and Steve Myles (Cattle, Groak, Thank, Khuda) on drums and ‘front mouth’. As if their joint pedigree isn’t recommendation enough (and having witnessed the majority of the aforementioned acts playing life for myself, I can vouch for that), it’s being released on Human Worth, and the limited run of fifty tapes has gone in advance of the release date.

And being Human Worth, 10% of all proceeds are being donated to charity, in this instance Leeds Mind, promoting positive mental health and wellbeing and providing help and support to those who need it most.

Now, I’ve mentioned this variously before, but for mental health and wellbeing, music can be – and certainly is for me – an immense help, and it’s the gnarlier, noiser stuff I often find provides the greatest comfort, especially in a live setting. It’s all about the escape, the release, the catharsis of raw emotions pitched against raging noise.

And Barter and Myles, who, according to the band bio ‘first played together in a hardcore band in their late teens and have teamed back up to churn out sludgecore for folks with short attention spans and no interest in wizards or flag waving’ definitely bring the noise, and the describe God Pile as ‘a golden brown, 15 minute, crumbly, introspective riff lattice. Snappy(ish) songs about greed, crippling anxiety, suburban nuclear mishaps and flagellant rozzers. 6 knuckle dragging clods of down tuned insolent rage.’

The longest of the six songs on here is three minutes and eighteen seconds long: the rest are all between a minute and two-and-a-half minutes long.

They pack a lot of action and a lot of noise into those short spans. The guitars are so thick and gritty the riffs churn your guts, so you don’t miss the bass, and Myles’ hard-hitting drumming is dynamic and varied, with shifts in both volume and tempo keeping the songs moving well, and the Raw-throated vocals are absolutely brutal. There’s a late 80s / early 90s feel to their brand of dingy noise, landing somewhere between early Head of David and Fudge Tunnel, then going full grind on the minute–long ‘The Daily Phet’.

Slowing to a downtuned crawl and ending with a howl of feedback, one suspect the title of the last track, ‘Crowd Pleaser’ is likely ironic – you can’t really have a go-nuts mosh to this. But then, after the intensity of the preceding cuts, you’re a knackered sweaty mess already – and that’s just sitting at home listening. Oh yes. Grub Nap hit the spot.

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A La Carte – Soup Dejour

Posted: 26 December 2022 in Albums
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25th November 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

If you’re after something subtle, melodic, and imbued with rich emotional depth, stop here. Because with song titles like ‘Aborted Eggs Benedict’, ‘Hymen Drizzled Hotcakes’, Rancid Risotto’, and ‘Fetal Fajitas’ the food-themed debut album from this ‘tech/brutal death’ act from Ohio is none of these things.

They’re keen to stress that while not entirely bereft of humour, they’re by no means a parody or novelty act, pointing out that the album ‘serves enough morbid and bizarre courses to fulfill the craving for extreme and wild. On top of that, the Northwestern Ohio group is serious about their music and does not deem their band as a fun or side project. To make their live shows more vivid, A La Carte members perform with the same characters displayed thematically and dress in maître d’ outfits’. Not that the lineup of Chef Cuck, Chef Highman, and The Maitre d’ remotely hints at anything even vaguely comedic.

The tile track, which lifts the lid on this crazy concoction of an album, is a whirl of psychedelic and theatrical flamenco-flavoured strangeness, before the heaving and churning begins with the sample-soaked intro to the technical thrash of ‘Aborted Eggs Benedict’, thrashing its way hard into a frenzy of guttural vocals and squealy notes emerging from the gnarly grind like flames spurting from a molten volcano. The lyrics are indecipherable, but thankfully, they’ve shared them, so it’s possible to grunt along with corking couplets like ‘When Boiling The Fetus Adjust The Oven Rack / With out Consent I Poach Your Tusks From A Elephant Add A Dash Of Vinegar Hatch A Meal So Sinister / Lower Fetus Boiling Immolate Carefully So It Dosent Seperate Make Sure You Only Cook A Little Skin Is Tough Gooey In The Middle / Breakfast Is Served All Atop A Carved Out Toasted Flaky Womans English Muffin’.

If only the instructions were so clear and straightforward for the majority of recipes I find online! And not that any of this translates in the listening, where the vocals mostly sound like phlegm-thick garglings of ‘Gurrrhgggghhhhh!’.

It would be ridiculous to criticise Soup Dejour for being puerile, and while it is largely cliché, it also shows some real creative flair. Not because it’s bombastic or theatrical, but because of how it pulls in a range or elements and presents some quite distinctive bass runs that aren’t genre-typical.

The twiddly guitar does get a bit much, and the crisp production only highlights the dominance of the fretwanking, and at times it works, and at others, it just feels excessive – and it’s by n o means the kind of excess that points towards the palace of wisdom, and, to turn to Blake’s proverb, ‘you never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough’.

Listening to Soup Dejour, I believe I may have made that vital discovery. That is, it’s solid and consistent as an album, the musicianship is absolutely faultless, but small servings are recommended.

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BELK – The Committee

Posted: 3 September 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Human Worth – 7th October 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Since the launch of the Human Worth label, initially as an outlet for releases by Modern Technology, we’ve witnessed the label grow – although never beyond its means and never beyond its principles. Each release sees a portion of the proceeds donated to a nominated charitable cause, and it’s so heartening to see a label and its artists use their platform for social good. With this latest release, a 7” EP from Leeds makers of noise BELK, 10% of all proceeds are being donated to Action Bladder Cancer UK, who work to support patients, raise awareness, improve early diagnosis and outcomes, and support research into bladder cancer.

But let’s never underestimate the social good of music with meaning – and by good, I mean sincere and visceral. Anyone who has ever stood in a room being bludgeoned by a full-blooded sonic attack will likely appreciate the incredible release of the experience, and the sense of community it entails. It’s not easy to articulate the way in which something that’s ultimately private, internal, is heightened by the presence of strangers immersed in that same experience, in their own personal way.

In congruence with the rise of Human Worth, we’re also seeing a satisfying upward arc for BELK, who unquestionably deserve the exposure and distribution, and one suspects that being limited to just 100 hand-numbered vinyl copies, the vinyl release of this is likely to be a future rarity.

This 7” EP packs five tracks into mere minutes. ‘Warm Water’, unveiled as a taster for advance orders on September’s Bandcamp Friday, is a minute and eighteen seconds long. It’s fast, and it’s furious – a focused channelling of fury, no less, distilled to 100% proof, and there’s no holding back on this attack.

There are a couple of additional demo tracks, in the form of ‘Net’ and ‘Question of Stress’ from their 2022 promo as downloads.

It’s all pretty raw, and ‘studio’ doesn’t mean much more polish than ‘demo’, and that’s exactly as it should be BELK trade in proper dirty noise, the likes of which Earache specialised in in the eighties and early 90s, before they went soft and became a rock and blues label, releasing stuff by the likes of Rival Sons. Human Worth have snatched the noise baton in a firm grip, though, and the quality of their releases extends to the artefact as well as the art.

‘Net’ is a stuttering slugfest reminiscent of Fudge Tunnel, only with harsher, higher-pitched squawkier vocals that are more conventionally hardcore, and it all stacks up for one killer release that delivers a ferocious slap round the chops.

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Bert’s Death / Grind Fest – The Fulford Arms, York, 26th June 2022

Posted: 29 June 2022 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

It may sound perverse, but I find metal gigs to be highly therapeutic. I suppose it’s the escapism – the release of fury from the stage working like some kind of Reiki, drawing the tension out and casting it into the air.

I didn’t really do much research beforehand – because sometimes, it’s nice just to rock up, see some bands, and drink some beer. Especially on a Sunday afternoon. It’s bloody boiling, which means I’m going to bee needing quite a bit of beer to keep hydrated, and I arrive just in time to get a pint in before the first act.

Grunk are pretty much classic grind, with two vocalists. They’re raw and ragged, with a lot of drum, but not a lot of guitar. They’ve plenty of grunt and humour, too. They’re not very good, but aren’t trying to be, quipping about the proper bands being on after, and they’re a fun opener, their set concluding with the rotund main shouter rolling around on the floor in front of the stage.

It wouldn’t be a proper dirty metal gig in / near Leeds without Steve Myles doing something, and here he’s Sulking, doing shouting instead of drumming for a change. Instrumentally, Sulk are another guitar and drum setup, but sound altogether more meaty, and consequently all the more grindy. Their tightly-structured songs pack all the heft, all the pace, and Myles pages the stage menacingly while delivering raw-throated rage. They’re absolutely brutal, and one of the best bands of the night.

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Sulk

It’s been a few years since I last caught Deathmace. They’re very much at the thrash end of the spectrum, with some frenzied guitar solos, and a sound filled out with a second guitar and bass, too. Too earnest to be truly menacing, the singer speaks normally between songs but growls the song titles when announcing them, and made me think of the recent movie, Metal Lords. They’re very obviously complete metal nerds (although the drummer is wearing a Yes T-shirt), singing about death, coffins, maggots and large fish, but can genuinely play, and being a local band with a strong following, go down a storm.

It’s truly oven-like in the venue by now, and everyone clears out to the beer garden, and consequently most of them miss the first half of Wolfbastard’s set, which is definitely their loss. The trio’s scratchy bass sound blends into the incendiary treble of the overloading guitar wall of noise. Bassist Si’s barking vocal contrasts with the guitarist Dez’s sandpapered screech, and it’s a stonking set off crusty black metal, which is exactly what I came for.

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Wolfbastard

Cryptic Shift are big hair and pointy guitars, and the first thought is ‘Megadeth’. It so happens that’s also my second thought, too. Granted, they’re a bit more death/black than that, but seem to take the remainder of their cues from Venom. They’re supremely technical and super-serious and megafast, but the bass sounds like arse and there’s so much endless harmonics and fretwanking it’s… well, of course it’s a matter of taste, but the singer plays every inch of the fretboard, and uses all 36 pedals, and it’s impressive and all, but it’s just not particularly fun. They drink a lot of water.

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Cryptic Shift

For Foetal Juice front man Dez, this is his second set of the night, and what a set it is. Foetal Juice are grind heavyweights in every way. Without the restriction of an instrument, Dez charges back and forth across the stage, fist pumping and finger pointed. There’s little commentary required: it’s death metal, played as it should be, and they sound exactly as the name suggests. They slam down the heavy noise relentlessly, and it’s a magnificently riffy, gnarly affair, and a mosh frenzy ensues. Fucking yes. This is what we came for.

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Foetal Juice

Melt-Banana / Cowtown / Mumbles – The Crescent, York, 14th April 2022

Posted: 15 April 2022 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

Lately, I’ve been contemplating the pros and cons of geography, particularly the fact that all the gigs seem to happen in London, and a lot of smaller London-based bands on a perpetual tour of the capital and rarely venturing far beyond. It’s hardly surprising, given so much recent coverage of the costs of going on tour – particularly with the added uncertainty of the ongoing matter of Covid. But then, here in the North, I can travel from York to Leeds in less time than it takes to cross a corner of London, and a pint is about half the price. And in a six-day span when Mclusky, Big | Brave and Melt-Banana all play Leeds or York, I feel pretty spoiled.

And so here we are at The Crescent, York’s answer to The Brudenell, which operates with similar principles of remaining true to its WMC origins with low-priced beer and a focus on decent sound. If you’ve ever wondered what a typical melt-Banana fan might look like, the answer is that there is no such thing. A mad genre-spanning noise band, it seems, appeals to anyone with an open mind and ears that are happy to take a battering, with punks, indie kids, goths, metallers and all sorts from ages twenty to sixty all gathered, and what a wonderfully pleasant, sociable lot they prove to be, and as so often proves to be the case, the more extreme the music, the more friendly the crowd.

Mumbles don’t really benefit from the sound with their primitive (post) punk. It’s played with frenetic energy and packs so many tempo changes they can barely keep up with themselves. It’s an eventful set, where the guitarist/singer’s austerity trousers aren’t the only things worthy of note: technical issues lead to an impromptu clarinet sol, and things get a bit jarring Avant jazz in places. I’m on the fence as to how well it actually works at times, but ultimately, they emerge triumphant. The guys are visibly nervous and some songs seem almost beyond their technical ability, although that’s not remotely a criticism: listen not live recordings of bands in the 70s and 80s, and this is what bands sounded like live. With more or less every band emerging super-tight and polished, it sometimes seems as if something has been lost, and Mumbles won themselves a fair few fans on this outing.

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Mumbles

It’s a welcome return to York for Cowtown and their breezy, caffeine-fuelled bouncy indie. The epic reverb on Jonathan Nash’s vocals adds a layer of depth to their up-front and punchy sound, and he too showcases some more dubious trouserage with plus fours and long socks. But, as always, they’re fun to watch, and the energy of their performance is infectious, getting the crowd warmed up nicely for the main event.

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Cowtown

And what an event it is.

Blam! Grraww! Whap! Pow! Yelp! I’ve absolutely no idea what the fuck is going on, and I’m not even convinced a detailed knowledge of their twenty years of output spanning eight albums would make any real difference. Fast and furious doesn’t come close: everything is a complete blur. The stage is piled high with amps and speaker cabs, so much so that despite it being a large stage, the pair have barely room to move. So much backline! So much volume! This is crazy! No bass, just squalling guitar racket propelled by programmed drums – that actually sound live – at 150mph.

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Melt-Banana

Only Japan could produce a band like Melt-Banana, who infuse high-octane whiplash-inducing grind with a manic pop edge, dirty great sawing guitars and sequencers controlled by some strange handheld device that looks like an 80s disco. For all the raging noise, the technical precision is astounding. Somewhere toward the end of the set, Yasuko Onuki announces ‘nine short songs’, and they’re played back-to-back are blistering grindcore abrasion and over in about three minutes. The mighty moshpit, which has been pretty intense throughout the set, simply explodes.

The atmosphere as the band leave the stage is electric. We’re all dazed, stunned, as if our brains have been used as punching balls for rapid punching exercises. It’s beyond rare for a set to blow away an entire packed venue – but then Melt-Banana aren’t rare, they’re truly unique. What an insane rush.

Petrol Hoers announces UK tour

Posted: 22 March 2022 in Previews and Editorial
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Digital Horsecore pioneer Petrol Hoers is kicking off this year’s gig schedule with a UK tour in April, alongside techno punks Petrol Bastard and antisocial rock three-piece The Ducks.

Starting in Blackpool on April 7th, the tour will run for 11 days, finishing with an early evening show in Brighton on April 17th.

Part man, part horse, part hallucinatory nightmare; Petrol Hoers is galloping out of the strangest corner of the Yorkshire music scene with a unique blend of hardcore punk, hard drum+bass and surreal comedy.

The equine entertainer has built a cult following through his online antics and energetic live shows which has led to national radio airplay, festival appearances and being described by music industry legend and BBC Radio 6 presenter Tom Robinson as “…one of the oddest and most original artists it’s ever been my pleasure to come across in the last 15 years of BBC Introducing.”

The most recent Petrol Hoers album Oh I Don’t Know, Just Horse Stuff, I Guess is available to listen and download via Bandcamp. 

You can catch Petrol Hoers at the following dates:

Thursday, April 7, 2022 – Scream & Shake, Blackpool

Friday, April 8, 2022 – Outpost, Liverpool

Saturday, April 9, 2022 – Aatma, Manchester

Sunday, April 10, 2022 – Santiago’s, Leeds

Monday, April 11, 2022 – Network, Sheffield

Tuesday, April 12, 2022 – The Chameleon, Nottingham

Wednesday, April 13, 2022 – Heartbreakers, Southampton

Thursday, April 14, 2022 – The Tin, Coventry

Friday, April 15, 2022 – The Lab, Northampton

Saturday, April 16, 2022 – Poco Loco, Chatham

Sunday, April 17, 2022 – Hope and Ruin, Brighton

Ticket and social links can be found at https://linktr.ee/Petrolhoers

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Skat Injector – Bled Under A Burning Sky

Posted: 17 December 2021 in Albums
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1st December 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Do you ever feel that the problems facing humanity right now are of our own making? That the phrase ‘scum of the earth’ applies to humanity as a whole, because we as a species have simply fucked everything up beyond all repair? Because the simple fact is, we have. What other creature destroy its own habitat as well as those of nearly all others? Parasites seek to achieve symbiosis with their host; viruses mutate to become more transmissible but less fatal; the aim is not to kill its host but to thrive and expand. Mankind is worse than parasitic, the most brutal virus that evolves slowly and in ways which are counterintuitive, namely to exhaust its host. Where do we actually go from here? The prospect of inhabiting Mars with colonies because we’ve fucked up the world we were born to seems beyond insane.

The shock-factor-monikered Skat Injector are – as you’d likely expect – upfront in their positioning, pitched as serving up ‘Grindcore-inspired speedcore and a diatribe of anti-human propaganda because that’s what we deserve for what we’ve become.’ They have a deep sense of self-loathing and misanthropy, and it’s abundantly cleat on this dehumanised, inhuman blasting racket that’s dark, deep, glitchy, subterranean, demonic, wrecked on every level.

They rail against ‘Willful [sic] ignorance, habitat loss, animal abuse, global ecocide, global warming, environmental pollution, overpopulation and many other attributes of a leeching narcissistic race which needs to live within its bounds’. They shouldn’t have to; this is how life should work.

On Bled Under A Burning Sky, Skat Injector pound and rage and rage and pound, as grating, raw-threated vocals spit, snarl, and grind against a backdrop of frenzies percussion. The lyrics aren’t always – or often – decipherable, but the sentiment is clear.

‘All Tomorrow’s Genocides’ is like a grindcore Prurient, with soft, spindly synths slowly spinning misty swirls of fear chords around pulverizing drill-like beats. Explosive doesn’t come close to a fitting description.

‘An Earth Cleansed with Flame’ goes full harsh electro and is straight up Chis and Cosey trance backing, at least at first, manifesting as aggressive dance with harsh vocals, while the six-minute ‘The Future Sound of Suffering’ brings the suffering and it’s painful in its crunching brutality. ‘Vanishes Rapidly’ is constructed around explosive dynamics, and flips from near ambience to the firing of an AK-47 directly into the ear. It’s brutal and it’s savage, but also very much the ultimate expression of the industrial era, and ‘Obsidian Dawn’ only amplifies and intensifies. It fucking hurts.

The album is dominated by beats so hard and fast they sound like drills and nail guns, this is industrial and its hardest and most industrial, the sonic equivalent of applying a power drill on hammer setting to the eyeball.

At almost fifty-two minutes, it packs a lot of firepower, a lot of punch – so much so that it leases you panting and pounded – in a good way, of course, assuming you have at least a faintly masochistic streak and appreciate music that’s as much about testing your endurance as it is coaxing and massaging the pleasure zones with a battering ram and a taser simultaneously.

The second CD – another fifty-three minutes – of instrumental and extended versions of the album’s tracks is certainly not one for the passing listener or casual fan, and it’s perhaps not essential even for moderate fans, although the nine-minute extended version of the title track is certainly a nice pain-inflicting bonus.

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Watch: ‘Mass Mental Devolution’ by Desalmado

Posted: 9 November 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Brazilian grindcore masters Desalmado have just revealed a music video for the title track of their new album Mass Mental Devolution, which was released on October 8th via  Gruesome Records in cooperation with  Xaninho Discos, Sana Maior Records and Shinigami Records.

Watch the video here:

Watch: ‘Across The Land’ by Desalmado

Posted: 2 September 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Following five albums and numerous tours, Brazilian grindcore masters Desalmado are back with a new effort titled Mass Mental Devolution, due out on October 8th via  Gruesome Records in cooperation with  Xaninho Discos, Sana Maior Records and Shinigami Records.
Today, the Brazilian unleashed a music video for a brand new track titled ‘Across The Land’. With cinematography and 3D art by Walter de Andrade, this new video is now playing here:

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Desalmado once again remains true to their grindcore origins, not only for its aggressive and utterly destructive sounding music, but also for its musical and insurgent attitude, exposing the guts of a perverse and alienated world subservient to a system manipulated by the dominant classes and Mass Mental Devolution is no different.

Produced by Hugo Silva and Desalmado, recorded by Hugo Silva at Family Mob (São Paulo, Brasil) with the assistance of Otavio Rossato, Mass Mental Devolution really captures the intensity of the band’s live shows, a fierce and crushing grindcore sound that will make fans of Napalm Death and Brutal Truth more than happy.

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Listen: ‘Without Let or Hindrance’ by Grand Collapse

Posted: 1 August 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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A few weeks after announcing their third album Empty Plinths and sharing a first preview with the single ‘Panic Room’, Grand Collapse are back with a new sensational single, called ‘Without Let or Hindrance’.

Hear it here:

Cal, singer in the band, explains:

“On the inside of a British passport it reads: “Her Britannic Majesty’s sectary of state requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.”

For a Country that is so actively hostile to anyone coming here, including refugees, I find this statement astounding.

British identity, which is steeped in Empire, is a pathetic shell of itself and watching these tossers hold on desperately to the tyranny of the past is cringe worthy.

This is a thrash monster, pure and simple. Full mosh mode!”

The song shows the thrash-core influences this new record has, among the many other references that should make fans of bands such as Propagandhi, Conflict and Bane very happy.

Empty Plinths, the band’s third full length album is coming out on August 6th via Epidemic Records, TNS Records, Don’t Trust The Hype Records, Mass Prod., Urinal Vinyl.

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