Insect Warfare

I know this one is going to be a stretch from the outset: defending one of grind's most reviled acts of the last decade. But I fucking love The Locust. The bug be-masked California spazzcore space aliens sounded like David Cronenberg directing a remake of Tetsuo the Ironman from a script by William Gibson that was edited in Edgar Wright's trademark staccato chop style.
What I find fascinating is that for as much shit as The Locust took, most of their tools were commonplace: marrying Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s penchant for deliberate provocation and awkward confrontation with Gasp’s chemical-colored, free-form psych-violence turbulence. Yes, they often get tagged as harbingers of the dreaded "white belt grin," but The Locust, clad in their sublimely absurd bug suits, had so much more going on than the multitude of spazzy also-rans ever conceived of.
My library of The Locust albums has a couple small holes, but here's an album by album discussion of why the band is worthy of your respect.

G&P Review: Nothing More to Eat

Nothing More to Eat
Nothing More to Eat
Bandcamp
Having not fully gorged themselves on the grind with Eat'n, Finnish gourmands Nothing More to Eat heap high their cafeteria tray with another heaping helping on their thrashtastic self-titled full length. For good measure, opener "Comfort Zone" melts an extra layer of Velveta goofery over the top for a gooey extra layer of the weird, kicking things off with crashing mariachi horns. Because why the fuck not?
While Nothing More to Eat still give a respectable showing in grindcore's eternal footrace, the soul of this album is bonded (by blood?) to  thrash. That was always lurking in the band's speedy picking style, but this shot Nothing More to Eat give their thrash impulse free rein to romp around and take a few headers off the stack of Marshalls. Loosening up gives songs about zombies, death in space and infernal seamen a swing that traditional grind just doesn't have. While the thrash is prominent, Nothing More to Eat aren't just raining blood. They've still got grind in their back pocket and they're not afraid to drop the Scandinavian-style crust on "Skate N' Die" or even whip out a skronk jazz sax solo on "There's No Glory in Space."
While every pimply teen who ever purchased a denim vest and some puffy white high tops at the local vintage store seems to have started a thrash band the past few years, Nothing More to Eat succeed in that realm because I don't think they set out to make a thrash record. Nothing about the album feels artificial or premeditated even if it won't be displacing Beneath the Remains on the best of thrash list just yet. It's just something that seems to flow out of their playing without a second thought. That's what makes it work.

[Full disclosure: the band sent me a download.]

G&P Review: Head Cleaner

Head Cleaner
Of Worms and Men
United Guttural
Thanks to the cratering Greek economy, grinders Head Cleaner must have been bedding down in a filthy squat in the years since last offering Resistance, Determination, and the Sheer Will to Overcome. Latest effort Of Worms and Men pretty much reeks of communal bottles of cheap wine and dreadlocked hair. The crust-to-grind ratio on Of Worms and Men plants Head Cleaner pretty squarely in Resistant Culture territory with occasional aspirational flashes of Rotten Sound during their stronger moments.
While the new found punk soul gives Head Cleaner some new found urgency for their didactic breed of agitprop (songs like “It’s Now Safe to Turn Off Your Mind” and “War is a Product of Imperialism”), Of Worms and Men is held back by an over-reliance on repetition and a lack of distinction between one crusty-grindy shoutalong song and the next. Eight of these 14 songs stretch well past the two minute mark and could have stood some pruning. For example, long stretches of second banger “One More Nail in the Coffin of Peace” largely consist of repeating “I have a war inside my head” over and over. The song loses some punch through sheer repetition and that early in an album it becomes worrisome.  The insistence on repetition also mars Head Cleaner’s attempts to step out of their grind box. “Nothing to Worry About” stumbles along on a fractured riff that could have been lifted from cyber-metallers Obliveon’s back catalog but endlessly shouting “no worry” hampers the song’s impact.
I thought Resistance, Determination, and the Sheer Will to Overcome showed promise until the atrocious final song went off the ambient rails and once again some judicious editing could elevate Of Worms and Men from a decent album to something much stronger.

[Full disclosure: the band sent me a download.]

G&P Review: Mesrine/Sposa in Alto Mare

Mesrine/Sposa in Alto Mare
Grinders
Grindfather Productions
This Grinders split couldn’t be more stark in contrasting opposites. In the first corner we have Canadian spree killer enthusiasts Mesrine, whose high protein diet of classic grind tropes gets repacked into seven songs of aggression and nothing but aggression. Then there’s the chaotic three ring circus being offered by Italians Sposa in Alto Mare, who Cirque du Soleil their way through every convolution of spastic grind, weird noise and cheeky mockery they can find without a hint of filtering or editing.
Like an ADHD toddler on a Pixie Stix binge, Sposa in Alto Mare pack the split’s second half with a lumpy amalgam of surf rock country shtick on “Una Corsa di un Cow-Boy” and King Diamond-esque wails ofn“Black Metal Latin Lover” and “Inno Dell’ Heavy Metal & Dell’ Hard Rock” and every musical oddity in between.  The only time they catch their breath and come back to earth is to rip through a cover of Agathocles’ “Kurose.”  It’s a Willy Wonka world where everything is painted in bright but contrasting colors with ideas being flung out at dizzying speed but with very little connective tissue, making Sposa in Alto Mare’s side a hallucinogenic endurance test. Whether it’s good, bad or indifferent as a listening experience will be a Rorschach test of your musical preferences.
Mesrine’s 90 second shards of shrapnel grind, with nods to modern greats like Insect Warfare and Nasum, comes off looking so much more potent by comparison simply by virtue of being directed. There’s a great snap to the snare drum that makes their side of the split pop as they gnaw through songs about apocalypse kook Harold Camping, the Grim Sleeper murders and the violent underbelly of so-called civilization. There’s nothing flashy to the way they stomp the accelerator and never let up for their whole side, but by contrast it’s a welcome break to the over-caffeinated exuberance of Sposa in Alto Mare.

[Full disclosure: Sposa in Alto Mare sent me a review copy.]

G&P Review: Detroit

Detroit
Reality Denied
Grindcore Karaoke
Splitting wax with Robocop is proving to have been an instructive, if not pivotal moment, for Alberta’s Detroit. Every release since has been an evolutionary leap as Detroit comes to better grips with their modern twist on grind and power violence. For their first long player, Reality Denied, the band tries their hand at closing with not just one but two different soundscapes, including the title track, that nod back to splitmates Robocop, even if neither really captures that same unsettling Cronenberg/Tsukamoto vibe that undergirds the Maine bastards' best work. Whether it’s the shrieking “Stand In” or the feedback frazzled windup of “Exhaustion,” the extra girth of a full length gives Detroit the space to play and as a result Reality Denied is probably the band’s most assured and confident release to date.
Wonderfully shitty coffee can snare beats rattle against vocals that nibble at the heels of J. Randall and J.R. Hayes. Driving it all, buried in the live in the room mix, is a slashing guitar that whips at the other participants like a dogsled driver bringing the lash. The whole thing rides that kamikaze line between collapsing under its own weight and punching through your wall to grab you by the throat. It’s a precarious position Detroit have staked out, but when they cut loose into the blasting end piece of “Alone” or the way the stumbling, staccato “Passion Devoid” slams into the grinding “Leviathan” synergy elevates their garage punk thrashings. Detroit have always impressed me, but like their namesake city’s finest muscle cars, the band has a found another gear and really revved themselves up for .
Reality Denied

G&P Review: Scum Guilt

Scum Guilt
Enslaved
Grindcore Karaoke/Mannequin Rein
Scum Guilt are exquisite technicians. I don’t mean they’ve spent long hours mastering obscure scales and modes in the name of pointless fretboard wankery. Rather, Scum Guilt show a flair for the very difficult art of composition. Over eight original songs (and a Napalm Death exclamation point), Enslaved takes unrelenting pounding and through sheer repetition and subtle mutation delivers a coherent musical experience that fully develops a single idea and shows it off in many different lights.
There’s nothing subtle about Enslaved: it aims to ram your head into the turnbuckle like you were some professional wrestling upstart taking a run at the title belt before you’ve really earned your shot. Scum Guilt show off the many moods of straight forward aggression, but from every angle their chunky grind hits like a battering ram. “Lung Ripper” takes things relatively slow, wearing you down with its implacable plod while “Gate Keeper” drills in like a diamond bit winding up to speed. The exemplary “Taxi Driver” takes what could have been a throwaway breakdown in any number of generic hardcore songs  and builds an architecture of complimentary moments around it until it’s a fully formed musical expression. But even amid the blunt force trauma, Scum Guilt have buried nuggets of careful composition. “No Trust” pulls a sneaky Discordance Axis trick of playing the blastbeats off of a slower tempo riff, creating dynamic tension in the song.
Scum Guilt can hold their own with the most aggression-focused of the their grindcore peers, but this band is already showing flashes of something more interesting going on behind their lashings. All of the elements are wonderfully familiar, but this is a band that knows how to keep the mix fresh. Of that, this scum is guilty as charged.

G&P Review: North Arlen Grind Society

North Arlen Grind Society
EP
Bandcamp
North Arlen Grind Society's incredibly rough demo-sounding  EP is probably cool enough to pass around to friends and maybe book them a weekend basement show over in neighboring McMaynerberry, but if this King of the Hill-themed grind duo is ever going to get the hell out of Heimlich county, they'll need to invest in a better recording session. A couple more months selling propane and propane accessories should put enough scratch in their pockets to show off their songs in their best light.
The duo's lowbrow homebrew recording has a trebly, frosty shriek about the swirling guitars and evil wizard howl that would probably bowl over the super trve black metal hordes, but this is billed as grind (sez so right in the name), so the distant drums and the lack of any low register oomph means North Arlen Grind Society just don't quite kick you in the nuts the way they should. There are the rudiments of some pretty good songs here if they weren't fighting the production. Somebody like thedowngoing could make magic with this kind of caterwauling, but a little more clarity would do Arlen Grind Society's songs a world of good. The keening middle section of "One Town Tour With Thunderhorse," smack dab in the middle of the EP, is a nice exclamation point, a searing breakdown that shows North Arlen Grind Society might have some range beyond factory ordered blastbeats and an anthill full of stinging riffs. Right now, they're not quite bringing the noise that will make Hank Hill kick your ass. What they need now is a production job to bring out the BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

[Full disclosure: the band sent me a download.]